Terminal Fury Prepares PACOM to Confront Crisis, Threats

CAMP H.M. SMITH, Hawaii, April 6, 2008 – The top U.S. officer in the Pacific declared a command post exercise that wrapped up here yesterday a big success in ensuring U.S. Pacific Command is ready to respond to the broad challenges it faces in the region.

Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating praised the weeklong Terminal Fury exercise for putting him and his staff through demanding 24-7 operations that tested their ability to work as a team to respond quickly to threats and crises.

“It was a fantastic week of learning,” said Air Force Col. Mike Duvall, the command’s exercises and training director, of the largest and highest-priority of more than a dozen major joint exercises the PACOM headquarters conducts each year.

More than 3,000 members of the PACOM headquarters and its sea, air and land forces components participated in this year’s Terminal Fury, the fifth of its kind.

Throughout the exercise, the staffs confronted one challenge after another as they received and acted on information drummed up by 400 “white cell” members who designed the exercise and kept the momentum building.

These “exercise injects” reflected real-world scenarios and potential crises the command could face, Duvall explained. An aircraft went down in the theater, requiring a full battle assessment and personnel recovery operations. A disease outbreak erupted, with food and medical-supply shortages creating a humanitarian crisis. An enemy attack on a ship operating in the theater put the command’s combat contingency plans into action.