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NEWS | Aug. 1, 2024

First Army joins enterprise partners for Pershing Strike 24

By Warren W. Marlow

ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Illinois - If the nation requires a large-scale mobilization, First Army and its enterprise partners must be ready to deliver.

As such, First Army joined with those partners for Pershing Strike 24, a command post exercise, which began July 29 and runs through August 8. The annual large-scale exercise simulates mobilization at installations nationwide and serves to validate the Army's ability to mobilize forces for Large Scale Mobilization Operations (LSMO).

The event incorporates mobilization exercises conducted at mobilization force generation installations, as well as First Army headquarters at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois. Also participating are staff members from First Army Division East and First Army Division West, at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Cavazos, Texas, respectively.

Pershing Strike serves to enhance First Army’s ability to provide pre- and post-mobilization training and support to Reserve component partners to help enable them to deploy in support of a combatant commander. The process gives insight into the effort, coordination, and cooperation that would be required of First Army and its enterprise partners in event of a LSMO.

During Pershing Strike 24, units and Soldiers are being hit with an array of challenges they must respond to quickly, efficiently, and professionally. Injects, be they related to weather, personnel, or logistics, require participants to react and adapt. It makes for relevant and focused training, and is part of continually evolving process, according to Robert Finnegan, First Army chief of operations.

“It’s going very well. We’re well ahead of where we were last year,” he said. “We’ve built on each exercise, took lessons learned, and applied them.”

As one example, First Army this year is employing a Virtual Joint Operating Center Application, which Finnegan calls “a tool that enables us to see the systems that make up the common operating picture.”

The exercise is also employing a real word mobilization exercise at Fort Riely, Kansas, as well as operational command posts at both First Army divisions and liaison officer and exercise control officers from First Army enterprise partners.

Training objectives for the exercise include: Establishing command post operations; conducting mission analysis; implementing the battle rhythm; developing a running estimate; managing information and data; publish the Common Operating Picture; and conducting Knowledge Management.

This is the fourth year of the annual exercise, with lessons learned from previous Pershing Strikes helping the shape the next iteration. Ideally, participants will leave the exercise with a shared understanding of what is required to successfully execute a LSMO. It’s all geared toward First Army and its partners leaving the exercise better than when they started.

"We want to learn these lessons during an exercise and not during a national emergency," said Col. Stuart James, a Senior Army Advisor for the Army National Guard from Pennsylvania, who served as an observer and controller. "We are learning a lot. There's a fair amount of staff turnover every year, and it's critical to educate our new teammates on the processes and procedures, in order to synchronize the mobilization of Component 2 and 3 units and Soldiers."

After the exercise, the process continues. Lessons learned will be taken back to respective installations, added to standard operating procedures, drilled on again and integrated into a system that will have First Army ready to deliver trained and ready troops if called upon.