DVIDS – News – W.Va. Guard Hosts Irregular Warfare Planning Convention with Particular Operations, Allied Companions

The West Virginia Nationwide Guard’s Ridge Runner Irregular Warfare program hosted an preliminary train planning convention Dec. 5-7, 2022, at Camp Dawson with individuals from 9 organizations representing U.S. Army particular operations forces, psychological operations, civil affairs, U.S. Marine Corps Advisor Firm A, and the Polish Territorial Protection Forces.

Ridge Runner is a West Virginia Army Nationwide Guard coaching program that gives varied Nationwide Guard, lively responsibility, and North Atlantic Treaty Group (NATO) allied nation’s armed forces coaching and expertise in irregular and asymmetrical warfare techniques and operations.

In June 2023, Ridge Runner shall be internet hosting its first validation train for fifth Battalion, Nineteenth Special Forces Group. The aim of the train shall be to supply U.S. Particular Operations Command with the premier Irregular Warfare Coaching Middle able to simulating essentially the most advanced particular warfare multi-domain environments to train and validate particular operations forces and to assist joint power commanders worldwide.

Accomplice nation forces from throughout Europe will take part and prepare alongside the 5-Nineteenth SFG throughout the train, which shall be held all through West Virginia.

“That is my first expertise with Ridge Runner and the identical for our firm,” acknowledged U.S. Army Grasp Sgt. Cody (identify withheld for privateness functions). “Our battalion commander has outlined key duties that he desires us to perform, particularly within the irregular warfare realm and getting that basis for working with companion nations that we are going to see downrange is vital. We don’t get plenty of alternatives to coach with our companions stateside until we’re collaborating in a collective coaching. That is my first time coping with a non-Fight Coaching Middle train that has plenty of sources and it’s nice to see the relationships being constructed at this stage that can develop right into a product that shall be useful to what we’d like [during deployment]. It’s actually invaluable to us.”

Throughout the planning convention, attendees refined eventualities, scope, logistics, timelines and coaching lanes to fulfill key aims for the 5-Nineteenth SFG and companion nations who shall be collaborating within the train.

In accordance with West Virginia Nationwide Guard Sergeant Main Jason Smith, deputy director of the Ridge Runner program, West Virginia is the right location for coaching workout routines of this sort.

“West Virginia is an virtually mirror picture to the general terrain and local weather all through Japanese Europe,” he acknowledged. “Internet hosting the Ridge Runner program right here makes excellent sense, permitting U.S. troops the chance to function along with our allies and share of their experience in as shut an atmosphere as attainable to our real-world missions. Offering one of these expertise previous to deployments shall be invaluable shifting ahead, permitting our operators to validate their coaching and giving them the perfect alternatives to achieve success whereas in theatre.”

Together with varied U.S. army participation, members of the Polish Territorial Protection Forces (POL TDF), or Wojska Obrony Terytorialnej (WOT), traveled to West Virginia to take part within the planning with the aim of getting a component of the POL TDF participate within the June 2023 train.

“This has been among the finest relationships the POL TDF has ever established with a companion nation,” acknowledged 2nd Lt. Marek Zaluski, government officer for the POL TDF. “We didn’t know coming right here in 2019 [for Ridge Runner] and constructing this relationship how actual life would confirm it. Right here we’re 10 months into the invasion of our neighbor (Ukraine), and we’re on the point of stop such issues from taking place throughout the NATO territories. We’re grateful and proud to be working with the West Virginia Nationwide Guard, the Nineteenth SFG and your entire Nationwide Guard and U.S. armed forces household on such an vital endeavor.”

The PTDF took half in train Ridge Runner in 2019 alongside the Latvian Zemmessardze the place every nation’s Troopers realized irregular and unconventional warfare techniques from West Virginia’s 2nd Battalion, Nineteenth SFG (Airborne).

Accomplice nation participation within the Ridge Runner program is coordinated by means of the Nationwide Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program, which hyperlinks states and territories with companion nations world wide to foster mutual pursuits, set up long-term relations, improve U.S. nationwide safety pursuits, and promote political stability.

Extra planning conferences shall be held within the coming months to finalize all facets of the train previous to April 2023.

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