El Paso Times:
A Fort Bliss Patriot battalion took its vehicles and equipment, drove across parts of three states, camped out in the field and participated in a major exercise with the U.S. Marine Corps in Arizona.
The goal was to “put the T for tactical back into Patriot,” said Lt. Col. Scott W. McLellan, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment.
About 200 soldiers from 3-43 ADA drove about 100 vehicles, including most of their Patriot equipment, more than 550 miles each way to and from Yuma, Ariz.
This type of movement is called a tactical vehicle road march. Officials with the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade said this was the largest such movement that one of its units had done in recent memory.
Normally, they would put their vehicles and equipment on tractor-trailers, and soldiers would travel there by bus.
A total out of 350 soldiers from the 400-soldier battalion ended up participating in the five-week-long trip that lasted from mid-September until late October. The rest traveled on buses.
The 3-43 ADA called its part of the exercise Operation Sonora Derby.
Once they got to Yuma, they supported capstone training being done by the Marines, called Weapons Tactics Instruction that took place at the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and the Barry Goldwater Air Force Bombing Range. McLellan described this as the Marine version of “Top Gun” aviator training.
During the exercise, these soldiers worked with Marines who served as air-traffic controllers and as ground-based missile-defense operators. The 3-43 ADA also provided a “more robust” air-defense presence and served as the opposing force against top Marine aviators, McLellan said.
At the same time, the Legion, as it is nicknamed, tested the latest upgrades to the Patriot system’s software, hardware and radar. The 3-43 ADA has been the Army’s test battalion for Patriot modernization efforts since this spring, and that role will continue at least through next summer, McLellan said.
What it added up to was a complex three-fold mission where the Legion got to show off its readiness and tactical skills, said McLellan, from Katonah, N.Y.
“Honestly, we proved that a Patriot battalion can move, emplace and operate tactically in an operational environmental (for a month),” McLellan said.
“We were sitting out in the desert. We were doing our own logistics, our own field feeding, fueling, everything ourselves,” McLellan said.
Often when Patriot units deploy, they fall in on established bases of operation, like an airfield, and use equipment that has already been set up there, McLellan said.
McLellan compared his unit’s trip to Yuma to the type of experience that an armor or infantry unit would get when they go to a place like the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.
Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Foksinski is the noncommissioned officer in charge of signal support for the 3-43 ADA.
Foksinski, of Vacaville, Calif., said his soldiers began equipping vehicles with all the communication gear they needed about 45 days before they left on the training exercise….
