Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Deziree Lau | The U.S. Army Reserve’s 655th Regional Support Group is conducting a Mobilization...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE MCGURIE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. – The U.S. Army Reserve’s 655th Regional Support Group is conducting a Mobilization Exercise here to test the base’s viability as a Mobilization Force Generation Installation.
“The MOBEX is an opportunity to exercise the installation’s capability to do large-scale mobilization operations,” explained Col. Vivek Kshetrapal, 655th RSG commander. “What the MOBEX lets us do is bring together enterprise partners – Army Support Activity-Fort Dix, First Army, the Logistics Readiness Center – to stress the capabilities of the installation to try to find gaps and then to figure out how we’re going to remediate those gaps.”
MFGIs provide deployment preparation in support of Combatant Command requirements, as well as pre- and post-mobilization training support. If the MFGI were activated on JBMDL, the RSG along with other support and sustainment units, known collectively as the Mobilization Support Force, would be mobilized here to facilitate the mobilization process for activated Army Reserve and National Guard personnel.
“Mobilized National Guard and Army Reserve forces would come through here, and we would run them through basic financial, personnel and legal processing to make sure they’re ready when they move forward,” said Brig. Gen. Beth Salisbury, deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Reserve’s 99th Readiness Division. “We also make sure they’re medically ready and provide them whatever immunizations or medical care they might need prior to going to a location either here in the United States or overseas.”
The MOBEX not only tests the installation’s mobilization capacity, but also allows the Mobilization Support Force units to ensure they are ready to take on the mission of mobilizing large numbers of Soldiers.
“As part of this exercise, we bring together Reserve units from all over the country that equate to the MSF forces,” Kshetrapal said. “We have all sorts of different units including a combat sustainment support battalion, ammo units, medical units that do the Soldier Readiness Processing piece, personnel units, and military police that augment the law enforcement here on post. All of us come together and work together as a team, as an enterprise.”
In addition to medical and administrative readiness, the MOBEX also focuses on the training the MFGI would provide to mobilizing Soldiers.
“Once they go through the process, we make sure they have all the right equipment they need for their own protection and safety, and then we also get them training on our training spaces here on the Joint Base,” explained Salisbury, who would become the Deputy Commanding General-Mobilization attached to First Army if the MFGI went live.
“They may qualify on their weapons, do live-fire exercises; they get certain training based on the type of unit that they are,” she continued. “We have a mobilization plan for them as they come through this mobilization location to ensure they meet training requirements for whatever location to which they’re going. Once they do that, we validate them here at this location and they get sent to wherever they’re needed.”
The MFGI concept is another way in which the Army Reserve is remaining ready today while shaping tomorrow.
“We’re focusing on the proficiency assessment of how Soldiers are training here while conducting MOBEX,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Rafael Saldana, 655th RSG command sergeant major. “Taking care of Soldiers and their families is priority number one, and how do we get after that as a team, and how do we integrate together as a family; the way we conduct business here at MOBEX is the way we’re going to react in combat.”
“Where we are now with our near-peer adversaries, we must think about having to fight in large-scale combat operations,” Kshetrapal said. “We need to be able to mobilize the Army Reserve and National Guard in a timely manner to be able to deploy.”
| Date Taken: | 02.10.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 02.10.2023 15:08 |
| Story ID: | 438300 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, NEW JERSEY, US |
| Web Views: | 749 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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