Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Scott Evans | FORT RILEY, Kan. - Command Sgt. Maj. Joshua Morgan, the senior enlisted advisor of 2nd...... read more read more
FORT RILEY, Kan. – Through July into August, Observer/Coach Trainers primarily of 2nd Battalion, 358th Armor Regiment ‘Grizzly’, 189th Infantry Brigade, First Army Division West and 297th Regional Support Group, Alaska Army National Guard have been engaged in a Mobilization Exercise (MOBEX) Level II in support of ‘Viper’ Soldiers of 268th Inland Cargo Transfer Company, 346th Transportation Battalion, 166th Regional Support Group, a U.S. Army Reserve unit stationed in Puerto Rico as part of Pershing Strike ’23 at Fort Riley, Kansas.
As an Inactive Mobilization Force Generation Installation, Fort Riley is one of several U.S. Army bases that have been designated by the United States Army as a center for Large-Scale Mobilization Operations in the event of future armed conflict.
“Pershing Strike 23 is the overarching exercise that is designed to stress the Army enterprise as a whole with the validation of MFGI across the theater as we practice and prepare for the potential of Large-Scale Mobilization Operations (LSMO),” said Capt. Brayden Kubly, mobilization and partnership officer-in-charge, 189th Inf. Bde. “The MOBEX is a way to validate Fort Riley, Kansas as an MFGI in the event of LSMO. Fort Riley, specifically, is an inactive MFGI, which is why we inherit the MOBEX IIs and IIIs where we’re prepping for this location for the base to be activated and how we would go about validating and pushing those partners into theater.”
The mission of 297th RSG has been critical in ensuring personnel and services receive the attention required to meet mission requirements effectively.
“Our role during this exercise is to provide oversight and guidance to our participating Reserve and National Guard support forces such as the 849th Quartermaster Company to ensure that any sustainment and support needs from the mobilizing units are met,” Capt. Drew Allison, a logistics officer-in-charge assigned to 297th RSG said. “We coordinate closely with the ‘Grizzly Battalion’ to ensure any identified barriers to their training objectives are quickly identified and remedied so that the mobilizing units can meet their target timelines in the mobilization process.”
Historically, U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard Soldiers participating in Pershing Strike exercises have gone through a thorough deployment procedure to better ensure readiness.
“For the 268th ICTC, we are running them through the full Soldier Readiness Processing [procedure], which includes medical, dental, admin-related functions to make sure they are prepped and ready to deploy as part of any post mobilization,” Kubly said. “We certify their ability and their qualification on their individual and crew-served weapons, and we also conduct convoy live fire exercises as part of their Mission Essential Task List (METL), and then we conduct a culminating training exercise, which serves as their final field training exercise where we essentially evaluate them on all their METL tasks simultaneously to ensure they are ready for deployment.”
The exercise was challenging for the training audience and tested the systems of the personnel supporting them.
“At 100-degree weather, Fort Riley has provided an excellent platform to exercise our headquarters role in large scale mobilization operations through practice and application in a climate we are not used to,” Allison said. “Alaskan Soldiers pride themselves in being masters of the arctic domain, so having the opportunity to come down here and practice in an austere environment has been a great training opportunity for us to identify the unique environmental challenges that affect logistical needs in real time.”
Mission planners have been impressed with the commitment shown by their Puerto Rican Reserve unit counterparts leading up to and throughout the course of the exercise.
“They’re a fantastic unit; they came in ready to go,” Kubly said. “They jumped at the opportunity to do extra training on top of what they were already prepared for and were very qualified. We offered them the opportunity to qualify eight additional crews on top of the 16 that were already qualified on gunnery. They are doing heavy amounts of cross-training on their training equipment set vehicles, such as their Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck load handling system, their 10k forklifts, etc.”
Pershing Strike has been a solid learning experience for all involved.
“This event has been an excellent platform to test our own internal tactical procedures through real world training and application for a notional large-scale operation,” Allison said. “The requirements and time spent in development, identifying potential shortfalls, constraints, and barriers towards sustainment leads to long discussions and long hours working closely with our partners and our sections, which naturally develops our relationships with each other.”
Positive sentiments have also been expressed with the professionalism shown by the Fort Riley garrison staff and 1st Infantry Division throughout this year’s iteration of Pershing Strike.
“Fort Riley has been great,” Kubly said. “They have really jumped through a billion hoops to make sure this training event is successful.”
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| Date Taken: | 08.02.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 08.02.2023 18:05 |
| Story ID: | 450559 |
| Location: | FORT RILEY, KANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 148 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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