CFB Suffield hosting 13 NATO allies for defense training

Training involves creating mock scenarios to be able to sample grounds for safety and to nail down safe and effective practices.

Lieutenant-Colonel Trevor Waaga said that the aim of the exercise is to prepare for dangerous environments and to learn new techniques in case different countries are deployed together.

“This is important because it allows different countries to work together and learn the different things like caveats, different tips, techniques and procedures,” Wahga said.

“We can kind of standardize the procedures somewhat.”

NATO’s newest member had representation.

Swedish Captain Axel Boatright said that exercises like this allows comaraderie and familiarity to grow.

Boatright said Sweden has wanted to participate in the exercises for awhile, and new NATO membership has given them access to learn from some of the world’s best.

“The key takeaways we’ve been taking away from here is the way other countries work, especially in situations where we feel like we can improve,” Boatright said.

“We have adapted to that and we’ve been able to try those out here at this exercise and I’d say we have given information to the other teams here as well for the same thing.”

Head of training Boyd Garrecht said that simulated exercises in controlled environments are important for international co-operation.

“They get to work together as individual nations for the first three days to sort out any internal issues they may have and then during the last six days of the exercise,” Garrecht said.

“Afterwards, we jumble up all the different assets the nations have and put them into separate task forces where now they would have to work as if they were actually deployed on a NATO operation.”

Garrecht said that the success of the exercise is due in large part to countries taking it seriously, adding that the exercises help build confidence for service members encountering the situations in the first place.

“There has been very positive of the feedback that I’ve gotten. They can’t do this training. There’s not a lot of places to do it, so they really enjoy the experience,” Garrecht said.

“They like the real tasks that they’ve been given because it relates to what they actually would be tasked to do on operations.”

The training exercises will be completed by the end of next week.

by Adrian St.Onge

CFB Suffield hosting 13 NATO allies for defense training

Our Community