FORT DRUM, N.Y. (Oct. 22, 2015) -- It's not too often that the 10th Mountain Division Sustainment Brigade is afforded an opportunity to train side by side with Army National Guardsmen, but during the second week in October, the "Muleskinner" Brigade trained with the 371st Sustainment Brigade out of Springfield, Ohio, at the Mission Training Center at Fort Drum.
The command post exercise was a weeklong event that focused on evaluating the support operations' ability to react to sustainment scenarios that could happen in a force-on-force or direct-action environment.
The scenario included rocket attacks on storage yards, large numbers of contaminated food rations, tracking convoys throughout the area of responsibility as well as all classes of supply for the simulated division and supported units.
"This training allows us to exercise our minds on what we would do during certain scenarios," said Sgt. Maj. Tom Shank, 10th Mountain Division Sustainment Brigade support operations sergeant major. "It also allows us to exercise mission command and make decisions on our own."
What made the training event unique was the handful of staff members assigned to 371st Sustainment Brigade who were integrated into the team. Members from the brigade operations section, human resources operations branch, support operations and senior staff members worked together with the Muleskinner Family, learning and sharing with one another.
"We are a partner brigade with the 10th Mountain Division Sustainment Brigade through the Total Force Partnership Program," said Capt. Chris Ballard, battalion operations officer assigned to 371st Sustainment Brigade. "We're here assisting in the program anyway we can."
The Total Force Partnership Program, which is the pairing of active Army and reserve component formations, was designed to promote informal leader development. It also pushes the units to find shared training opportunities and trade lessons learned.
The members selected to take part in the Muleskinner's CPX were hand-picked as the best suited for the mission.
"We're here to find the best practices and resources to take home with us because we have our own command post exercise coming up next July," said Sgt. Maj. Tim Smith, operations sergeant major assigned to 371st Sustainment Brigade. "We're going to be doing the same thing, so we are seeing what doesn't work and what actually does work so we can take it back and prepare ourselves a little better."
Soldiers of 371st Sustainment Brigade are slated for a deployment in 2017. During previous deployments, the brigade has supported divisions without any issues, and some Soldiers said that it's due to training events like this one.
"I find that while down range, our patches don't really matter because the mission precludes anything else," Ballard said.
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