 The 53rd Infantry Brigade takes part in a large-scale U.S. Army-led, multinational exercise designed to build readiness and interoperability between U.S. NATO and partner militaries. The 53rd IBCT's mission as part of immediate response 21 and the linked exercise of Defender 21 was to deploy expeditiously our brigade from the United States over to Eastern Europe so that we could take our forces, spread it out over five different countries. We were able to take those missions once we deployed and our soldiers were able to embed with our partner nations and were able to do individual and collective training. Thus, building the interoperability with our partner forces but also building our readiness and their readiness at the individual and collective level. Izaira Smiley, an Albanian cadet, speaks of her experience working with U.S. soldiers. We started by some stationery. We have to go through it and learn different stuff we need in military. It was a real pleasure. We learned new things. We developed what we learned during this time and our interaction was very good. We wear slightly different uniforms. We wear slightly different flag patches on our shoulders. When we get down to it and we get behind our rifles and we start doing individual soldier skills, we're exactly the same. For the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, it's time to go home but our commitment to Defender Europe will carry on. As we now undertake difficult tasks, there are necessary to achieve Albania's full attention. The biggest gain that we got over here was working with our partners and getting those shared experiences, learning new things from our partner forces and seeing problems, issues and training through another lens.