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    Slovak Shield 2018: Fighting the war with Slovakia and friends

    Members from the Slovak, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and U.S military – to include both active component and the Indiana National Guard units made up the training audience for the war fighting exercise. This staff exercise, a simulated invasion scenario into Slovakia from opposing forces evaluated how these five specific NATO allies reacted operationally together to counteract and defeat the opposition. Working out of various tactical operating centers, the countries aligned their respective forces through both hands-on and online systems for unit movement, tactics and reporting measurements.

    “The purpose of the exercise is to rehearse what might occur in the event of the Article 5 being drawn out by NATO, which is essentially the article that says if one of us is invaded, all of us are invaded. So we are rehearsing what would happen if Slovakia experienced such an invasion,” said Maj. Alain Samples, Indiana National Guard task force S3 and 81st Troop Command assistant G3 (Operations Officer).

    “The exercise is designed in a way that allows the Slovak military to exercise their staff processes while also integrating international officers into their staff,” explained Lt. Col. Jeff Coomler, Indiana National Guard task force commander and 81st Troop Command executive officer.

    The Indiana National Guard has partnered with Slovakia since 1994, near the fall of communist control in much of Eastern Europe. Notably one of the longest standing state partnerships since the state partnership program between U.S. National Guard states and various countries around the world began in 1993. Since that time, the Indiana/Slovakia state partnership has not only strengthened ties with one another, but has also built upon their foundational military knowledge base. In this way, Slovakia has improved their doctrine and militaristic style greatly in the past nearly 25 years.

    Slovak Shield, as well as numerous other exercises that take place between Indiana and Slovakia, prepares soldiers and airmen more fully for a deployment experience, specifically combined deployments, in order to integrate together seamlessly from the start. It is because of this that Slovakia and Indiana have mobilized together on various deployments to Afghanistan in the past decade.

    The five-day exercise officially started on the chilly day of September 22nd at the opening ceremony where hundreds of service members from each player’s unit stood in formation until the Slovak General arrived to provide words of encouragement for the days ahead in the exercise; to come together as one and ultimately conquer the common simulated adversary.

    In the week prior to the official start, Indiana Guardsmen along with the other four countries, sent their service members to begin the planning phase of the enemy engagement, otherwise known as the military decision making process. This process included sorting through the simulated intelligence information to create multiple courses of action for the commander to decide which has the highest probability of success. Based on this decision, staff sections then began to create operation orders in order to properly instruct subordinate units.

    “I have learned that they have quite a different approach from the way that we do things, in the way that we engage and wait out the enemy,” said Maj. Samples. “They have some considerations that we don’t have and it’s been interesting to see how they employ those and what that means in their decision process.”

    In the execution phase of Slovak Shield, despite language barriers between the countries, most staff members agree they have not only learned to communicate with the Slovaks, but also one another. They are taking down the enemies while also learning more about the role they currently play within the exercise, which in turn makes them more valuable leaders and teammates in future roles and operations. They have learned to coordinate maneuvers, compile and send proper reports or act in higher leadership roles than ever held in the “real world”.

    The lessons learned from an operational standpoint can be taught at home or abroad, but the true lesson is one that cannot be directly taught, it must be experienced.

    Lt. Col. Coomler said it best by saying that “the biggest point has been the evolution of the relationship between with the Indiana National Guard and Slovak military. Our ability to come together as one team toward an objective or to accomplish a mission always gets just a little bit better with each exercise.”

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 09.27.2018
    Date Posted: 10.02.2018 13:39
    Story ID: 295033
    Location: LEST, SK

    Web Views: 147
    Downloads: 1

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