Four Indiana National Guard soldiers talked with reporters at the Pentagon today about the experiences they had training alongside Australian, Japanese and Indonesian service members as part of the Defense Department's “Showcasing lethality” series.
The soldiers – from the 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team – were the first from the Guard to lead one of the annual U.S. Indo-Pacific Command series of Pacific Pathways exercises, said Army Command Sgt. Maj. James R. Gordon, the state command sergeant major.
The exercise is a way to build expeditionary readiness while at the same time reinforcing the U.S. Army's commitment to its allies and partners in the Pacific region, the sergeant major said.
A battalion from the brigade went to each of the countries. Army Sgt. Samuel Gawaluck, a squad leader with the 2nd Battalion, 151st Infantry, said his unit trained right alongside a Japanese unit.
“For the first part of the training, it was about chemical warfare, urban operations and platoon attacks,” the Lafayette, Indiana, police officer said. “We also conducted a bilateral field training exercise for three days that culminated with both militaries assaulting an urban area.”
The American and Japanese soldiers would observe each other as they pressed an attac, or cleared a building, giving soldiers from both…
