Jackal Stone Promotes Special Operations Partnerships

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON – The scenario for the Jackal Stone 2012 special operations exercise taking place in Croatia reads like a Hollywood thriller.

A criminal gang infiltrated an industrial plant in the fictional nation of Freedonia, stealing nuclear, biological and chemical material to pass to a terrorist organization. Commandos from U.S. Special Operations Command Europe teamed up with special police from Croatia’s Interior Ministry to track down the perpetrators and recover the material.

The recovery – following an action-packed mission – wasn’t the end of the story. An analysis revealed that the insurgents behind the plot had tentacles extending deep into Freedonia. They had to be stopped.

Freedonia turned for help to the United Nations, which in turn, called on NATO to intervene with military forces. NATO declined, citing force commitments in Afghanistan and elsewhere, but urged individual member nations to form a coalition.

Eleven nations stepped forward, with the United States taking the lead. U.S. and Romanian company commanders command two ground task forces, and a Norwegian is leading the maritime component.

“We formed this coalition, and now we are going to take on the Freedonian insurgency problem,” Army Maj. Gen. Michael S. Repass, commander of Special Operations Command Europe, told American Forces Press Service by phone from Croatia.

That sets the stage for Jackal Stone, an annual multinational exercise designed to build special operations capabilities and improve interoperability among European partner nations.

The two-part exercise began earlier this month with a bilateral U.S.-Croatian counterterrorism exercise and expanded into a multinational, multi-echelon counterinsurgency scenario that continues into next week.

About 700 U.S. participants are on the ground, working alongside special operators and enabling forces from 10 partner nations as they apply capabilities many have honed together in Afghanistan.

“To the extent possible, Afghanistan has informed everything that we are doing during this exercise,” said Repass, who serves as Jackal Stone’s coalition commander.

About 60 role-players, many portraying insurgents, add realism to the scenario.

“This is a live exercise, full up,” Repass said. “We have role players, people who have taken on the personas of insurgents and are living those personas. And we have multiple sources of intelligence collecting on these personas in the operating environment.”

That includes many of the intelligence sources in use in Afghanistan, including human intelligence and imagery from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flying overhead, he said. Participants also conduct post-mission analyses, applying biometrics from a database created especially for the exercise, and exploiting intelligence from seized cell phones and computers.

“So we have a very sophisticated operation at the tactical level that will feed intelligence upward, creating a much more robust intelligence picture,” Repass said. “At the same time, we are getting national-level Freedonian and international intelligence feeding into us, and we are pushing that down to the tactical units.”

While exercising as they would operate in a real-world scenario, the participants are improving their ability to work together as they apply what NATO calls “smart defense,” Repass said.

The basic premise is to leverage each other’s capabilities to build stronger teams to serve in a coalition or NATO operation, he explained. “You provide tactical units up to your level of ability and your nation’s willingness to do so, and you team up with another capable partner,” he said.

Repass pointed to the International Security Assistance Force special operations structure in Afghanistan as a tangible demonstration of that concept. Stood up about four years ago, it has grown to an estimated 2,000 operators from about 18 countries.

Jackal Stone is building on this capability, Repass said, strengthening participants’ collective ability to plan and execute combined and joint multinational operations with host-nation support from civil and governmental agencies.

That’s fundamental to realizing the vision of Navy Adm. William H. McRaven, the Special Operations Command commander, of a special operations force network, postured for global challenges.

While ensuring special operations have the equipment and technical ability to operate together, Repass said the exercise helps strengthen the relationships that underpin their operations.

“One of the fundamental truths of this whole endeavor is that you can’t build trust in a crisis. You have to have long relationships, and this is strictly done in the human domain,” he said.

“The more we develop these relationships, the better we will work together in the future,” Repass said. “The more capable and interoperable our militaries are, the better we will be as a community to achieve common goals of security, stability and peace.”

New Defense Health Headquarters Opens in Virginia

By Terri Moon Cronk

American Forces Press Service

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – Top leaders in Army, Navy and Air Force medicine are now housed under one roof for the first time to direct the future of military medicine to stay relevant, strong and effective for service members in harm's way, the Defense Department’s top health affairs official said here today as the new Defense Health Headquarters officially opened.

Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs and director of TRICARE Management Activity, spoke at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new headquarters, a product of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act.

"Today signifies a beginning, and not an end," Woodson said. "Today is about a promise we make to the men and women who serve, the American people and to the U.S. Congress that we are committed to be the [best] military medical force going into the future."

The BRAC move put medical people and organizations physically together, which has benefits that are not necessarily captured on organizational charts, he said, adding that Congress knew there would be a greater return on the investment as time marched along.

"For decades, we worked effectively together on all of the issues that affect military medicine," he said. "So we are not fixing something that is broken -- we are strengthening our system for the future."

The move of key military medical personnel into one building will bring a new era between the services -- a joint approach and enterprise decision making, which is important to make the U.S. military better in the future and to have a medically ready force, Woodson said. "There's nothing that can replace face-to-face conversation," he added.

"The [Base Realignment and Closure Commission] understood that we have a shared mission and a shared vision, Woodson said. “They understood that patient care and the responsibilities for overseeing that care cannot be finely sliced and put into organizational boxes. There are many overlapping lines, … especially as we've seen in the last 10 years of war. We stood shoulder to shoulder delivering that care on the battlefield.”

The new facility is important to readiness because the Defense Department needs more enterprise solutions for a medically ready force. "We need approaches to mental and physical health and conditioning,” he added, “so this allows us to develop uniform policy around being medically ready."

Another component to being medically ready in theater involves providing a skilled medical workforce to be on land, sea and in the air to deliver on the promise of care, he said.

"This also allows for the efficient planning of medical training platforms that are so important, particularly in an era where the training is technologically dependent,” he said.

The years ahead are going to be different, Woodson said. "We are expected to be more agile and efficient, with a more joint and enterprise focus in how we reach and implement decisions. The Congress, the services and the American taxpayers demand it of us."

Chief of Staff Looks Back, Ahead as Air Force Observes 65th Birthday

By Claudette Roulo

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2012 – The chief of staff of the Air force saluted the men and women of the force today, the 65th birthday of the service, by saying air power starts with heroic airmen who just “keep coming.”

Gen. Mark A. Welsh III told the Air Force Association’s annual meeting here airmen carry on a rich history that began in September 1861, when U.S. Army aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe raised himself in a balloon 1,000 feet above Confederate lines and telegraphed their locations via a line he'd carried up for that purpose. Union artillery then fired into their ranks. It was the first application of indirect fire in the U.S. military, Welsh said.

The successes of airmen continued into World War I with the Lafayette Escadrille, the general said, when "all of a sudden aviation was romantic and fighter pilots were incredibly handsome and attractive."

In World War II, "the heroes kept coming," he said, noting Billy Mitchell, Jimmy Doolittle, "Hap" Arnold and others. "And they keep coming," he added.

About a month ago, Welsh said, he visited the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, Del., "and met the airmen who are involved in that incredibly important work." One of them, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the dress and wrapping section, is an Air Force reservist who has deployed 10 times to work in the mortuary, he said.

Airmen like this demonstrate how the Air Force values family, the general said: “everybody's family, [and] every member of every family." Welsh did make news about one member of the Air Force family, announcing the retirement of Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Roy.

The Air Force also values innovation, Welsh said, citing the F-22 Raptor fighter jet as “an entire farm of innovation.”

“It does something no airplane can do and no airplane will be able to do for a while,” he said. “Part of the reason we have issues like the life support issues we're dealing with now is we've never had an airplane that could operate, maneuver and pull G's above 50,000 feet -- not the way this thing can. We're into a new era.”

The Air Force has had to revise its priorities following every war since World War I, Welsh pointed out. "And now,” he added, “here we sit at another one of those turning points."

What the Air Force becomes in the next few years, Welsh said, "might not be who we were." Budget pressures and the threat of sequestration – which would double projected defense spending cuts over the next decade -- make it "time for an honest look in the mirror," he said.

Welsh said one of the things he's realized is that people don't understand all that the Air Force is doing -- sometimes not even the leadership. This, he said, is both an incredible testimony and a little worrisome. It means those the Air Force supports don't worry about air power because it's always where it's needed, he explained, but it also means they don't know what goes into making that reliability happen.

"My concern is that we're not telling our own story well enough," he said.

This concern, Welsh said, led him to go back to the basics. He went back to Executive Order 9877, the order that defined the duties of the Air Force after its establishment in 1947.

"Here's some of the stuff it says: air superiority, strategic air forces, air reconnaissance, airlift, air support for ground forces. … They haven't changed,” Welsh said. “These are still the things that our combatant commanders expect us to deliver."

Air Force air superiority drives the way the ground components operate, he said. "If we are not able to gain and maintain air superiority -- which is not a given, and it's not easy -- if we were unable to do that in a future conflict, … then everything about the way the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps fight on the ground would have to change -- what they buy, how they train [and] maybe even who they recruit."

The Air Force, the chief of staff said, needs to make it clear to everyone that air superiority "is a foundational element of the use of air power and of joint war fighting. Period."

Two of the three elements that provide nuclear deterrence for the United States are in the Air Force inventory, he said, and the nuclear mission will remain a primary focus. "We can't afford to ever get this wrong."

The air support and surveillance missions have evolved rapidly over the past 65 years, with much of that change happening within the last 20 years, Welsh said. "I don't think anybody in 1947 could have imagined what [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] would become," he added.

And the demand for intelligence keeps growing, he said. "There isn't enough money in the universe to fund the [intelligence] requirement that we have in the Department of Defense,” he told the audience. “What we buy has to be thoughtfully considered."

No one has accomplished the mobility mission as well as the U.S. Air Force, Welsh said. "We fly 60,000 airlift sorties a year," he said. "Excellence is the way of doing business in our mobility fleet."

Welsh said he is a believer in the cyber mission, but he's "just not sure we know exactly what we're doing in it yet.”

“And until we do,” he said, “I'm concerned it's a black hole."

Cyber professionals need to use common sense and plain English to explain their roles, Welsh said. "This is essential,” he said. “This is the future. It's an air, space and cyber future, there's no doubt in my mind."

The Air Force matters, the general said. "Today, all over the world, we are moving people and equipment -- some into some pretty ugly spots," he said.

Every day, he added, the Air Force is conducting convoys, flying intelligence missions for every combatant commander, fighting on the battlefield alongside the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, flying spacecraft and defusing improvised explosive devices.

"It's important that we tell that story," he said.

Married Couple Pins Each Other as Chief Petty Officers

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (SW) Austin Rooney, USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Public Affairs

NORFOLK (NNS) -- Chief Operations Specialist (SW/AW) Priscilla Jones and Chief Master-at-Arms (SW) Mark Jones, who have been married for eight years, pinned anchors on each other during two separate chief pinning ceremonies at the Waterside Marriott Hotel in Norfolk and Naval Station Norfolk, Sept. 14.

Priscilla, stationed aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), and Mark, stationed at Naval Station Norfolk Security, said they both shared the goal of being promoted to chief petty officer for years, but seeing both of their names on the list of selectees at the same time shocked them.

"I really didn't expect I'd make chief this time up," said Priscilla. "I thought my husband would make it, but not both of us."

Mark disagreed, saying he always thought his wife would get the promotion before he did. Upon realizing that they both made it together, he said he felt blessed.

"I'm so glad she was able to pin me, and I was able to do the same for her," said Mark. "She's been with me through most of my career, and we've made a lot of sacrifices to be together. So, this is like a reward for both of us."

Ever since the two met aboard USS Tortuga (LSD 26) in 1999, they knew that they would have to make sacrifices beyond what a normal couple would make as a result of being dual-military. For much of their relationship, Mark would be at sea and Priscilla at shore, and vice versa. Still, the two were able to maintain their commitment to the Navy and each other successfully.

"It's really important to leave work at work," said Priscilla. "Spending time at home should be relaxing. If you can keep those two separate, then it makes the relationship a lot easier."

When they found out that they had been selected, both Priscilla and Mark knew they would be spending the next few weeks apart, since they would be attending different induction activities in different places. After five weeks of waking up at three in the morning and coming home at nine in the evening, the couple said being able to attend each other's pinning ceremonies made the entire process worth it.

"I think we were really lucky, and we both deserved it," said Priscilla. "Words can't even describe how good it felt. It was the best experience in the world."

Now that the couple are both chiefs, they have new goals lined up for their future careers in the Navy. Mark said he plans on transitioning to the wardroom next, while Priscilla said she has her eyes set on making senior chief.

Since Priscilla's ceremony at the Waterside Marriott in Norfolk happened two hours earlier than her husband's in building C-9 on Naval Station Norfolk, she jokingly insists that she made chief before he did.

"I already made chief before Mark did," said Priscilla, laughing. "I think I'll get my senior chief star before he does too."