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Exercise Cobra Gold 2011

By admin on February 11, 2011 in Khon Kaen Retirement / no comments / 522 views

It is that time of the year again for Exercise Cobra Gold. The time of year when the Thai military and the U.S. military get together for the annual Cobra Gold Exercise.

Also participating in this year’s exercise is South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. This will be the first time for Malaysia.

I was fortunate to participate in 4 of these Cobra Gold exercises, 3 times as a soldier and once as a government contractor.

In 1997, I was in charge of the Cable and Wire team in Phitsanulok that installed approximately 500 phones that connected to our switchboard providing communications internally and out to the rest of the world. This was my unit, the 804th Signal Company, and it was our first venture into a joint military exercise.

I didn’t get to go in 1998, but I again went in 1999 and this time it was in the Isaan area, Korat. The 804th Signal Company already had two CG’s under their belt, so this time it was much easier and I got to play an entirely different role working in the J-7 and planning what to do when a war ends. Interesting work and something I had never done before trying to figure out how to tell the friendlies and the enemy that the war is over, working on re-building the infrastructure, and more. Of course, all of this is simulated, but still a valuable learning lesson.

In 2000, I got to go again and this time it was in Nakhon Si Thammarat, down in southern Thailand. I wasn’t with my unit directly, but worked in the Communications Operations as a Watch Officer. Basically, we just monitored all of the communications and ensured that things were either running or got fixed quickly.

My last exercise was once again in Korat in 2004. I retired from the Army in 20001, and was working as an Information Assurance analyst – a government contractor. This was the first time that anyone in the IA field participated in Cobra Gold. I was affectionately known as the”IA Guy” and made sure that all the computers on the Cobra Gold network had proper anti virus protection and also ensured that updates and patches were applied. The previous year, the network was crippled by a virus and they wanted to make sure that history didn’t repeat itself. I consider it a success as we only had a few incidents and they were minor and cleaned up quickly. I also provided IA training to U.S. and Thai forces. From that exercise forward, there is always and IA team monitoring the network.

I always hate when I read the news and Cobra Gold is referred to as “War Games”. Yes, there are some parts where Thai and U.S. Marines will storm a beach, Thai Special Forces will teach other SF guys how to eat snakes, and some other live fire exercises.

Rarely do they write about the Combined or Coalition Joint Task Force (C-JTF) and the work that is done there. Yes, they are staff officers, and most of what is done is simulation, but it gets both countries working together on mostly humanitarian issues. This has been the primary focus since the Tsunami in 2004.

The other stories that hardly get any ink, except in military newspapers, or online, are the stories of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines going out to some small village and building a new school, or going to an orphanage or hospital and providing needed care. Good news involving the military rarely gets any press. But, there are many projects that are done by the U.S. military that need to be recognized and are usually not even reported.

Oh well, I miss working at these exercises. They are grueling 12-hour shifts for 3-4 weeks straight with no time off. But, me and the soldiers I worked with always wanted to come back. We generally had 90 guys signed up to go for 50 positions. They all loved the challenge and actually being able to do their job in an austere environment.

So, to all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines participating the 30th Annual Cobra Gold Exercise, I salute you! Have a safe exercise. And, hopefully you will get a day or two off at the end of it all and get a chance to see some of Thailand.

Here are a few pictures (scans of prints and some other memorabilia) of past Cobra Gold Exercises.