 The Joint Readiness Training Center here at Fort Polk, Louisiana is one of two combat training centers here in the United States. It is the crucible event for United States Army brigades supported by other Joint Force elements. Army brigades use this as their training event to prepare and in a sense validate themselves before being termed ready for combat or any operational deployments. One of the best parts about this particular training event is that they had a multinational force with them from the United Kingdom. The four rifles from the UK's Army Special Operations Brigade. In a sense that really replicates what we'll see in future conflicts with multinational partners or allies overseas in combat. The second thing that they learn here is that they do everything by with and through a partner force that's generated here at Fort Polk, which is truly what we do in regular warfare, unconventional warfare, or even large-scale combat operations as a special operations force. The final thing that they learn here is what is ARSOF's role in large-scale combat operations and how we as special operators can best support brigades and divisions in the future fight. So in general, the overall mission of Seven Special Forces Group is to train by with and through our partners, including but not limited to Central and South America, with the last 20 years putting us historically in Iraq and Afghanistan also. The mission for Seven Group during JRTC is that it's a little bit of a departure from what we're used to due to the fact that this is under the auspices of LISCO, which is large-scale combat operations. Our mission here to support third of the 101st in large-scale operations largely initiated with our ability to take out integrated air defense systems. And after that, if you look at it from a physical standpoint, our ODAs are fighting in the deep fight well behind enemy lines while the 101st is attempting to gain ground and forward the forward line of troops throughout the fight. So they fight the more conventional war where they continue to gain ground, whereas we continue to do shaping operations in the deep fight that allow the 101st to have those critical assets available. During this rotation, we've done quite a few things to shape the fight for the 101st. The IADS fight was a huge part of it and what that means is integrated air defense systems, so they essentially work off of each other. So as you have these systems all around a battlefield essentially, the radar in one area can pick up targeting data for a rocket in another area and unless you destroy the main system, the hub, at the end of the day, no aircraft can fly into that area. In an airborne unit that's planted aerosol like 101st, if we can't get those birds on the ground safely, then the mission's already lost. So our first job was to destroy the IADS equipment, which we did, but after that it becomes about enabling the warfighter from the 101st to operate with impunity on the ground. We did this through things such as reconnaissance missions on strategic assets like radar and missile silos and whatnot. One of those was there was a port that belonged to the people of Arnland, but the Tariqans had taken control of that port. When they took control of that port, they used it for logistics. We couldn't destroy the port because we didn't want to destroy critical infrastructure for the people in Arnland, so we ended up just disabling it for a period of seven days, which stopped the flow of equipment and resupply to the enemy. Our detachment has been tasked with infiltrating behind enemy lines in order to enable operations for the 101, so conducting our own targeting and choosing targets that are suitable for special operations in order to enable 101 to continue their objectives. Coming here to JRRTC has provided my detachment the opportunity to practice setting up our systems, to practice training with the partner force, and in terrain, in an environment that really pushes us to our limits. It helps us to understand a totally different type of warfare or a totally different environment with the MD LISCO, but it helps us to practice our own targeting. JRTC provides us an ability to learn how to train and win the future fight. In the past, for commanders and sergeants major, we were able to reach out and touch our teams at any given time, be that through commo, through physical ability to fly to their location, just the simple, writ large understanding that that is no longer on the table and we have to give good commander's guidance for ODAs to operate for multiple days without constant guidance or real-time updates to develop their own intelligence and to be a more self-sufficient organization. It leads us and the ODAs to learn what we can and can't do, and it teaches a decentralized sense of leadership to people like myself and the commander of A-7. We had to learn that we can't constantly have our hands and our minds in the fight with the ODAs. The ODAs are essentially our units of action, and we have to trust and empower them as much as we can to do the commander's bidding beyond the deep fight.