From its headquarters on Arsenal Island, First Army is leading thousands of soldiers in an annual exercise called the Pershing Strike 23. It's designed to test the Army's ability to mobilize during emergencies.
Col. Shawn Creamer is First Army's operations officer. He says the training is important for soldiers and civilian workers to identify potential problems.
"It's important for us to also practice and work through how we would tackle some of these challenges that we have," he said. "And they're not all just based off of an enemy situation, but it's also, how would we deal with a massive hurricane making landfall at one of our training sites? What would that do to our timeline? How would we react?"
The Pershing Strike scenario is different every year. The first one was in 2020.
This year, more than 3,000 soldiers, civilians, and contractors from Illinois, Kansas, Georgia, Indiana, and Wisconsin are participating. And for the first time, representatives from the Army National Guard and Medical Command joined the exercise.
Col. Creamer says the exercise means long days for the soldiers.
"This week, we're doing 15 hour days, so our day starts at 6 o'clock in the morning and it goes until nine p.m. at night."
The details of the First Army exercise are classified. It began last Tuesday and will end Friday.
