SOUTHWEST ASIA- In the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery Branch knowing your equipment and knowing your crews is absolutely vital to the mission. When an incoming air breathing threat or tactical ballistic missile is on scope, the ability to detect, identify and engage is paramount to protecting your defended assets.

Conducting Operational Readiness Exercises and gunnery tables are the two ways the units are able to gauge their crews and test their ability to conduct ADA operations.

The 31st Air Defense Artillery Brigade Electronic Missile Maintenance Team or EMMO Team has the task of inspecting and certifying all Patriot missile crews across the U.S. Army Central Command Area of Responsibility. The job is met with early-mornings and late-nights but their due diligence ensures that crews are ready at all times to defend critical theater assets.

In April, the 31st ADA Brigade EMMO team conducted the first ever combined EMMO demonstration with their Emirate Air Defense Force counterparts.

The Emirate's had no current system in place to inspect their own crews and were very eager in working towards establishing their own inspection team and standard operating procedure.

"We really wanted to lay the foundation for the Emirates in establishing their own system and help them refine their inspection teams," said Capt. John Jarvis, EMMO team member. "We hope that this particular partnership becomes an enduring mission and can sustain itself long after we redeploy from theater."

The Emirates saw a need to establish an EMMO Team of their own and requested that 31st ADA help them establish their team.

"Anytime you try something new it can be challenging and sometimes scary, we just wanted to show the Emirates how we conduct our evaluations and show them it is a process and not an obstacle to overcome," said Sgt. 1st Class Rusty Bailey, EMMO team member.

The Emirates are manned and operate very similar to U.S. ADA Soldiers so the learning curve wasn't too great but at times the language barrier came in to play.

"One challenge of this trip was establishing a set of common terms. What we discovered through our interaction with our partners is that we each had different terms for very similar events or actions. For example, we conduct Operational Readiness Evaluations or OREs, but our partners don't use that term, they do Ready For Action evaluations. There were multiple examples of terminology differences but as the week progressed, we became more synchronized, leading to an even better level of understanding," said Jarvis.

The ultimate outcome of this was to enhance host-nation partnerships and work towards interoperability between the two countries," said Bailey.

At the close of the training the team was invited to an Emirate promotion ceremony and invited to stay for a traditional meal consisting of lamb meat and rice.

"Change doesn't come easy to people of Middle Eastern culture, what we did this week was historic, we overcame language barriers and frustrations but together we found a solution," said Staff Sgt Donald Davis, EMMO team member.