CAMP DENALI, Alaska - Citizen Soldiers and Airmen, along their active duty counterparts, are arriving in Alaska this week to participate in a joint exercise that combines the State of Alaska's 'Alaska Shield' exercise, National Guard's 'Vigilant Guard' exercise and Joint Task Force Alaska's 'Arctic Edge'.
This large scale joint exercise, which simulates a response to a large earthquake, includes more than 4,000 participants from 51 organizations and Guard units from seven states to include Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Hawaii, Oregon, Michigan and North Carolina is scheduled to end on May 1.
This year, participants will converge on Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson and several venues near the city of Anchorage as well as locations near Kenai and Valdez, but Guard leaders hope future large scale joint military exercises will be able to use one of Alaska's premier training sites, the Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex (JPARC).
The JPARC, located mainly in central Alaska, with the additional huge maritime portion extending over the Gulf of Alaska, consists of military training airspace, maritime air and surface training space, and land area live-fire training ranges.
This vast stretch of land lies among rivers, mountains, and forests stretching 67,000 miles across the sparsely-populated areas of the Alaska interior and stretches another 44,000 miles into the Gulf of Alaska.
The Alaska National Guard, in partnership with state of Alaska and the Alaskan Railroad, is hopeful that a one-mile long bridge over the Tanana River will make this training dream a reality, said Maj. Gen. Thomas H. Katkus, adjutant general and commissioner of the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
"We want to be able to synchronize our training efforts and bring multiple states together," said Katkus. "JPARC would open up Alaska to the rest of the world."
According to Katkus, the JPARC would combine cold weather training, excellent mountainous terrain and the benefit of long periods of daylight - conditions not dissimilar to those found in Afghanistan.
"The JPARC brings the unique aspects of Alaska - large, all domain, training space, robust base infrastructure, and a culturally-friendly environment for military training - into the joint military training resource mix for all of the Department of Defense," said Mr. Steven Hatter, Alaskan Command's Joint Training and Ranges Administrator during an interview with the U.S. Air Force last June.
"Alaska has in place the infrastructure to support an elaborate exercise such as Vigilant Guard, with air, land, maritime, space, and cyber space domains leveraged with very little concern of encroachment or interference," Hatter said. "The JPARC mission is to provide a highly realistic and effective environment for combat aircrew, ground crew, and command staff, who can focus on joint warfighting skills."
"The JPARC includes, among many other qualities, an $80 million investment that affords our military an urban training scenario with austere landing conditions allowing strategic airlift to go in, land, offload troops, accomplish pararescue drops, and provide close air support (to ground troops)," said Lt. Gen. Dana T. Atkins, commander of Alaskan Command and 11th Air Force.
This year's Vigilant Guard exercise will show that Alaska stands ready to bring to bear our resources and efforts in a synchronized manner to protect our citizens," said Katkus. "We will establish a standard of how we do it here in Alaska and present an example that can be followed by the rest of the nation."