FRIDAY FOTO (May 14, 2021)

Bright Lights, Big Airplane.

(Army photo by Staff Sergeant Christopher S. Muncy) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

Soldiers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division and Britain’s 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, board a C-17 Globemaster III airlifter at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina on May 7, 2021.

The paratroopers were on their way to  Defender-Europe 21, a massive training exercise designed to build readiness and interoperability between the United States its NATO allies and partner militaries.

The exercise, which is taking place over vast stretch of Europe from the Netherlands to Greece, will integrate approximately 28,000 multinational forces from 26 nations to conduct nearly simultaneous operations across more than 30 training areas in 12 countries.

For example, during the week of  May 9, the Virginia class submarine USS New Mexico, arrived in Tromso, Norway. Exercises will be on-going in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany and North Macedonia.

In addition to U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy units, 2,100 National Guard soldiers from Alabama, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia are participating.

It has taken months to roll out the operation.

In March, equipment and personnel from the United States began moving to Europe. In April U.S. Army Pre-positioned Stocks were drawn from sites in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands — then moved to various training areas via truck convoy, rail or barge. That phase of the exercise demonstrated U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s ability to maintain a deterrent posture in northern Europe while concurrently shifting forces to other areas of the theater of operations. The bulk of activities are occurring in May.