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ALPENA, Mich. – From Aug. 5 - 18, 2018, more than 6,000 military personnel converged in Northern Michigan at operating areas including Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center, and other training locations in Rogers City and across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
This annual exercise, known as Northern Strike, is an impressive, joint fires orchestration of readiness drills – including live and synthetic close air support, indirect fire support, Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance, infantry, and special operations. This year, over twenty states and nine coalition partner countries were represented at the exercise.
Held each August since 2012, Northern Strike began as a training opportunity for Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) – personnel who direct the action of combat aircraft engaged in close air support and other offensive air operations from a forward position. From its humble beginnings, Northern Strike has morphed by degrees into a dynamic, multi-faceted readiness event – the largest military exercise of its kind in the U.S.
Imagine, then, the amount of planning and preparation a sprawling enterprise like Northern Strike requires.
For the air component of Northern Strike, this planning responsibility rests on the shoulders of a small cadre of specialists at Alpena CRTC: Lt. Col. Matthew Trumble, Master Sgt. Jason Kinney, Tech. Sgt. Rick Boyer, Tech. Sgt. Ryan Mueller, Tech. Sgt. Charles Fox, and Tech Sgt. Kristi York.
“Any major life event, like graduations, weddings, or retirements, involves planning,” said Col. John Miner, Alpena CRTC commander. “The common denominator is a significant investment of time and effort on the part of a small group of people dedicated to its success.”
The difference is that while these major personal events happen once, maybe twice in a lifetime, planning for an annual event like Northern Strike is almost constant.
“Preparation for Northern Strike starts anywhere from eighteen to fourteen months out, depending on the package,” said Trumble. “It’s nearly a continuous cycle, so we’re already planning for Northern Strike 19.”
The process is marked throughout the year with a series of conferences, from a concept development meeting to a final planning conference. Units often commit to the exercise more than twelve months in advance, which allows time to form tailored working groups to address the needs of participating organizations.
“There are numerous smaller elements in between, such as the development of a master scenario events list, so that we know what we’re going to do when, who’s responsible for what, and who’s going to facilitate the training,” said Trumble. “That culminates with the actual execution period, and even that requires some lead-in events to prepare the communications, stage all the logistics, and get everyone here before we can begin the exercise.”
With four or five major planning conferences held across the country, generally lasting 3-5 days each, training objectives are synchronized and scheduled to maximize the two-week exercise. This year, with 43 units participating, that coordination was predictably extensive.
“We’ve been able to refine how those conferences go, streamline them, and we’ve gotten better at getting the right information to the right people,” said Kinney. “Typically, there are moving parts with the Army and Marine Corps, and we spend the first two conferences with them, figuring out the logistics pieces: troops, vehicles, beans, bullets – and of course, how we’re going to get it all there.”
What draws units to Northern Strike is the pristine training environment in Northern Michigan that includes over 147,000 state-owned acers at Camp Grayling, not to mention Alpena’s restricted military airspace, the largest of its kind east of the Mississippi River. Though Northern Strike is not a unique exercise in its general concept, the conditions and facilities offered in northern Michigan make Northern Strike an ideal venue to practice the art of joint fires integration.
“Alpena and Camp Grayling are really good locations because the joint training centers are located in close proximity to each other,” said Trumble. “They have air, land, and maritime training ranges – and they are under the unified command of the Michigan National Guard Adjutant General, so the training facilities are able to integrate very well.”
Partnership building has become another of Northern Strike’s most recognizable hallmarks. In 2018, service members from Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Jordan, Poland, and the U.K. are all participating in the exercise alongside U.S. counterparts. Creating partnerships like these between multinational entities promotes global security as troops share cultural information and strategic best practices within specific areas of expertise.
Miner points out that integrating operations and training of the Michigan National Guard with other states, countries, and services maximizes combat capability, creating the strongest force possible to protect and defend – at home and abroad.
“People and partnerships are the heart of a strong combat and defense capability and exercise Northern Strike illustrates this very well,” said Miner. “Training together also builds trust and confidence which translates into safer, more efficient, more successful missions.”
In terms of bilateral cooperation, the Michigan National Guard has an especially close link with the National Armed Forces of Latvia. In 2018, Michigan and Latvia are celebrating their twenty-fifth year of collaboration under the U.S. National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program (SPP), which links National Guard forces of U.S. states with the armed services of a partner country in a cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship.
This year, Latvia’s Chief of Defense, Lt. Gen. Leonīds Kalniņš, visited Northern Strike to meet Latvian troops participating in the exercise and to observe the action firsthand.
“If you only train in areas you’re familiar with, you will never achieve the level of training possible when you train with friends and allies,” said Kalniņš. “The results of training at events like Northern Strike are very highly valued for us.”
Since 2009, Michigan has also been a state partner to the Republic of Liberia, also represented at Northern Strike by its Chief of Defense, Maj. Gen. Prince C. Johnson.
Although such diverse participation affords myriad opportunities to train in a very unique environment, it still falls upon exercise planners to recruit visiting units to participate each year.
Kinney says that while he will have a good idea of which units will be partaking in Northern Strike 19 by the end of this year’s installment, there are sometimes gaps in coverage for specific portions of the exercise plan. In these cases, he researches units with a specialty that would add value to planned training scenarios, then reaches out to make the pitch.
“It comes down to a lot of cold-calling and a lot of Google searches to find the units and their contact information,” said Kinney. “Right now, I’m looking for another fighter squadron for next year.”
Largely due to the efforts of Trumble, Kinney, and others who make up the Northern Strike planning cell, the exercise received accreditation in 2017 from the Joint National Training Capability (JNTC). JNTC adds context to existing Army and Combatant Commander readiness programs that can provide training to the full complement of defense, interagency, and multinational audiences. Since then, there has been a surge of interest in Northern Strike across the Department of Defense, but Kinney says there are still new ways the exercise can be expanded in 2019 and beyond.
“I want to get the aircrews just as excited about Northern Strike as the JTACs and the best way to do that is to give them multiple mission sets, just like they’d do in combat,” said Kinney. “We’re trying some of that stuff this year.”
An example is how F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 112th Fighter Squadron, 180th Fighter Wing, Ohio Air National Guard, have integrated into operations during Northern Strike 18. Launching from their home station in Toledo, a six-aircraft formation broke into a two-ship “friendly” element, and a four-ship “opposition force.” In mock air-to-air battles, the “friendly” element had to fight their way to exercise targets in the north, eventually providing simulated close air support to joint forces on the ground.
“We want to do more to meet the aircrews and JTACs in the middle,” said Kinney. “We want to keep giving the JTACs what they need to train, but also working in important training scenarios for the aircrews.”
By all accounts, Northern Strike 18 will be remembered for having the biggest and most complex air component seen to date at the exercise.
We’re learning a lot more about how the joint world works together,” said Kinney. “We’ve got Army, Marines, Air Force, and Navy, so trying to mesh those things together and get everyone to work together, looking at joint doctrine, is amazing.”
Despite the success of Northern Strike 18, there is simply no time to rest before preparations for next year’s exercise begin. If next year keeps with the trend, Northern Strike 19 will be even bigger, more diverse, and more integrated than ever.
Regardless of what the future of the exercise might hold, there will always be a need for the kind of realistically-crafted, joint training experiences Northern Strike affords.
“Only two things improve readiness: warfighting training exercises and warfighting itself,” said Miner. “We've created something that brings the realism and challenges of interoperability to Northern Michigan, which each year, in turn, brings increased readiness, better integration, and a more lethal force that’s ready to answer the call.”
| Date Taken: | 08.14.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 08.15.2018 11:45 |
| Story ID: | 288811 |
| Location: | ALPENA, MICHIGAN, US |
| Web Views: | 230 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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