Photo By Kevin Clark | Soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division of Fort Polk, La.,...... read more read more
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Approximately 450 Soldiers with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division completed an Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise during the second week of July at Volk Field and Fort McCoy as part of U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) objectives.
According to FORSCOM, the Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise, or EDRE, also included moving approximately 30 pieces of equipment and vehicles via aerial transport. An EDRE by definition is a no-notice, rapid-deployment exercise designed to test a unit’s ability to alert, marshal, and deploy forces and equipment to an emergency disaster or for contingency operations. An EDRE also tests the deployment readiness of active-component forces — in this case, the 10th Mountain Division.
All of the Soldiers and equipment arrived at Volk Field on July 6 and 7 aboard Air Force C-5M Super Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster III airlift aircraft. Once everything and everyone was unloaded from the aircraft at Volk, operations shifted to Fort McCoy.
Fort McCoy Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security Director Mike Todd said the 10th Mountain Division Soldiers held training with the EDRE on post for about a week and then had to return to their home station at Fort Polk, La., for other commitments.
The EDRE was conducted in line with the mobilization exercise Pershing Strike ’21 that is also taking place at Fort McCoy through early August, Todd said. FORSCOM injected the EDRE into the mobilization exercise flow of units to test and evaluate a deploying unit’s ability to deploy/redeploy and to stress the Fort McCoy Mobilization Force Generation Installation enterprise’s ability to support mobilization operations on a larger scale.
The culmination of events like an EDRE also “allows commanders to evaluate the unit’s ability to deploy on short notice and to accomplish its wartime mission,” FORSCOM guidance states.
Todd said that although the EDRE was not as long as it could have been, he was glad to see it take place at the installation.
The last time Fort McCoy supported an EDRE specifically was in September 2015. During that exercise, Soldiers with the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division of Fort Bliss, Texas, deployed and trained at Fort McCoy.
For this EDRE, FORSCOM guidance states it helps accomplish many tasks.
“(It) allows the Army to examine deployment processes and examine potential changes to Army force projection,” the guidance states. “The deployment readiness exercise allows our leadership to validate outload processes, deliver combat power over long distances, and fight and win upon arrival. Fly-away exercises also allow headquarters staff at various echelons and locations to train in the complex tasks of planning, coordinating, and executing large unit movements, all in a condensed timeframe, while developing contingencies to rapidly respond to global requirements.”
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Also, located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.” Also try downloading the Digital Garrison app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base.
| Date Taken: | 07.20.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 07.20.2021 17:47 |
| Story ID: | 401330 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WI, US |
| Web Views: | 884 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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