 My first and last name is Joshua Yu, specialist in the U.S. Army, Texas National Guard. So I'm a 35 Fox All-Source Intelligence Analyst, and what I do is I basically analyze what the enemy is going to do, make assessments based on what we do know, based on their order of battle, which is their disposition and composition, and try to correctly assess the different situations that we might end up facing as a unit. Currently I'm attached to the S2DSB, the Division Support Sustainment Brigade, and we're mainly focused on the rear and ensuring that the logistical element of the division doesn't get destroyed or targeted by enemies in our rear area. We are mainly focused in the S2DSB on enemy special purpose forces, enemy recon, as well as enemy commando units who are in the rear of our frontline forces who are there to disrupt, destroy, and raid our supply lines. So I'm actually part of the Texas Army National Guard, First Armored Division's main command post-operational detachment, that's a detachment, a company detachment that's assigned to the higher headquarters of battalion. So this CPX from what I've seen so far has helped us identify some of the weaknesses we have in our planning and setup for the warfighter, such as communications, systems, even little things such as making sure we have all of our enemy icon setup or our board setup correctly to track, battle track enemy damage and also enemy positions. It definitely helps prepare us due to the fact that myself, I haven't been doing this full time, so it gets me back into the groove of being a 35 Fox intel analyst. It refreshes my memory a lot on the TTP's tasks that we have to do. It also helps me remember a lot of the nomenclature of the enemy forces. There are a lot of different enemy units and a lot of different enemy equipment. So it also helps us prepare by refreshing us and also helps us get our reps in order to be successful for warfighter. I definitely appreciate this training, not a lot of soldiers in the Texas Army National Guard can get this type of training. The First Armored Division allows us to train alongside with them in many CPX's and as warfighter and it helps a lot to keep the memory of my job fresh. Right now we're just planning for the overall operation, whether it be different maneuver elements or artillery missions, stuff like that. I think this mission is important just because it gives us ready for what may come in the future, right? So everything that can be seen in the European theater right now as far as training for LISCO and everything else, it's just a good exercise to do as a division and therefore are leading it to the core as a whole and just getting us all synced together so we know what the future fight would look like. It's important just because it gets us ready for the future fight of what LISCO looks like. It's just something that helps us develop and train, synchronize as a core as a whole, where we used to be so focused on the division and even the brigade aspect as a whole. It really syncs everybody together and makes sure that we're all engaging one team one fight. That is a large-scale operation, so it's where we were in the coin fight before, the counterinsurgency. This is what the Army's leading to as a whole, right? Different multi-dimensional functions and stuff like that. So for me personally, this is the first time I've ever done a warfighter, so being able to experience this firsthand as my very first time going through this, it really shows me how every cell and every job syncs together as a whole, being in the plan section. Some of the things I learned so far is that how crucial planning is. Being a line soldier in my previous part of my career, it was always execute. It was just go out there execute, go out there execute, but this piece has actually shown me how important planning is and the different work and the different echelons that all come together to make sure that there is a plan developed to be able to execute. One of the modernizations so far has been the mission command system, the AFATIDS that we work on. So what it essentially is a computer that allows me to build different fire missions, build different missions for CAS and AI and stuff like that, and be able to talk and distribute that same information to a different partner such as like 3UK, 1st CAV, 3COR, those different elements like that. This has just been a great overall learning experience so far. Being able to work in the 3, 5 or the plan section as I referred to earlier, it's just given me a lot to learn and a lot to care for with me. Whenever I have soldiers under me again, I can really show them different echelons and different experiences of what the Army has to offer them and not just what we're typically used to learning on the line. Army strong! Hello, I am Colonel Michael Hutchins and I am an iron soldier. I am the commander of the 1st Armored Division Sustainment Brigade, sustaining America's Tank Division. The Warfighter Exercise is consisting of 3 different divisions to include 1st Armored Division and our Brigades, our Enabler Brigades, the Aviation Brigade, the Artillery Brigade and the Sustainment Brigade as we exercise operations to maneuver our brigade combat teams across the battlefield. This exercise allows the Division to practice our systems and processes in order for us to be prepared to meet the requirements of a large-scale combat operation. So many factors playing to our ability to project combat power if the nation so calls us to do so. This allows us the opportunity to train those tenants and those factors prior to having to do it in real life. This mission is important because it allows us the opportunity to understand the challenges that we will face on today's battlefield. Given the capabilities of our adversaries and the requirements for us to defend our country, our NATO partners and our allies, we must understand what those challenges are and how we can practice to overcome them and be successful on the battlefield. The opportunity for my soldiers to get hands-on experience, sustaining at the vision, over 30,000 people on the battlefield, it builds resiliency in their mindset of the stressors of the mission and also builds confidence. It allows them to be able to think through the problem set and so it becomes second nature that they will be able to respond and respond well and to be able to do it over an extended amount of time. Our command system architecture to allow us to do mission command across, we'll say, thousands of miles. The systems that we are using allow us to see the battlefield and anticipate requirements as well as inform the army on where gaps and seams occur and inform future modernization efforts to allow us to be successful. The importance of this exercise when it comes to mission readiness and still confidence in the organization and it helps build a team. It helps bring them together and allow them to function efficiently and effectively so that when we're called to act, we're ready. Each and every one of my soldiers are very important. They are important to the brigade and more importantly, they're important to the mission of this division. Each of my soldiers, I like to impress upon them how important they are and every contribution that they make to the division, it is something that the division needs. Without them, we couldn't do it. Now it's a privilege to serve in the First Armored Division. This is my second tour with the First Armored Division. It is a place that I love because I love the division. I love Fort Bliss and most importantly, I love Opaso. The culture and the people here make it a great place to both live and work. So to call myself an iron soldier and stand on the shoulders of those that came before me is truly an honor. As the Division Simulations Officer, I've been planning this exercise since really last April, May. From soup to nuts, I've really been involved in every part and piece of it, making sure every piece of the entire 1AD Enterprise as well as a lot of people supporting from all across the entire Army and really DOD are there to make sure we get after General Eisenhower's train objectives within an exercise that's actually run by the Corps and the Mission Command Training Program out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. So it's a lot of parts and pieces really. It's figuring out the constructive and virtual wrap. You know, obviously you guys are live under Canvas, but what do you need portrayed in the fight so that you guys get the best training? So my job is important because really, I mean, we all know how to, you know, walk through the woods and, you know, give hand and arm signals. But trying to figure out how to convert that to in scale digitally is very difficult. So here at Fort Bliss, we can run exercise for a brigade. And actually, we've run exercise for the division where there's about 15 of us playing all of the Corps and all of the morning brigades. So figuring out how to take a small amount of people and appear to be larger and appear to be using the right systems, the right processes, and talking the right lingo so the division thinks they're really running a division fight. And it's really expanding on that across all the different warfighting functions, all the different train objectives. Everything down to like, hey, the PAO team needs people to interview. So let's line those people up. Hey, you need enemy media to look at. You need friendly media to look at. You need all these different things just to get after your specific M.O.S. that across the entire division. And you can't put the first Armored Division in the field at once. It's a lot of money, a lot of people, a lot of resources. So we make it as close as possible so that General Eisenhower feels and the staff feels like the first Armored Division is out fighting the fight. But really that's done with a lot of digital systems and hundreds of people versus tens of thousands of people and a lot of fuel and a lot of vehicles. I'm really the puppet master behind the exercise. A little less so because the guys before Levworth help with a lot of that because this is just so big. But I'm really one AD's piece of make sure the exercise goes the way it's supposed to go. So if we find out, hey, the fires isn't working well, we go figure out, hey, as far as it's not working well because the division needs to get better at a specific task or is our digital replication or digital simulation not feeding the right information to the fires folks. And some of that's an understanding of all the different systems in the Army and all the different simulation systems that feed the actual warfighter and make the division feel like it's a real fight. So really the goal of warfighters or any major exercise like this is to make it as realistic as possible with the division. So really you can't do this any other way with obviously resource constraints, not even the whole divisions around sometimes, different years, different times. And it's really getting after, hey, let's make this harder than you've ever seen it so that when you do see this in Europe, you do see this in Korea, wherever the division goes, real life, whatever real mission it is we've given them repetition that's as realistic as possible with all the different warfighting functions, all the different tactical tasks, administrative tasks, and made it so, hey, next time we do this, it's not the first time we've done it. So this is pretty darn impressive. I mean, I was here for warfighter 21-4, which the division did two years ago and the stuff we're getting after here is everything we did there and more. So I mean there, because of COVID, we really didn't jump the CPs. We ran the command post off of wall power, things like that here. I mean, we're hidden away in a school compound and top of doing our normal army mission. So it's really two or three levels above the last time I've seen the division do this. It's pretty impressive just to see everybody getting after what we used to do, what we can do, and really the aspirational, what we're going to do in the future. Because if you look at what we're playing with in this fight, it's not the first armored division of today, it's the first armored division of 2030. So there's things that we're digitally simulating that don't exist yet in real life or just aren't fielded yet in the army. So a lot of cool pieces of equipment, cool processes, cool systems that we know the army is going to get eventually and we're allowing the division to train on it today. So when they see it for the first time, they've trained on it before and they're ready to go after whatever the army needs. I guess the big ad is just when you look right now, we look around where we're at. I mean, there's tens, hundreds of people. The cool thing is there's thousands of people supporting this event in different ways. There's five or six army installations involved in making sure one of these trains is the best it can be. There's about 1,300 people that are not training the audience that are here making sure all the iron or torch soldiers here in this exercise are getting the train they need. So it's really cool just to see how many people, how much money, how many resources come after this. I mean, there's guys down in Florida for the Air Force. There's guys in Virginia making sure the sustainment pieces behind the scenes work. There's guys from Kansas, Texas, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We've got National Guard units from all over the country. Reserve units from all over the country. And for some of them, they've been working on this for months and months and months. So it's really cool to see it all come together. Just, I mean, the thousands and, you know, millions and zillions of man hours and people and resources to come together. It's pretty cool. It's really cool. Okay, and you want me to put... No, just, I just want you to like... Where? There shouldn't be any other mass fires in here. You know, the two might be able to... So what it's going to take to reposition that way, and if they should be able to give it that info. Okay, for me, we know there's... This exercise gathers really the entire corps to test and evaluate the leaders and staff set echelon in terms of how they deal with, in this case, a large-scale conflict. And so everybody from me at the battalion level all the way up to the corps commanders being evaluated and tested, but really the training audience is the corps and division and we're helping to facilitate that by playing the brigades within 1AD. It's all the way up to General Bernabe, the corps commander, down to my staff and my leaders within the battalion who are playing the response cell for 2-1AD. And just helping the training audience, which is the corps and the division, execute a warfight. So we're really testing for the army what the formation of the future looks like against a near-peer competitor. And so we're going out and we're employing the force against a real-time enemy in simulation and then figuring out our capabilities against something like that. We have response cells spanning really across Texas and up into Leavenworth and then a lot of people are traveling. But we've got folks both in the field executing field ops as well as us here in the Sim Center playing the role of folks out in the field. But we're all connected by this computer system so that we can see and coordinate all of our actions as one force. The most valuable thing about an exercise like this is the fact that we're replicating a formation, one echelon above what we normally execute. So beyond just practicing the staff military decision-making process, planning, preparing and executing to take on a near-peer enemy, the real value comes in the fact that I've got not just the staff playing a brigade staff and getting the perspective of that formation, but I've got staff sergeants in some instances playing company commanders. I've got lieutenants playing battalion commanders. I've got company commanders playing battalion commanders. Everybody gets to get in there and actually execute a fight and see what it looks like in larger-scale operations beyond just their little bubble that they have on a day-to-day basis. And they get the training and perspective that they wouldn't get otherwise. And so for that reason alone, I think it's invaluable. I'll tell you the mission training environment that we have here at Fort Bliss is absolutely phenomenal. The fact that we can integrate units that are in the field across different posts between here and Fort Cavaios and here at the Mission Training Center is absolutely amazing. So we've got folks that are doing things in a field environment. I've got my folks here replicating 24-hour operations and we're all connected by this system that they've set up. So being able to talk to and have effects from puctors that are in a whole different location is really great. And so one thing that I tell my staff all the time, and this is a great way to show them that, is there's always the feeling of, you know, it's the squad that's messed up. It's the platoon that's messed up. You know, if you're Joe at the bottom, you know, you think everybody's messed up. But what I love here is, you know, the folks up at core, the folks at Division, the folks at Brigade as a battalion-level staff, they're just like us. They're sitting here, they're learning. We're not the training audience. We're helping to fulfill a role to help prepare that training audience. And it's given them not just a perspective on warfighting, but it's also given a perspective on training to those Joe's. So I think they're cursing. They're higher-ups a little bit less now. And they're understanding what the issues are that everybody faces. And they're really embracing their role as enabling the training audience to get after what they need to. In the computer as a puxer, it's really easy to hit a button to dig in a tank. It's a much different, you know, equation when you're out in the field and you have to pull out an E tool or get a C. Those are over there to start digging something. And so getting those routines down here and building those habits to make sure that we do those things that keep us more survivable and more lethal on the battlefield. I think at some point, I'd like to hope we'll go out to the field and they'll think, oh, what do I need to do now? Okay, I need to start digging so that I can be survivable. Because they've seen the results of that in the computer. Well, this is a little bit less consequential to them, where it's not actually vehicles going down or personnel receiving casualties. At least the routine will help them. And I can tell you that the practice of doing things right every time pays off dividends in the end and it comes down to that baseline discipline. So if you get used to wearing kit in the field, it will be nothing as you're going out into war, right? And so just those little things and those little pieces of discipline and getting those things ingrained in folks' heads is really helpful as we go forward and execute operations. Good afternoon. My name is Captain David A. Aguilar. I'm part of the 1AD MIG pod standing for Main Command Post Operational Detachment. So within my job here within Division, I am integrated within the shop of G35. Now G35 focuses on future operations. So within this cell, I help plan for future operations and have been learning how to do it on the echelon of division. Okay? This training is helping me develop as a soldier in many ways. It's helping me in the planning perspective for where I was in my previous unit as in battalion. I was within the S3 shop in operations. Now that is a battalion level. Now if you can understand division level type of operations, which are a lot more intricate and complex, it is much easier to basically adapt to any type of environment within the type of training that's provided here within division. The big key takeaway within this is that you want to make sure that you are developed and trained so that you can bring your soldiers home safely at the same time reaching mission success. Collaboration between active duty with Texas Army National Guard has been great so far. The active duty has been understanding that as a National Guardsman and a reservist, you don't quite do this every day. However, you are still qualified to conduct such operations by knowing such knowledge, by having such ranks and being among the active duty. However, we do not do it every day as such as they do. But since they understand that we are quite, maybe not so in tune as they are within operations, they're more than willing to help you out as long as you're willing to learn, as long as you're willing to adapt. They will coach you in any way that's necessary for you to get to the next level and adapt and develop and sharpen yourself to become the best leader you can be. The way the National Guard is assisting me to be all that I can be, first and foremost, is that within my civilian career, it also lets me apply for what I've learned within the military to apply within the civilian career for where those who know that I am a servicemember understand that I have learned leadership qualities within U.S. Army and allow me to use what I've learned within the U.S. Army within my civilian career. At the same time, it's assisted me in becoming adaptable. How to do transition from civilian-type taskers to military operations and really to ensure that I stand, making sure I'm doing my part as a soldier, as a Tech Star National Guard soldier, to stay sharp in my knowledge so whenever it's time to deploy, I'm adaptable and deployable in a rapid manner to meet my country's needs. Okay, so within my civilian career, I actually work with behavioral health. I am a therapist for children with autism within my civilian career. Strategies that you learn within the military and having temperance and understanding that processes take time for another to get improvement, but yet at the same time, if you improve as an individual and do your part, really pay attention to detail, those types of qualities assist me in doing what I do within my civilian job to understanding that there is a process to helping such individuals and to trust the process, do my part to develop myself in order to help those individuals and continue to execute and continue to improve to reach an end state, a preferred end state. There you go. Oh, yeah. Essentially, what? The 7th? Pretty much it. You guys just 5 o'clock first you can do it because we'll have everyone up. Counterattack, if you will, over social media where there's potential of a false flag. After about 6 hours of locating I believe to be the C2 node passing. I don't know where they just go north. Like, you know, they can, you know, they can contact people, attack, like they can attack across, they just attack like this. 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock. You guys are even more treated. Hi, my name is Specialist Kim Joshua. I'm a 35 Fox All-Source Intelligence Analyst. For this exercise, I am part of the G2 co-op section, and I'm assigned to Cisco, HHBN, Divarty First Armor Division. So currently in the intel section, we facilitate a lot of enemy positions. So we find out where we, so in the sim, right, there's a lot of, like, enemy units that are plotting in, and our job is to find those enemy units, right, and facilitate either FIRE's missions, ISR missions, which are intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and facilitate a better, I would say, like, foothold for our maneuver units to move forward. So basically in layman's term, we help the brigades by finding out the things they need to shoot. Here in this operation, we're just simulating a offensive operation against the enemy to learn how to better cooperate between the brigades and the division headquarters. This training event has actually been pretty different than how the CPX's have gone. Previous training objectives, I'd say, for our section was to get a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more familiar with how, per se, like the FIRE section works, how the protection section works, how the AMD section works, because every section, even though they may not play together, they always play with us. So intel is always a very big part of how any operation goes, stability, defensive, and offensive operations, right? So, but in this kind of exercise, we have been playing a lot more of an active role, such as being in control of our assets, right? Usually we're sitting on a chat or looking at briefs and all that sort of stuff to get our information, but this is a little bit different because we're actually doing a lot more of the groundwork, a lot more of the practical work, taking in these different isolated units, isolated equipments, and doing our assessments off that and working very close with the DCGO and the CG and trying to make sound and reasonable decisions and trying to make this operation go forward. Hi, my name is Captain Shayna Taylor. I'm an intelligence officer and I'm the commander of CISC Company, Systems Intelligence and Sustainment. So the division headquarters from PFC all the way up to the CG is out here participating. It's approximately 300 soldiers divided across all three command post nodes to include the RCP, the DTAC, and the DMAIN, which is where I'm currently located. So the warfighter is a simulated exercise where the division practices executing command and control over a battle space. Simulates that if we were to deploy and we were to actually fight a war in another country, would the division headquarters be able to successfully maneuver our elements to victory? Well, it's super important because of the dynamic world that we live in right now. I mean, we could be deployed to Europe to help support Ukraine. We could deploy to Africa. We could deploy to, you know, anywhere in the Asia Pacific region. But regardless, the division headquarters is always ready to fight and win. So this is sort of the culminating exercise of a train-up that we've been conducting since last August when we deployed to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Since then, we've done three other exercises in preparation. And this is sort of our capstone event. So everyone joins the Army to do their jobs. And here at the division headquarters, we are a company of staff officers with specific professional skills, right? We have SIGINT officers. We have signaliers. We have logisticians. And then, of course, we have tangers, infantrymen, and a special group of folks that provide effects. And so here in the warfighter, they get to do their profession, much like if we were out in the field, we'd be doing our profession there as well. The simulation that we are operating on is the newest form. It's called CPCE. It's what the Army will use in the future to fight when we are not co-located with our enemy or with our elements. So this enables us to be able to execute command and control from a far-off distance if we can't deploy quickly to wherever we need to be in the world. My job here as the D-Main Commander is to sustain this command post. And that includes feeding, transporting, fueling, and providing logistical support so that the division headquarters can focus on their specific jobs. They don't have to worry about where they're going to sleep, where they're going to eat, and how they're going to move. As long as I do my job, the division headquarters can fight and win. One of the greatest challenges and rewards as assist company commander is that I get to interact, teach, coach, mentor, and lead. Anyone from the lowest rank in the Army has a private PFC all the way up to a Lieutenant Colonel and Sergeant Major. Each one of my soldiers requires a different version of interaction, motivation, teaching, and coaching. And a lot of the times, I get to learn from them as much as I get to provide leadership to them. And in that capacity, the dynamics of this organization will help me be a better leader in the end, but also allow me to interact with every level of the Army. This is Renegade 6. I am an Iron Soldier. My name is Danny Hughes, and I'm a chaplain in the Arizona Army National Guard. I'm here at Fort Bliss for this exercise, getting some great training for our unit. Our unit is here from the Arizona Army National Guard at this exercise embedded with the 1AD, the First Armored Division, here in order to learn about large-scale combat operations and to grow in our abilities in our operations and planning processes to execute those kinds of operations. We're training to fight and win America's wars, and that's important because when we fight and win America's wars, we maintain freedom and the American way of life. And that's really what we're trying to accomplish when we're out here doing this training, conducting these exercises, so that we are prepared. None of us want to go to war, but in the event that we have to, we want to be prepared the very best way that we can. As a soldier, there's a number of reasons why this mission, this training, is important. It's because we try to learn all the different skills in the operations and planning process and make those things happen across the course of a battlefield in this environment, in this virtual environment. The chaplains are here to help to bring religious support and so that the spiritual fitness of our troops can be encouraged and maintained as well. To try to predict all of the variables as best as you can and be as ready as you can when you go into that battle, then you have less surprises. And I think that's what training like this is about. For us to flex our muscles in this process of operations and planning and execution of a mission and to be able to know that we have tried to think up as many things that the enemy might do to us as possible and to be able to respond to those so that we are the most equipped force that we can be. This mission makes us more able to respond at a moment's notice whenever the country calls, whenever we are called upon to go into war, this mission, this training makes us ready. I'm confident that every troop that's here training will be able at some point in the future when they might find themselves in a combat operation to be able to look back to the things that have happened in this training and recognize the value that it brought to them in that current moment and how it helped them, it empowered them and it equipped them to be able to conduct the mission in that real-time environment. One of the new systems that's a bit newer to the Army is called CPCE and it's a complex battlefield management system where all these different layers from all of the different sections can be put on top of one another and you can get a great picture, a great visualization of the complexities of the battlefield. And so through using CPCE you can use it to see where all kinds of different things are going on. Enemy actions as well as friendly actions where all of our units are, where we need support, where things are going very well and where things might be going not as well, right? Not as good where we need to send support and so that's a great platform to help us train and be ready for the fight. Being in a field environment is always impactful for mission readiness because the Army kind of, one of the sayings that's in the Army is we train how we fight, right? And so when we come to a field environment where the wind is out here, the sun's out, it's hot, we're wearing all of this gear, the dust is blowing and we're eating food in the field, we're sleeping in the field, all those kinds of things, it trains us and helps develop that muscle memory so that someday when we end up in the field, in the real fight, we've done this before. It becomes easy. It becomes something that we just do. It's not a big shock to our system because we train as we fight. As an Arizona National Guardsman coming here with the 1-5-8th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, we have felt incredibly welcomed by the first AD team here at Fort Bliss all the way from General Eisenhower down through all the ranks to all of the troops and personnel that are a part of the operation here. We've been greatly welcomed and we appreciate that because the National Guard has a lot to bring to the fight and we have a lot of expertise to bring and so we appreciate the big welcome, the big Texas welcome, right, that you guys have given us here and we are proud to be a part of this team.