“This was a seven-day exercise beginning with a joint forcible entry, last Monday, that saw 2,100 paratroopers exiting from 23 aircraft, including two British aircraft, onto a drop zone,” said Lt. Col. Mike Shervington, commander of the British 3 PARA. “That was the first major way-point that we had to hit. Subsequent to them, we had a bunch of company-group air assaults. We had a noncombatant evacuation operation. We had some ambushes. We had some [chemical and biological weapon] operations. A whole level of low-level drills building up towards the end of the exercise being this battle-group attack to destroy this training camp.”
“Always, and every time we train, it’s readiness,” continued Ryan. “It’s rapid deployability. Readiness is our watchword here in the 82nd Airborne Division. We have to be prepared to go at a moment’s notice.”
There were extraordinary efforts and resources put into C-JOAX 15-01 by both of the airborne organizations and it had to accomplish a number of significant effects, according to the task force’s commander.
Paratroopers of the British 16 Air Assault Brigade conduct an assault on an enemy stronghold as the culminating event for Combined Joint Operational Access Exercise 15-01 on Fort Bragg, N.C., April 18, 2015. 82nd Airborne Division photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Hull
“I would say there are several… purposes for this exercise,” said Ryan. “The first is interoperability: ensuring seamless integration of a U.K. battle group, a battalion-sized formation, under the mission command and control of a U.S. brigade combat team.”
However, proving the seamless integration of an Anglo-American task force was only one of the key objectives. As always, JOAX validates the ability of the 82nd Airborne Division and its Air Force partners to fulfill the Global Response Force mission.
“Always, and every time we train, it’s readiness,” continued Ryan. “It’s rapid deployability. Readiness is our watchword here in the 82nd Airborne Division. We have to be prepared to go at a moment’s notice.”
Advertising that capability, especially as part of a multinational force, is paramount to the effort of keeping peace in a tumultuous and often violent world.
“We always want to get after the third purpose of this, which is communicating our readiness and our interoperability globally to our allies, for readiness, and to our enemies, our foes, to make sure they understand what we can do on a moment’s notice as well,” Ryan concluded.