WEGORZEWO, Poland -- An Army Space Support Team from the 2nd Space Company, 1st Space Brigade, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, participated in Exercise Anakonda 2016 which took place in Poland June 7-17.
The 10-day NATO military exercise involving more than 30,000 troops from 24 countries is a Polish national exercise that seeks to train, exercise and integrate the Polish national command and force structures into an allied, joint, multinational environment.
The ARSST assisted the 4th Infantry Division Space Support Element by providing space support to the headquarters to ensure the use of space assets in the military operation.
One of the five ARSST members, Staff Sgt. David Pryor, said the team's purpose was to provide our NATO counterparts with the same kind of space training that we receive.
"Since we are experts at using space we wanted to make sure that we give them as much knowledge and information we could to help them learn how to do it," he explained. "And I think we did that as well as we could with the assets that we were provided."
Capt. Joshua Noble, the ARSST leader, added that some countries don't think they use space for their operations.
"When they are using GPS and other types of satellite communication, they are using space," he said. "We are teaching them how to use space, how important space is, and how important it is to protect our space assets against adversaries."
The team said Exercise Anakonda was a good opportunity to work with NATO and to see how they operate and how we interact with our counterparts.
"It showed us not only how well we work with our counterparts, but it also showed us some of our shortcomings that we can improve upon when working with our partners," Pryor said.
He added it was interesting to see how the communication goes from one echelon asset to another and how we bring those two different ideas into one and make it all work together.
Sgt. Andrew Babico thinks it's important to help our allies establish their own space support teams.
"We need to educate them and help them to develop their own type of self-sustaining planning operation tactics," Babico said. "Space is something that's not always on the front line when it comes to many exercises we do here in the U.S., and it's almost non-existent in terms of NATO or joint operations. If more and more NATO countries establish their own space elements, then it will help everybody communicate a little better in terms of that asset."
Overall, Noble said the team played a successful role in Exercise Anakonda.
"I think we did a good job showing what space can provide to the fight, and how they can use those space products to plan their operations," Noble said.
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