Fort Carson, COLORADO – The 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) hosted twenty-nine Senior Executives from the Department of Defense Sept. 18, 2018, to demonstrate the lethality of the of the modern special operations Soldier at Fort Carson, Colo., as the culminating event of APEX class 47.
The Advanced Professional Executive (APEX) Senior Executive Service Orientation program is a bi-annual two week training course designed to provide newly appointed Senior Executives with both a practical and theoretical understanding of the structure and processes of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Combatant Commands, the Joint Staff, and the Military Departments.
“The tour is key,” said Jose Sanchez, Deputy Director of Research and Development for the Army Corps of Engineers and Deputy Chief Scientist.
“All of us are the decision-makers in different levels of the Department of Defense", Sanchez continued. “This provides us with the opportunity to see in operation the effects of some of the decisions we are making in terms of acquisition and materials or personnel.”
After one week of theoretical and strategic level training in Washington D.C., the group spent a week on the road visiting various installations across the country, learning how their decisions impact the warfighter both directly and indirectly, the demonstration at Fort Carson served as a prime opportunity to witness firsthand the complexity of modern small unit operations at the tactical level.
10th Group’s demonstration served to highlight a Special Forces team direct action strike against a single target building in a remote location. Such complex actions require thousands of man hours of joint interagency intelligence work leveraging both human intelligence gathering and remote observation.
Col. Thomas P. Vogel, Deputy Commander, 10th SFG (A) while addressing the APEX attendees, said that this demonstration represents “a mission 10th Special Forces Group has been performing in places like Afghanistan for the last 17 years.”
Vogel assured the attendees that, “We’ve been very successful setting conditions with our partner forces in both Eastern Europe and Afghanistan.”
As the demonstration concluded, Vogel shifted from speaking about innovative use of technology and equipment to one of the fundamental Special Operations Forces truths as he called forward two of the Green Berets.
“This is what we care about,” Vogel said, “This is our most important weapon system; the Soldier.”
Sanchez said the greatest impact of the demonstration was the ability for him to now visualize the end result of coordinating all the tactical efforts, from snipers and remote drones, to the assault elements and communications personnel.
“Seeing the impact today, and how it gets combined with other joint forces and our allies has been an experience that we will all take back to our offices,” Sanchez said.
“Until you’re witnessing it live,” Sanchez concluded, “you don’t fully appreciate all that is going on and what is required to make the Warfighter even more effective and safer.”
Date Taken: | 09.18.2018 |
Date Posted: | 10.02.2018 16:42 |
Story ID: | 295189 |
Location: | FORT CARSON, COLORADO, US |
Web Views: | 298 |
Downloads: | 1 |
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