About 500 active-duty soldiers from Texas are training with a National Guard unit from north Mississippi at Camp Shelby, a 134,000-acre National Guard training center in Hattiesburg.
The Hattiesburg American reports that, all told, about 4,600 soldiers are participating in the exercises to train active soldiers, reserve soldiers and the National Guard together.
"This is the first time that we've had this kind of exercise at Camp Shelby," said Maj. Gen. Augustus L. Collins, adjutant general of Mississippi and commanding general of both the Mississippi Army and Air Force National Guard.
The soldiers include about 500 members of the 1st Calvary Division, 3rd Brigade Combat Team from Fort Hood, Texas, about 300 Army reservists, and members of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team, based in Tupelo.
Civilians were able to watch drills including field medicine practice, directed artillery fire and surveillance drone launchings on Friday.
"This is a step-up exercise and about as much training under one scenario as we can get," said Col. Jeffrey P. Van, commander of the 155th Armored Combat Brigade. "It's as live as we can project here at Camp Shelby.
This summer's training focuses on the coordinated efforts of individual soldiers acting as a platoon, which can vary in size but normally boasts 30-plus members.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
The exercises, called "Exportable Combat Training Capability," began in mid-July and will continue through mid-August.
The 155th is scheduled to visit Fort Hood next summer for training that will emphasis the movement of troops in larger components known as companies before it heads to Fort Irwin National Training Center in the Mojave Desert for training at the battalion/brigade level.
"One of the things that we are trying to achieve here is total force integration," Collins said. "You have the National Guard, United States Army Reserve and the active Army component all coming together for training exercises because that's the way we fight.
"When you go to war, it's not a situation where you have the National Guard over here and active Army over there. We're all integrated into the war and the fight, and if we're going to be that way during a war, then we need to be that way when we train."
