Military Mom at Home: training

Showing posts with label training. Show all posts

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Exercise Southern Bear Ends Successfully

February 28, 2008
Camp Dona Ana, Fort Bliss, Texas

Today, after almost a month in desert-like training at Fort Bliss, Texas, Exercise Southern Bear has officially ended. The approximately 3,000 soldiers who took part in the exercise will soon be heading back to Canada.
During this month long exercise soldiers conducted Combat Team attacks, convoy training, IED training and specific training pertaining to their tasks in Afghanistan.
“I am very pleased with everything that we accomplished during our short time here,” said Colonel Dean Milner, Commander of 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (2 CMBG). “The exceptional facilities at Fort Bliss allowed us to train in an environment that is similar to Afghanistan.”
The completion of the exercise marks another major milestone on the road to Afghanistan that began last August for many of the soldiers from Petawawa’s 2 CMBG. Aside from the Joint Task Force Afghanistan Headquarters that is scheduled to depart at the end of April, most of the soldiers training for the deployment will leave for Afghanistan during September.
“This exercise allowed us to bring together all of the Task Force elements that will deploy to Afghanistan. It helped us prepare them for the next major training event in Wainwright, Alberta during May called Exercise Maple Guardian.” added Colonel Milner. “We have done everything to make sure that the soldiers are prepared for success at Wainwright and later on in Afghanistan.”

The training at Fort Bliss was necessary to replicate the terrain in and around Kandahar Province, where these soldiers will be operating once they deploy to Afghanistan. The Task Force 3-08 Battle Group, the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, the Observer Mentor Liaison Team, the National Support Element and Joint Task Force Afghanistan Headquarters all took part in the exercise.

Congratulations to our troops! HUA! Look out.. here we come!

Friday, February 01, 2008

2 CMBG Embarks On Exercise SOUTHERN BEAR

2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group is going to Texas

Soldiers from across the brigade, and every unit set to deploy as part of Task Force 3-08 later this year, will be conducting Exercise SOUTHERN BEAR from February 4 to the 28 at Fort Bliss, a United States Army base.

Located alongside the Mexican border outside El Paso, Texas, Fort Bliss and its accompanying training area cover roughly 4,500 square kilometres, which is approximately 15 times the size of CFB Petawawa and its adjacent training area

Canadian Military Begins Travel to Fort Bliss

The exercise, which will involve roughly 3,300 soldiers, will serve as an opportunity to conduct full-spectrum operations necessary for the deployment of Petawawa based soldiers for Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a challenging mission, and to that end, the training being conducted now must prepare soldiers for all of the challenges they will face.
“This is a very important exercise,” said Col Dean Milner, Commander of 2 CMBG. “This is a huge logistical challenge for the brigade to get down to Texas, and it will be challenging training for all the soldiers who will be a part of the exercise.”
These challenges include a number of training scenarios that will force the soldiers to conduct their operations in areas where there are friendly and hostile civilians, enemy insurgents, media, and Afghan National Security Forces for three weeks of training on a landscape which is nearly identical to what the soldiers will face in Afghanistan. They barely have the chance to knock the Texas dust off their kit before heading to Alberta's CFB Wainwright in May for a final set of training just before this fall's deployment. "We were supposed to have been deployed in August, but this was pushed back a month to give soldiers more time with their families before heading over," Col. Milner said. This will allow troops to go on block leave over the summer.

Mountain shooting near Fort Bliss.
Photo Credit: Cpl Bruno Turcotte

Involved in the exercise will be The T h i r d Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment-led Battle Group, the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team led by 2 Combat Engineer Regiment, the Observer Mentor Liaison Team led by The First Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, the National Support Element led by 2 Service Battalion, and Joint Task Force Afghanistan Headquarters led by former 2 CMBG Commander, Col Denis Thompson.

The priority for 2 CMBG for the next year is to conduct training for Roto 6, scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in August 2008. 2 CMBG will build a Battle Group based on The Third Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (3 RCR) while also training elements for the Observer Mentor Liaison Team (OMLT) and Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).