FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. - Sweden’s top Army officer visited New York Army National Guard Soldiers from the 42nd Infantry Division conducting a command post exercise at Fort Indiantown Gap Nov. 17-20.
Maj. Gen. Jonny Lindfors, Sweden’s chief of Army, the equivalent to the U.S. Army’s chief of staff, led a delegation of officers to the Pennsylvania National Guard base to observe a division headquarters in action.
The division headquarters Soldiers were preparing for their Warfighter exercise.
In July, the New York National Guard and the Swedish military signed a State Partnership Program agreement. This was the first time the Swedes visited one of the 42nd Infantry Division’s exercises.
“The immediate goals are to get a knowledge of our respective nations’ capabilities and what we are able to do together, and we have identified a number of objectives already,” Lindfors said. “In a couple of weeks, we will have a number of officers and Soldiers from the Guard coming over to Sweden to do basic arctic leader’s training. Then, in the new year, we will do some wet gap crossing and exercises together.”
The state partnership between New York and Sweden focuses on shared values and training that will build relationships and improve capabilities for both military forces.
Lindfors said the New York National Guard’s operational and planning strengths, including river crossings, responding to chemical disasters, and border and customs control, are areas where the two organizations will share knowledge and training.
“Your division is doing a lot of planning on the wet gap crossing and the operation part of it. What we are really good at is the really technical level of wet gap crossing, with running water, cold and icy conditions,” Lindfors said. “We can merge (this) knowledge together. We’re bringing technical knowledge to the game as the 42nd division will come with the operational knowledge of how to fit into a large-scale operation.”
Maj. Gen. Jack A. James Jr., the commanding general of the 42nd Infantry Division, said he looks forward to working with Sweden.
“With the situation in Europe, Sweden coming into NATO is very important and is critical to shoring up everyone’s collective security,” James said. “I truly believe in this as an enduring and fruitful partnership.”
As senior leaders showcased the division’s capabilities to their Swedish counterparts, the Soldiers of the 42nd Infantry Division and subordinate unit Soldiers from the 42nd Infantry Division Artillery, the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and the 369th Sustainment Brigade trained for nearly five days to prepare for the Warfighter exercise.
A Warfighter is a simulated exercise to train and evaluate Army division-sized elements on mission command in large-scale combat operations.
The 42nd Infantry Division Soldiers will conduct their Warfighter, alongside the 10th Mountain Division, in January as part of the division’s premobilization training for their deployment to the Middle East in 2025.
“The Army has shifted focus to the ability to conduct (operations) against peer and near-peer threats,” James said.
While the division is to deploy to the Middle East, he said it must be ready to deploy anywhere in any regional combatant command.
“Warfighter is the premier training event to operate in that environment,” James said. “It is our premier training event, it is the Army’s premier training event, and it is the hardest thing people will do. It will challenge people intellectually, mentally and even physically.”
During the week-long exercise, forces and events were simulated in a notional environment as the commander and staff planned, coordinated, synchronized and exercised command and control during the mission.
The division and its subordinate brigades created six command posts spread across Fort Indiantown Gap to mimic the dispersal of forces in an operational environment.
Command Sgt. Maj. Arnold Reyes, the division’s senior enlisted leader, attributed the skill of the division’s Soldiers to their training in the year’s prior two command post exercises.
Those exercises, along with smaller internal training events, allowed the division’s troops to form bonds within their sections and across teams and companies, letting them begin CPX 3 with a solid foundation of teamwork.