Photo By Philip Steiner | Paratroopers with 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade jmeet...... read more read more
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Toncas, Portugal – Paratroopers with 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade participated in a two-week international training event known as Exercise Real Thaw in Portugal, from 1 to 17 March, 2017.
Exercise Real Thaw is a Portuguese-led large joint and combined force exercise, designed to develop and foster international cooperation in air and land tactical training.
“We came here to do an airborne operation with our Portuguese allies. Then we moved to conducting live-fire team movements, incorporating mortars and anti-tank weapons,” said Capt. Craig Barnhill, commander of C Troop, 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. “We will finish off with a situational training exercise in conjunction with company of Portuguese paratroopers.”
Throughout each section of the exercise, cooperation and cross-training between the Paratroopers of 1-91 and the Portuguese 1st Paratrooper Battalion demonstrated the continuing training contributions to develop and improve air and combat action readiness between NATO Allies.
“There are a lot of missions accomplished here- big and small picture- for us, the live fires help train our lethality, while through our small unit movement skills and our weapon proficiency, we strengthen our ability to ability to move quickly and accurately,” said Barnhill. “Stepping back, [we are] working with the Portuguese counterparts to build cohesion and relationship with our NATO Allies.”
From airborne operations to fire-support, the direct coordination and ability to build partnership capacity for real world-missions is a universal theme throughout Real Thaw.
“We are doing a combined indirect fire support plan. Our primary mission is to work in conjunction with other NATO forces,” said Staff Sgt. Benjamin Richardson, mortars section, A Troop, 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. “For example, we were doing coordinated illumination for the Portuguese [forward] observers while they conducted fire missions with 155mm Howitzers.”
Throughout Exercise Real Thaw, the U.S. Paratroopers had the opportunity to observe and learn more about the techniques used by the Portuguese 1st Airborne Battalion.
“It is always good to see to see how someone else does it; they have a certain level of finesse to their job that I can see and want to learn from that,” said Sgt. William Smith, C Troop, 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. “The younger guys can see this too and it gives them something to shoot for- to become more proficient in their job as well.”
Exercise Real Thaw provided an opportunity for the paratroopers to get out to the field to test the skills they covered in a static learning environment.
“Anytime you can get a live-fire experience it is invaluable- you can do all the classroom time you want but there is no replacement for down-range feedback,” said Richardson.
Throughout the missions, the live fires, the late nights and hard days, some similarities shine through both nations according to Smith.
“They have a large amount of pride in their country and that is something we share– pride in what we do and where we come from,” said Smith.
The 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vicenza, Italy, is the U.S. Army Contingency Response Force in Europe, capable of projecting forces to conduct the full range of military operations across the United States European, Central and Africa Commands areas of responsibility.
| Date Taken: | 03.17.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 03.22.2017 09:32 |
| Story ID: | 227701 |
| Location: | PT |
| Web Views: | 188 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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