Real-time reporting and requests is making a current U.S.-France collaboration unique among training exercises, with NATO-authorized operations currently serving to cross-train soldiers from both nations, U.S. Army spokespersons revealed recently from a military base in Hohenfels, Germany.
NATO previously certified French Rapid Reaction Corps (RRC-France) along with units from other nations to participate in the ongoing Combined Resolve VIII exercise from May 24 to June 16, allowing RRC-France to provide NATO-oriented training to American troops and others.
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Will Canda, who oversees the RRC-France operation, said because RRC-France members ordinarily undergo only simulated training scenarios, the partnership provides a much more realistic experience.
"Here we have actual subordinate units giving us real-time reports, feedback and (requests for information) that challenge us beyond someone sitting in a room somewhere giving us scripted (events)," Canda said in a release, adding that the interoperability also serves to strengthen NATO’s overall European base on a tactical level.
"Interacting with soldiers conducting training operations in the field provides us with a great opportunity to reconnect with the realities of the conditions they face when executing the orders we produce," French Army Col. François-Xavier Bottet, chief of staff for RRC-France, said in the release.
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