Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Dalton Smith | U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers assigned to the 361st Theater Public Affairs Support...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. – Information moves faster than ever before, and public affairs Soldiers must be prepared to respond just as quickly.
To prepare for those challenges, U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers assigned to the 361st Theater Public Affairs Support Element participated in Iron Forge, a hybrid tactical and media operations center exercise held June 8-11 at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. The exercise combined artificial intelligence-generated scenarios with a simulated online information environment to test Soldiers' ability to support commanders through strategic communication, media engagement and information analysis.
For Maj. Jordan Owens, 361st TPASE executive officer and one of the exercise planners, Iron Forge filled a training gap that had existed within the organization for years.
“In eight years, we've never done anything for the headquarters that forced the TPASE staff to do what it's supposed to do in a deployed environment,” Owens said. “[That] is to support a joint task force headquarters, a three-star commander, in messaging what's going on in the theater.”
Unlike traditional exercises that pause and reset after key events, Iron Forge continued to evolve, requiring participants to respond to the consequences of previous decisions while adapting to new developments. Owens used GenAI, the Department of War’s approved AI platform, to rapidly build a multi-layered scenario that simulated media activity, regional instability and information operations.
What traditionally could have taken weeks of planning was developed in a matter of hours, allowing leaders to focus more time on training objectives and exercise execution.
“AI frees up a lot of time to focus on the creativity aspects, allowing us to have more bandwidth to be in the moment and focus on our actual core skill sets,” said U.S. Army Capt. Gregory Carvajal, operations officer for the 361st TPASE.
While GenAI accelerated scenario development and generated realistic injects throughout the exercise, Soldiers remained responsible for analyzing information, making decisions and producing communication products.
“We now have so much more capacity and bandwidth to critically assess and judge the draft products in front of us,” Carvajal said. “That allows us to actually enhance the level of judgment and ethical considerations before you put something out there.”
A key component of the exercise was the Information Operations Network, or ION, a training platform used to create a realistic digital information environment.
"ION creates an isolated and immersive environment that simulates social media and digital platforms on closed networks tailored for each unit's exercise—an emulated internet, if you will," said Benjamin Buzzard, project manager at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command's Training Technology Center. "The goal is for Soldiers to gain a better understanding of their operational environment and how actions in the information space can influence operations.”
Using ION, exercise planners created friendly, neutral and adversarial media activity that evolved throughout the scenario, allowing Soldiers to monitor information flows, assess audience reactions and adapt their communication strategies in real time.
“When the TPASE put products out, we were able to take those products, feed them into AI, generate responses in real time and push those out to give the TPASE a genuine feedback loop on how their message was hitting in the information environment,” Owens said.
The exercise challenged participants to operate beyond their traditional roles, collaborate across public affairs disciplines and develop communication strategies under pressure.
Leaders said the experience helped Soldiers better understand how public affairs supports commanders and influences operations in today's information environment.
Pfc. William Young, public affairs specialist with the 354th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment and recent Defense Information School graduate, said the experience helped him better understand how communication products support broader messaging objectives.
"Working with the captains and the other officers, when they were saying, 'This is the projection we want to throw out to the media,' it helped me a lot in understanding from a junior enlisted standpoint," Young said. "That was something that really helped me connect those dots."
As AI becomes more accessible across the DOW, exercises like Iron Forge provide Soldiers an opportunity to explore how emerging technologies can enhance training while reinforcing the importance of human judgment and decision-making.
“We want Soldiers that are adaptable, that are creative, that can think on their own, that can identify threats in the information environment and react to them in real time because that's exactly what our enemies are doing,” said Owens.
By the end of the exercise, Soldiers had experienced the challenges of supporting commanders in a contested information environment while balancing speed, accuracy and credibility.
“Sometimes when we're doing Army things, we hold back because we're scared of doing the wrong thing, but the reality is we just need to do it,” Owens said. “The information space is a place where the worst thing we can do is nothing.”
“Figure out your message and send it. Send it with all your heart.”
| Date Taken: | 06.15.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 06.16.2026 11:07 |
| Story ID: | 567889 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, NEW JERSEY, US |
| Web Views: | 35 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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