JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Washington -- Warfighter Exercises are the culminating training event for units to assess their ability to deploy and the readiness of all the Soldiers and equipment. Some of the most important tasks for organizations is to train to uphold standards, provide proof of competency, focus on areas for improvement, improve employee confidence in their skills and enhance the credibility of the organization. These are all focuses and important when the Army does culminating training exercises at each level of echelons in commands.
The 593rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command ensured its Soldiers maintaining proficiency as an early mission command headquarters during a two-week Warfighter Exercise, WFX 20-03, from February 3 to 14. The goal of this exercise was to test all the systems and ensure the ESC is ready for any operation. "Warfighter Exercises are important to bring all of our staff sections together to synchronize operations and processes to ensure we are nested with higher and our subordinate units are supported to the fullest," said Col. Gary Grubb, the chief of staff for 593rd ESC. "Exercises like this take a lot of work and coordination because we are working with many moving parts across different units and locations."
America's First Corps, 25th Infantry Division, 40th Infantry Division, 593rd ESC and subordinate units trained together across multiple locations including Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
"It is important for ESC Soldiers to understand their role as it plays into the overall fight and how they are supporting America's First Corps," said Sgt. Maj. Ramon Trujillo, the senior communications noncommissioned officer. "When Soldiers understand their contribution, it provides the 'so what' to the Soldiers and empowers them to be able to sustain and complete their job. This is another part of maintaining Soldier readiness and allows them to master fundamental and advanced skills of their job."
One of the key tasks during a large exercise like the WFX was to ensure all units achieved training objectives and integrating all staff sections and new staff and personnel into the process to include service members from each of Army components are part of this exercise; active duty, Reserve, and National Guard. "We have many new Soldiers in the ESC, and training exercises like this are important to give them realistic training, preparation and confidence as we train how we will fight and truly develop as a team," said Command Sgt. Maj. Frank M. Graham, the 593rd ESC command sergeant major.
WFX 20-03 is the culminating training event after three previous exercises in the past year to building up to this validation exercise to include Combined Command Post Exercise 19-02, WFX 20-01 and Yama Sakura 77.