 Greetings fellow Badgers and welcome to the October drill. I'm Major General Paul Knapp, the Adjutant General for the State of Wisconsin. And I am Colonel Eric Lechler, the commander of the 157th Maneuver and Hasbrook Brigade. And we're here today to talk about being the operational reserve for the active force, our primary mission in the National Guard. I've talked a lot in the last couple years about being ready and readiness and being ready to fulfill that primary mission. And it may seem a little odd since we've spent the last two and a half years primarily on our secondary role, which is in support of domestic operations. We have done a number of missions with COVID, most of you have in fact, COVID-19, election support and civil unrest. And while that has been extremely important and we've done a great job in support of our state, we do have to remember that it is our primary role to support our federal mission. And we're here today with Colonel Lechler, the commander of the 157th MEB, as he gets ready to deploy with his force to Africa later this month. Well, thank you, sir, for the opportunity to have to speak here with to the force today. First of all, I want to just thank the Wisconsin Army National Guard for the unbelievable support to the 157th maneuver enhancement gate during this deployment preparation. Over 50% of our force has come from outside of HHC of the 157th MEB. That's each of the MSCs to include joint force headquarters and the recruiting and retention battalion has provided soldiers for us to deploy to do a specialized mission in the Horn of Africa. Well, that's awesome. Colonel Lechler, it sounds like you've really assembled an all-star team from across the state for this deployment. Can you tell us a little bit about the mission that you expect to encounter when you're there? Yes, sir, thank you very much. So we're going to be a part of combined joint task force Horn of Africa, really known as CJTF HOA. And our main purpose of our main mission is to ensure strategic stability in the air in the region. This will involve protection of U.S. assets, crisis management, and partnership and capacity building with our allies. And another thing we should really highlight is the preparation of the families. And I know that that's going well. Could you speak to that for a minute? Sure. So the Department of Defense has an outstanding program with the Yellow Ribbon. We've enhanced it and made it the Badger Yellow Ribbon here in Wisconsin. So with that is we each soldier went through two days of preparation with their families so that they understand all of the resources that are available while we're deployed and once we get home. Great. Well, it sounds like you and your families are as ready as you can be to deploy for an extended period of time in support of the mission in Africa. And I really want to give a shout out right now to all the family members of the Wisconsin National Guard. Of those family members of the folks that are getting ready to leave in support of this 157 MEV deployment, as well as the members in general. So on this drill weekend, even if you're not deploying, I want you to go home this weekend and thank your families for their support because we definitely could not do it without them. They're a huge part of this team. And as citizen soldiers and airmen, I really want you to keep that in mind each and every day. I thank you. I thank you, Colonel Leckl, for your preparation and getting your soldiers ready to go. I have all the confidence in the world that you'll execute the mission to the standard that we expect here in Wisconsin. And we'll come back safely. So thank you very much. Have a great drill weekend. Tag out.