FLYING HIGH - S'PORE, US MILITARY TIES

The successful staging of Exercise Forging Sabre was contingent on many factors - concise planning and preparation, proper maintenance of assets, dedicated Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) servicemen, and perhaps most fundamentally, a suitable training ground.

The 12-day exercise that commenced on 10 Nov was held at the United States Marines Air Ground Task Force Training Centre (MAGTFTC) at 29 Palms, California.

At 932 square miles, the premier US Marine Corps training area is about twice the size of Singapore - with half of it marked out for use by the SAF during the exercise.

Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Defence, Dr Ng Eng Hen, who was at MAGTFTC to observe the live-firing finale of Exercise Forging Sabre, expressed Singapore's appreciation to the US, for hosting the SAF.

"We have excellent ties with the US government and we recently signed the Security Framework Agreement," said Dr Ng.

"On the ground, the relationship among our soldiers and the US Army and US Marines has been excellent."

"The way they accommodated us not only allowing us to use the terrain but also facilitating much of the training, the logistics shows that the goodwill extends beyond just a relationship."

"It is really deep friendship that we have and we are very grateful especially to the commanders here, as well as those who helped us put together this exercise."

For Commanding General of MAGTFTC, Brigadier-General (BG) Douglas Stone (left), it has been a "real honour to work with the SAF personnel who have been great guests and partners".

"All militaries need to train like they are going to fight and it's been our pleasure to work with the Singaporeans, whom we have the greatest respect for they are highly disciplined and highly skilled," BG Stone said.

"Look what they did today. They co-ordinated fire from the ground, they had special forces on the ground, they had various forms of aircraft, they had artillery firing all that was co-ordinated, and all these targets were hit."

"They put rounds right on target and that's very, very hard to do and to be able to co-ordinate it all and put it all together is just a remarkable compliment to the professionalism of these forces," he added.

Sharing similar sentiments was BG Richard Maxon (left), Commander of Arizona Army National Guard, who was also part of the US delegation that witnessed the integrated live-fire sequence on 21 Nov.

"That was a very impressive exercise," he said.

"It shows the professionalism of the pilots and the troops."

"I've been to Singapore, I have seen demonstrations over there and I am very impressed by the military capability of Singapore," he added.

>> Visit the Ex Forging Sabre website for more information