Redstone Arsenal, Ala. -- Ask any expert and they'll likely tell you the American Army is the best in the world. It achieves that lofty status because of training, and also because of rehearsal which is usually called an exercise. While an exercise isn't the same thing as an actual conflict, it isn't taken lightly. "Oh there's a lot of pressure because we're all about readiness. So we have to be ready to fight across multiple domains, so therefore there's a lot of pressure to make sure they get it right," said Ed Garcia, the Team Lead at the Army Materiel Command's Exercise office.
The Exercise office supports some 60 operations a year. They could be in the states or in any of 140 countries. Many of the practice operations involve getting National Guard and Reserve units ready to deploy. "We coordinate the support of logistics and equipment for those units to get them ready for the real world operations," said Garcia.
Coordination means a lot of things. It could mean getting the right gear to the right unit. It could mean transportation arrangements or just sharing expertise. It most certainly means making sure soldiers understand what the Army Materiel Command does. "Well, there are personnel that know we exist, not necessarily understanding what we do. That'swhy they do the training and exercise to make sure they understand what we provide. We provide the readiness. That's our main goal, to make sure the force is ready to fight," said Garcia.
Remember, everything a soldier eats, wears, shoots, rides, or flies in, the Army Materiel Command provides it. That holds true in any deployment. It's also true if it's only an exercise.