Photo By Maj. William Smith | BG Will Beaurpere (SMDC DCGO) visits the 100th Missile Defense Brigade's Missile...... read more read more
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The 100th Missile Defense Brigade maximized its participation in joint training exercise Resilient Shield to assess its staff readiness in addition to testing the missile defense element’s 24/7/365 readiness.
Col. Michael Hatfield, 100th Missile Defense Brigade commander, said that he integrated a staff element into the exercise to train those Soldiers not involved in the primary missile defense mission of the brigade.
“For Resilient Shield 22, we leveraged a parallel exercise where we're supporting Pacific fleet during their certification, but at the same time, the 100th brigade, the 49th battalion, and all our subordinate elements across echelon received an external evaluation from Space and Missile Defense Command G37, where they evaluated our mission essential task,” said Hatfield.
Each staff section is responsible for various day-to-day operations. While the missile defense side of the training tests the service members’ ability to communicate and properly operate the systems, staff sections must be able to react to emergencies within their area of operations.
Those within the brigade involved with the training scenario, or trusted agents, coordinated with the SMDC G37 exercise branch to develop staff-focused scenarios throughout the Resilient Shield exercise. These scenarios allowed each section to test their capabilities and identify weak points in their procedures.
“During the exercise, a notional military police guarding the missile defense complex at Fort Greely crashed their vehicle into the perimeter fence. Subsequently, multiple staff sections were tasked to process this event because it related to the physical security of the MDC, an injury to a Soldier, and generated multiple reports that the operations center needed to distribute to high headquarters,” said 1st Lt. Jeremy Getz, 100th MDB training exercise officer in charge and exercise trusted agent.
The 100th MBD established the brigade operations center in Colorado Springs while the 49th Missile Defense Battalion established a tactical operations center at Fort Greely, Alaska. The 49th MDBN executed their own external evaluation nested under the brigade evaluation with multi-echelon communication and information flow.
“We wanted to maximize the resources as we were already invested in supporting the exercise,” said Hatfield. “So as our warfighters are already in this mission, and they're already supporting this complex environment, we resource the evaluators to look at the brigade across echelon, and evaluate our critical tasks.”
During the week of Feb. 20, nine of the 10 operational ground-based midcourse defense crews conducted homeland defense in support of the Joint Warfighter Training Exercise.
The brigade was graded on a TPU - or trained, needs practice, unsatisfactory - scale. Overall, the brigade received a T score.
“I want to say thank you to the Soldiers, civilians and family members of the 100th Missile Defense Brigade who support our 24/7/365 operational mission. It's these Soldiers who demonstrate daily not only their readiness, but their ability to support our sister services in sustaining readiness across all of our formations,” said Hatfield. “I also want to thank the SMDC G37 for a tough and fair assessment.”
| Date Taken: | 04.04.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 04.04.2022 11:55 |
| Story ID: | 417777 |
| Location: | COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO, US |
| Web Views: | 101 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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