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Silver Scimitar

Silver Scimitar is the largest multi-echelon, theater level personnel exercise in the Army and lasts 14 days. Silver Scimitar began in the mid 1980s. Many of the troops who served in the Gulf War went through the training exercise. Each year it continues to grow more complex and to more closely resemble the technical personnel challenges in a major theater of war.

Behind every military action are the soldiers who work in personnel. They take care of the pay roll, issue the mail and sift through the plethora of seemingly indecipherable paperwork. Like any other military organization, personnel units must constantly train to sharpen their skills and knowledge. The 3rd Personnel Command (PERSCOM) held its annual Silver Scimitar 1999 Exercise at Camp Shelby, Miss., where more than 800 soldiers from their subordinate units participated for their annual training. Silver Scimitar is the largest personnel replacement exercise in the Army Reserve and its situational scenarios deploy soldiers to places such as Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Having had success with previous exercises in the past, the 3rd PERSCOM decided to add a little more training for the soldiers this year. Ramp-up-training is a combination of essential soldier skills, to include training soldiers on a variety of tasks such as combat lifesaver, force protection, NBC and driver training. One way for all soldiers to survive battle is by working together as a team. This is why the Leadership Reaction Course is a major part of the new ramp-up training.

More than 1,500 soldiers from various states participated in Silver Scimitar 2000. During the first part of the exercise, the soldiers train on their Mission Essential Tasks Lists and basic soldier skills. This includes Army Casualty Information Processing System (ACIPS) training and Replacement Operations Automated Management System (ROAMS). For some soldiers this is the first time they will have a chance to train on the ACIPS and ROAMS.

ACIPS is an automated casualty report. The initial casualty reporting process is 24 hours. This is no small task when there are thousands of soldiers to track and thousands of miles for the information to cross. This is the kind of training that prepares soldiers for realistic casualty processing.

ROAMS training is "a go-to-war system that supports the projection and management of fillers and casualties. The system also is used to project personnel replacement requirements by Military Occupational Specialty and skill level, according to Brundige. It is unique in comparison to other tracking systems in that it is used to track individuals shipped to the theater from the CONUS (Continental United States) Replacement Center above division level.

During the second half of the exercise, soldiers enhanced their wartime skills by working under realistic conditions. They used a Southwestern Asian theater scenario for the training. This is the best way of testing the training they had received.

The 3rd Personnel Command (PERSCOM) hosted Silver Scimitar, one of the world's largest personnel training exercises, at Fort McCoy. The exercise began 28 July 2001, and 1,100 National Guard and Reserve troops from around the country participated. Participating in the exercise were units from the 81st Regional Support Command, Birmingham, Ala. The units included the 3rd Personnel Command (PERSCOM), 678TH Personnel Services Battalion, 461st Personnel Services Battalion and the 310th Personnel Group (AG).

Silver Scimitar tests personnel services at all levels. It helps a soldier see how his or her individual job affects the Personnel Operating System and how that work could mean the difference in winning or losing the war. Silver Scimitar was designed to simulate the mobilization of soldiers to Southwest Asia. It tests personnel systems and soldiers' capabilities through a series of scenarios and training. The seasonally hot weather at Fort McCoy provides soldiers the experience of working in temperatures similar to those in Southwest Asia. The exercise depicts a battlefield that suffers heavy casualties. The 3rd PERSCOM and its subordinate units are tasked to conduct operations to maintain theater personnel readiness, and to sustain and maintain personnel support systems. Silver Scimitar challenges commanders, leaders and soldiers in areas such as security, logistics and equipment maintenance while continuing to perform essential tasks in a combat environment.

The organizers of Silver Scimitar set up a Gulf War scenario to create the realism of the training exercise. The soldiers worked in 12-hour shifts - sending out casualty reports, keeping track of unit strengths and other personnel functions. They did all this while keeping an eye out for enemy infiltration and attacks. The purpose of this war-simulation was to prepare the troops in the event of a real-life deployment.

Before this part of the exercise started, the soldiers took part in four days of "Ramp-Up training." Ramp-Up is a term for the final stage in mobilization when soldiers are completely trained and on the airplane to a hostile area. They reviewed all of the basics, including land navigation, running a generator and reacting to enemy fire. Senior policy makers from the Soldier Support Institute and the Total Army Personnel Command worked with the troops during this exercise.