Armenia exercise begins

I spent pretty much the whole month of September in Armenia as part of the military exercise I started planning in July.

As with all exercises, the idea is to go to a foreign country, proverbially "play in the sandbox together," then at the end, "pack up our toys and go home."

We do this in phases. The first is the "torch." This group consists of some logistics people who coordinate with the embassy staff to handle the early passenger and cargo movements.

Second, we send a few more people as the "advance party." This group consists makes sure the training area is set up.

Then, the vast majority of people show up in the "main body." At this point, the exercise officially starts.

When they pack up and leave, the "trail" phase begins. As with the torch phase, it's typically logistics people working in coordination with the embassy, but this time it's to wrap things up.

What was cool was that I was there from the very beginning to the very end, so I got to see every phase.