On June 13 Commander of the U.S. Army in Europe (USAREUR) Lieutenant General Donald B. Campbell paid a formal visit to the USAREUR's multinational exercise in the Baltic States Saber Strike 2014 at this moment running in Lithuania too.
Lieutenant General M. Campbell met with Officer Conducting the Exercise in Lithuania Major General Almantas Leika, Commander of the Lithuanian Land Force, leadership of the IInd Brigade of the Danish Division, soldiers of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Algirdas Mechanised Infantry Battalion, the 56th Stryker Combat Team of the U.S. Pennsylvania National Guard and members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade taking part in the exercise.
"They have made history, because we have the U.S. Strykers of the Pennsylvania National Guard for the first time in Lithuania. We need to demonstrate that we will continue to be one army as we come out of Afghanistan, as we come out of Iraq. This is a great opportunity to show our capability and reassurance to our allies and partners. And to show that we are ready to tackle any challenges through cooperation with Lithuanian and Polish troops. Exercise Saber Strike 2014 will continue into the future with enhanced allied capabilities, I hope," LTG M.Campbell said.
According to General, such experience is priceless for all of the allies allowing to enhance the cooperation in multinational environment.
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Expanding each year encompasses a growing number of NATO and partner states. This year Exercise Saber Strike 2014 is training a record number of approximately 4.5 thousand participants from 10 NATO and partner nations - Canada, Denmark, Estonia, the U.S.A., the UK, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland and Finland. Several hundreds of the exercise training audience is training in Estonia, around 2 thousand in Latvia.
Approximately 2.3 thousand participants from 7 NATO allies, Lithuania, Estonia, the United States, Latvia, Poland and Finland will train together in Lithuania.
The majority of the exercise training audience were deployed by Denmark - approximately 900 troops have brought an impressive arsenal of the Danish Division: Leopard 2 A5 main tanks, CV 9035 infantry combat vehicles, G4 modification of M113 armoured personnel carriers, Piranha infantry combat vehicles, Duro armoured medical trucks, etc.
Photo credits: 1LT Andrius Dilda
