 For this exercise for the ACP, we planned a air movement with the CH-47s and we moved over to a different location other than being at the same location as the main command post. We had to move out with only what we could carry on our backs for communication for class one in any of the other classes and then we had to set up a command post. We're getting some of the this headquarters back into a tactical mindset to be able to move out without support and be able to set up in a austere environment anywhere to be able to take over the fight. So CTAF, is the Army operational headquarters. We're subordinate to U.S. Army Europe in Africa and we focus on Army land operations in the continent of Africa. So the 53 African nations that comprise the AFRICOM area of responsibility are countries that we look at every day and our mission will range from crisis response, theater security cooperation, training exercises, building partner capacity. All those things that the Army normally does in different areas we're responsible for that in the African continent. So we're here at Hohenfels training area in Germany supporting exercise Saber Junction 22 which is a combat training center rotation for the 173rd Airborne Brigade as a primary training audience with some supporting units, 18th Combat Support Battalion and the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade and CTAF AF is here to serve as the division headquarters over the top of the exercise also called the high control high con. So we've been working on that for a little over a week and today we replicated deployment of our assault command post which is a small light rapidly deployable command post that moves light with full communications and computing capability and what we did today was replicated moving forward as a survivability move so we did a air movement using ch-47 helicopters moved about 40 kilometers and then set up our operations here at the omburg training center where we could then take the fight forward and fight as the division headquarters for a period of the fight as the brigades are in the defense. For CTAF AF and the assault command post one of the important pieces are this is our first command and control capability that we maintain as deployment ready so if there's a crisis in Africa if there's a humanitarian disaster we need to respond to or some type of security situation in Africa or in Europe for that matter this this team is the first that would be prepared to go so this is a great opportunity for us to to test our systems test our communications ability with a live training audience below us to send reports and to interact with so it was a great opportunity for us to do that importance obviously we'll continue to work through these we identified a couple of challenges today and we will go back reset figure out how to solve those problems and we'll get back to doing training again soon and do this again probably back in Italy at home station today is to see our new teammates get integrated into what we do to pick up what their roles responsibilities are and to help us solve the problems that we that we would face the agility of this team is always excellent and so seeing them work through this problem I and then self-identify where we make mistakes and how we need to fix that in the future you know one of the great things about being part of a learning organization is we're constantly getting better and so coming out here today to validate where we're at and then figure out how to fix it and have a plan to fix it it's always great to be part of a team that's that's that good so you know as a senior as a senior officer someone who's been doing this for you know a long time it's always a fun experience to see the excitement in some of our younger soldiers eyes the first time they ever get on a helicopter the first time they get to do something like this um the the excitement sometimes the apprehension but people work through their challenges to to get after the training you know it's not terribly hot but it was still we road marched it we know I forgot the helicopter we walked pretty heavy loads because moving communications equipment is not easy it's heavy and we do it all on our backs we don't have vehicle support out here with us but seeing all those teammates really throw in to help accomplish the mission and work through things that they've never done in their career before it's always rewarding to see the the team react and and and come together to get those missions accomplished it's interesting one of the things about being a good soldier a good non-commissioned officer a good officer's flexibility and agility and in a team like the assault command post team it's small but has to be able to carry the weight of a much larger staff for a period of time that means people have to multitask people have to be really good at things that aren't their day job and so we have a logistics non-commission officer that has one specialty but he's replicate or not replicating but he covers all of our logistics requirements our primary communications soldier is not a communicator by trade he's actually a combat cameraman but he is self-taught and learned to install our satellite communication systems and radios and he's excellent at it so he's able to pick that up on the side everybody in a small team has to carry their weight from me on down and it's always rewarding to see soldiers rise to that task to go work outside of what they're trained to do and be excited to be part of that and then to be able to actually to learn and contribute immediately and it's not a long learning curve for our soldiers the important things about this is again it was the opportunity to work with some subordinate units to help stimulate and drive the training we're doing but also in our main and in the field we have a great allied component that's participating in this exercise a CTAF as we focus on Africa and our African partners we don't get the opportunity to work with our NATO allies very often so this has been a great opportunity for us to give us lessons learned and help us develop skills and things that we can take back and apply to our day job focusing on Africa on behalf of US Army Europe and Africa and US AFRICOM that we can take to our partners on the continent and our and those that we work with to help make them better and help continue to make ourselves better