Keen Sword is a joint bilateral exercise designed to increase readiness and interoperability between the U.S. and Japan.
Seventeen service members from E Battery, 6-52 Air Defense Artillery Battalion participated in a joint field training exercise with the 17th Field Artillery Brigade (Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington) in Japan. Two Avengers and one Sentinel Radar were part of a support package that provided base defense assets during the exercise.
Additional training was accomplished when the units were able to network with the 38th Air Defense Artillery Brigade based in Japan via a tactical datalink network. Mobility training was also accomplished as Echo Battery utilized port operations to ship and receive their equipment. The team deployed to one of Japan’s islands for the 10-day exercise.
Keen Sword 25 participants included military units from the U.S. and Japan, Australia and Canada, which all took part in integrated training across the island nation. They honed their skills to maintain warfighting readiness. Bilateral and multilateral events undertaken as part of Keen Sword 25 included joint live fire training, medical mass casualty exercises, installation security forces training and simulated airfield damage repair, among others.
The 35th ADA Brigade is one of Eighth Army’s six major subordinate commands based at Osan Air Base, South Korea.
