JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. – “This is the only exercise – multi-component and joint – that offers financial management units the opportunity to really flex their inventory of skillsets,” said Col. Jason Wynnycky, senior trainer and Diamond Saber exercise director.
Wynnycky was addressing senior military leaders gathered here at Timmermann Center July 22 for the Diamond Saber exercise’s Distinguished Visitor Day, which provides a guided walkthrough of live financial management operations, demonstrating how finance enables sustainment and operational tempo during deployed operations.
“When you’re on the battlefield, to enable maneuver units to do what they need to do, we need to bridge that gap through our ability to open up the aperture with resources to fund those contracts, to deal with local nationals, and to deal with the local banks,” Wynnycky explained. “All that is really a financial management function.”
Diamond Saber is the largest Army Reserve-led financial management training exercise, with several thousand service members being trained and ready in resource management and finance operations. DV Day featured senior leaders from the Army, Army Reserve, National Guard, Air Force, and Marines.
“This is the 27th year that the Army Reserve has conducted this Total Army and joint exercise, where we bring in partners from all across the Department of War for what is the only financial management-specific exercise that enables our service members to get out there and get hands-on with all types of transactions,” explained Stephen “Sully” Sullivan, acting assistant chief of Army Reserve.
“It’s really a great opportunity for service members to get the expertise that they need, because when they go downrange – whether it was during the Global War on Terrorism or now – it’s essential that the things they do enable the warfighter to execute their mission,” Sullivan added.
Since its conception in 2004, Diamond Saber has trained and evaluated active-duty and reserve-component service members on warfighting functions like funding the force, dispersing operations, accounting, and fiscal stewardship.
“It’s all about getting the service members’ feet wet and learning the processes, the procedures, and how things work,” said Maj. Gen. Michael J. Dougherty, commanding general of the U.S. Army Reserve’s 80th Training Command.