Members of the Ohio and Tennessee National Guards joined soldiers from nine other countries to enhance military cooperation and interoperability during Platinum Wolf 18, a multinational peacekeeping exercise conducted at the Serbian Armed Forces’ South Base and Borovac Training Area.
During Platinum Wolf, soldiers from all participating nations had the opportunity to share best practices and learn new techniques that could be incorporated into their own forces.
“I personally loved going through with the Serbian counterterrorism unit and [learning] the room clearing techniques,” said SGT Joshua Condon, squad leader for Ohio’s 838th Military Police Company. “Their techniques are very similar to everything that we’ve trained on, but I loved watching them do it. That’s all they trained to do, so they are very smooth. You can see how, by operating on such a small level with so much repetition, you can get very good at those tactics. Our guys got to learn how to better move and communicate in that small, tight environment. I know they really enjoyed that.”
Having a diverse set of participants created a few challenges when it came to communication. But in working closely together, participants were ultimately able to see how similar their communication tactics actually were.
“The biggest hurdle we overcame was the communication barrier,” said 2LT Tim Kurfiss, platoon leader for the 838th. “There are a bunch of different countries sharing the same mission, but not necessarily speaking the same language. We had to make sure everyone had a good understanding of what was going to happen. Many of the acronyms and words that we use to describe things are the same, so that helped a lot.”
SGT Condon also commented on the units’ ability to surpass initial challenges and successfully achieve the group’s common objective.
“When we conducted cordon and search operations with the Romanians and Bulgarians, it was a big challenge,” explained SGT Condon. “But it was cool to see all the groups come together and overcome. There was a language barrier and there’s different opinions on tactics, but we were able to successfully coordinate the group training.”
