MIAMI - The high operational tempo of Haiti relief operations have led to changes to U.S. Southern Command's slate of multinational exercises this fiscal year, leaving behind a revamped training schedule that preserves the major exercises and provides more help to Haiti.
"We've had to be very flexible in adjusting our exercise program this year in response to the Haiti disaster," said Army Lt. Col. Mike Panko, SOUTHCOM's Exercise chief. "Some of our exercises have been cancelled, modified, or added, while others will execute as scheduled."
SOUTHCOM typically sponsors nearly a dozen major multinational exercises that focus on security and humanitarian assistance in the Caribbean and Central and South America. Major exercises, like Panamax, an exercise focused on defense of the Panama Canal, and the long-standing UNITAS series of naval exercises, will largely see no changes to scope and schedule, said Panko.
Major changes to the exercise program so far include:
1. Cancelling Integrated Advance, an operational level exercise with interagency involvement, which was scheduled to begin right as Haiti relief efforts were in full swing.
2. Cancelling the Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarias disaster relief preparation exercise since the majority of the multinational participants were now engaged in Haiti.
3. Cancelling a Beyond the Horizon humanitarian exercise scheduled in Haiti and rescheduling the medical portions to support a later humanitarian effort in Haiti.
4. Creating a New Horizons humanitarian exercise in Haiti for execution sometime this summer.
5. Reprogramming 12 Medical Readiness Training Exercises to Haiti to provide persistent medical support there through September. 6.
During these exercises, a small team of military medical professionals deploy for two weeks to underprivileged areas in the region to get valuable real-world deployment training while also providing medical services to citizens of the host nation.
"Our goal was to fully support Haiti relief operations while maximizing our continuing exercise program. This program provides valuable training and engagement opportunities that pay dividends, as evidenced in Haiti, when we have to respond to regional or national crises," said SOUTHCOM's commander, Air Force Gen. Doug Fraser. "Our Training and Exercise division worked diligently to adjust this year's exercise program to provide this balance. They did a marvelous job."
Faced with the onset of a sudden contingency in the wake of the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, SOUTHCOM exercise coordinators canceled some upcoming exercises that were no longer feasible to execute, "reprogrammed" Humanitarian Civic Assistance activities in the form of MEDRETEs and created an engineering exercise to provide additional support to Haiti.
"As best we could, we tried to push things that had the least amount of impact for the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility overall," said Panko.
The HCA exercise program was the target of most of the changes to this year's exercise schedule, said Panko. HCA exercises are a major part of SOUTHCOM's engagement strategy and annually affords valuable deployment training to troops while simultaneously providing much needed services to communities in need throughout the region. Typical exercises, managed by one of SOUTHCOM's service components, include construction projects, infrastructure repairs and medical care.
Guidance from Fraser and Joint Task Force-Haiti's commander, Army Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, shaped many of the changes to the humanitarian exercises.
Both generals wanted an outcome that would balance the overall strategic priority of supporting the U.S. government's focus in Haiti and preserve the bulk of support already dedicated to the rest of the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.
The newly created New Horizons-Haiti HCA exercise, planned for this summer, will provide more aid to Haiti. The exercise will include MEDRETES and engineering/infrastructure support in addition to the Haiti relief effort. Detailed planning and coordination are ongoing.
Both generals also wanted some of the more than 50 scheduled MEDRETEs diverted to Haiti this year. Panko said that led to the "reprogramming" of 12 MEDRETES to Haiti - a move that is designed to provide persistent Department of Defense medical support to relief efforts there through the end of this fiscal year.
"We have [medical coverage in Haiti] from mid-April now, to about mid-September where we'll have either one or two MEDRETEs going back-to-back," said Panko. Of the 12 MEDRETEs, six were already scheduled for Haiti and two were created from scratch. Fraser made the decision to divert one MEDRETE each from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago to Haiti due the overwhelming need for medical care there.
Changing the MEDRETE schedule came with some challenges, said Panko, since the majority of SOUTHCOM's humanitarian exercises are supported by Reserve units whose schedules are less flexible than active forces.
"The Reserves, by their nature, have limited flexibility in shifting time windows for deployment. Any movement directly affects somebody's job," stated Panko. That thinking led the exercise group to change the location of diverted MEDRETEs while still adhering to planned deployment dates.
Command officials stress that the exercise program's posture will remain flexible in the coming months in case operational requirements force additional changes.