Courtesy Photo | Tech. Sgt. Sarah Adams, an operations specialist with the Kelly Johnson Joint...... read more read more
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There are three words that can best be used to describe Exercise Northern Strike 2023. They are, in order: innovation, innovation and innovation.
The Michigan National Guard, which coordinates the annual large-scale joint forces exercise, used the annual summer training event to spotlight several innovation programs that are taking place around the base. So sprinkled in as Soldiers were practicing standard airborne operations and Marines were flying attack helicopters, other troops were engaged in a cyber warfare training range while others were using unmanned aerial systems to speed medical supplies to simulated injured troops in the field.
“We are bringing all of the amazing things that are happening in the technology world right here to Michigan where we can put them into a system and see what works in a military scenario,” said Major Gen. Bryan Teff, commander of the Michigan Air National Guard said during a briefing to Ravi Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations and environment during the exercise.
The annual exercise is the Dept. of Defense’s largest joint reserve component readiness training event. The 2023 version brought together about 7,000 U.S. military personnel from more than two dozen states, as well as about 650 military personnel from five international partners. Among the largest international presence was from the Latvian Armed Forces, including airfield management, fire department, Joint Terminal Attack Controllers and medical personnel. The Latvian Armed Forces and the Michigan National Guard routinely train together as partners through the State Partnership for Peace program. During the exercise, leaders from Michigan and Latvia celebrated the 30th anniversary of that relationship.
Much of the innovation at the exercise focused on new technologies to support military medical operations. Among the demonstrations were the Rapid Operational Deployable Global Emergency Response Systems, a virtual reality headset that a medic in the field could wear and be able to broadcast images back to a doctor in a remote location for guidance. Another system utilized an unmanned aerial system that could be used by medics to deliver emergency medical supplies out into the field. Medics also utilized a medical training system called the Tactical Operational Mannequin, or TOMKIN, which provided realistic scenarios to which medics were required to respond.
“All of these technologies are tools that our medics can use to either advance their training or to speed delivery of medical services in a crisis situation where minutes matter,” said Major Pat Frank, a member of the 127th Medical Group, based at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan, who was coordinating medical training during the exercise.
Elsewhere at the Alpena CRTC, Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controllers and others trained on the base’s new Tactical Cyber Range, a training lane created at the existing Military Operations in Urban Training site at the base. There, military personnel engage in a mission in a small city setting where the buildings are wired with a variety of sensors. The Airmen and Soldiers at the cyber range had to learn how those sensors – everything from motion detectors to facial recognition technology – could impede their mission and then learn how to defeat that threat.
“It’s a real threat that exists in the cyber domain. That’s not something our operators have had to think about in the past, but it is a very real challenge for today. I want our people to be exposed to it here in a training environment, before being compromised in the real world where bad things can happen,” said Master Sgt. Rick Boyer, an Alpena-based JTAC who helps run the cyber range.
There are two annual iterations of Northern Strike, one each in the summer and winter months, providing different training opportunity and challenges to the 80-plus units that participate. The events are centered in the northern Michigan-based National All Domain Warfighter Center, which comprises the Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center as well as the Alpena CRTC. The NADWC features the both largest military land training location as well as the largest air training space, much of it over Lake Huron, east of the Mississippi River in the United States.
| Date Taken: | 08.13.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 08.18.2023 11:48 |
| Story ID: | 451280 |
| Location: | ALPENA, MICHIGAN, US |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Innovation In Focus at Northern Strike 2023, by SMSgt Daniel Heaton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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