CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind. — Advisors with the 1st, 2nd and 54th Security Force Assistance Brigades participated in the Security Force Assistance Command’s validation exercise, Operation Combined Victory, Feb. 5-27, 2024. This exercise tested advisors’ ability to operate within a large-scale combat operation environment, training advisors to make a difference through liaising and supporting allies and partners along with the joint force to win the first fight.
Operation Combined Victory spanned across Camp Atterbury, Muscatatuck Training Center, Jefferson Proving Ground, and Crane Naval Support Activity, Indiana, as well as Fort Knox, Kentucky — dispersing advisors over a nearly 200-square-mile radius.
Unlike the training provided at major centers such as the Joint Readiness Training Center, OCV is tailored specifically for advisors, testing individual and collective certifications of the advisors, and assessing their ability to operate within environments marked by uncertainty, ambiguity and active information warfare.
In some locations across the globe, a small SFAB team is the only conventional U.S. Army presence, living and working alongside our allies and partners on continuous 8-month employments — in competition.
“We operate along the competition to conflict spectrum. When we’re in competition we’re more in the assessing and advising mode, and when we’re in conflict we’re still assessing but we’re more so liaising and supporting our partner force in combat,” said U.S. Army Col. Jason Clarke, 2nd SFAB commander and exercise director.
The contested multi-domain environment that OCV emulates, creates circumstances for Advisors to see the importance of utilizing the Advisor network.
The advisor network is a force multiplier that helps strengthen advisors' ability to quickly assess and then integrate on a joint level to liaise and support their partner force.
Each branch has varying capabilities and methods in which they advise, assess, liaise and support, making it vital for the joint force to train and work together. Training jointly allows advisors to build the continuity they need to leverage different capabilities, forging greater strategic depth and sustainability within their operations worldwide.
In doing so, advisors are enhancing their interoperability which allows them to be a greater force multiplier in large-scale combat operations.
“It has been amazing learning how each of us advise in our respective services and finding out how to come together in a joint environment to execute operations efficiently and effectively with our partner forces," said U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Joel Sanchez, 818 Mobility Support Advisory Squadron.
Leveraging the advisor network to liaise and support allies and partners throughout the competition to conflict continuum introduces ambiguity for advisors. Observers, coach/trainers were there to help advisors work through that ambiguity in this training scenario.
“Any coaching points we have are helping them get through the friction points of: you’ve built rapport with a partner, you’ve integrated, you’re shoulder to shoulder with your partner, and in an advisor role; now it’s not just their plan, it’s our plan, so the advisors need to take on the end state, future, effects, and the livelihood of our partners,” said Maj. Matt Heath, 1st SFAB OC/T.
What has been observed in training has proven invaluable to the advisor teams by increasing their readiness to liaise and support the first fight.
“We’re looking to better ourselves in the realm of what it looks like to advise during a combat scenario. What we’ve been used to is more so the competition phase, so now we’re looking at how we fit into the conflict phase.” said Maj. Phil Hetteburg, 1st SFAB team leader.
"Even if we spend 99 percent of the time in competition, if we aren’t ready for that 1 percent in conflict, that is an organizational hurdle for us to get through, and this exercise is really bringing that out,” said Heath. “As the scenario plays out and the teams see how much the partner force relies on them and their input, they’re building the confidence and competence to inject themselves into the fight.”
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