Photo By Staff Sgt. Adawn Kelsey | Cpl. Dave Bergeron and Pvt. Danny Gagne, members of the Canadian army, test the...... read more read more
GRAFENWOEHR, Germany - Canadian participants test their Multilateral Interoperability Program Sept. 19 during Combined Endeavor 2011, along with other communication systems with more than 35 other participating nations in Grafenwoehr, Germany.
Combined Endeavor is a mass communication exercise with participants from different NATO and Partner for Peace countries. The exercise provides an opportunity for all the nations to come together to work on interoperability in a deployed environment, while building international relationships.
Capt. Marc-Andre Lasalad, Canadian deputy delegation chief, said his 12-man team is testing systems and he is in charge of making sure the proper procedures are followed to successfully implement the tests being conducted.
“There are several systems we have to test with other nations,” he said. “We have email, chat and the Multilateral Interoperability Program. Our overall goal is to verify that we can communicate with other nations successfully and so far it has been successful during the exercise.”
MIP testing is a command and control focused system that delivers an assured capability for interoperability of information to support multinational, combined and joint operations.
Combined Endeavor is settled in a deployed-type atmosphere where the nations participating can have the opportunity to test communication systems before they are in real-world operations.
“We have been able to take what we learn here and use it in the Afghanistan Mission Network. What we do there is very similar to what this exercise provides us,” Lasalad said.
Lasalad said nations are able to connect and create relationships at Combined Endeavor and are often reintroduced down range.
“This exercise is useful for us because some of the nations that are here we often have to deploy with them [in places] like Afghanistan,” he said. “When I was there we had to communicate with the United Kingdom and the United States and the tests we are doing here help us to confirm that when there is going to be a real deployment we are going to be able to successfully communicate with them.”
Besides the deployed feeling of the exercise, nations are able to work with each other and find solutions and improvements for their systems.
“First we learn a lot from their systems because they are all different, so we try to keep their best results we learn from other nations systems to bring back ideas we can implement at home,” he said. “The other part we benefit from working with other countries is the testing of the interoperability it is a great thing for us here.”
Lasalad said with all the activities happening here and the fact that they have to communicate with all the other nations to complete tests helps them to get to know a lot of people from other nations and find good points of contact for future engineering and systems.
| Date Taken: | 09.19.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 09.21.2011 04:27 |
| Story ID: | 77345 |
| Location: | GRAFENWOEHR, BADEN-WURTTEMBERG, DE |
| Web Views: | 215 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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