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CONTACT: Paul Gorman | ng.wi.wiarng.mbx.wi-pao@army.mil | 608-242-3053
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By Paul Gorman
MADISON, Wis. – The inaugural event included participants from the Wisconsin National Guard’s Joint, Army and Air Staffs, Wisconsin Emergency Management, U.S. Northern Command, and National Guard Bureau.
Ryan Kennedy and John Griese, wargame designers and facilitators supporting NGB’s Wargaming and Analysis Branch, led the turn-based scenario-driven event.
“Wargames like Presidio Endeavor are great idea generators,” said Griese. “They provide planners and commanders a low-risk forum in which they can try out new ideas and concepts.”
Griese recognized that National Guard members are well-practiced at supporting civil authorities during natural disasters while also required to maintain combat readiness.
“The Presidio Endeavor scenarios challenge their ability to handle these dual missions simultaneously, and over extended periods of time,” Griese stated. “It forces a state's joint force headquarters to sort out ways to mitigate risk, generate and sustain combat power, and potentially uncover opportunities in what I call the ‘state-strategic’ space.”
Primary participants representing 12 military or interagency functional areas occupied a main table surrounded by a gallery of observers. Among the participants was Lt. Col. Orrin Viner, the Wisconsin Army National Guard’s deputy chief of staff for operations.
Viner described the wargame as an opportunity to test the organization’s decision-making processes and plans during a highly challenging, multifaceted scenario.
“Within this demanding fictional environment, our resources were stressed to the breaking point,” he said. “It allowed us to identify key points of friction requiring immense effort and senior leader decisions.”
Viner further relayed that conducting the event on an annual basis will facilitate the continued refinement of best practices while providing additional leaders from across the force the opportunity to benefit from the experience.
The integration of Wisconsin Emergency Management’s Response Planning and Support Section supervisor, Drew Werner, introduced multi-agency response coordination into the scenarios.
“The single greatest benefit of WEM's participation is gaining a comprehensive understanding of interagency expectations,” said Werner. “Specifically, how federal and state government, our military partners, and civil authorities expect to coordinate during mobilization, which directly informs and strengthens our planning efforts.”
Werner added that WEM also gained value from the opportunity to run through domestic operations procedures with the National Guard during the event. Procedures that would be applied just three days later when local Soldiers were mobilized during a severe blizzard to aid Wisconsin State Patrol efforts to reach stranded motorists.
The Presidio Endeavor wargame concluded with a hot wash, allowing for in-depth discussion between facilitators, players and observers alike.
“The point with wargaming is presenting a scenario that gets people to think, act, react, then talk about the outcome and what they'd do next time to generate a different outcome,” said Griese. “It's a really effective and useful visualization exercise and an activity that is as old as war itself.”
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