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The U.S. Army Europe's 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team stationed in Italy conducted Europe's first full-spectrum training operation, and it began with a bang: 1,500 paratroopers jumped in to Hohenfels Oct. 5 in the first brigade-sized airborne operation in Europe since the unit's combat jump into Iraq in 2003.

A battalion of Slovakian soldiers augmented the U.S. Soldiers fighting in the role of enemy forces. Never before have former eastern bloc and U.S. forces worked together as opposing forces in such numbers. Twenty-five years ago we trained to fight against Eastern Europe, now we fight and train with them.

This training is also a change from the exercises that prepare units for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. Instead of focusing on counterinsurgency operations, the U.S., alongside troops from more than 10 other nations, are encountering complex training scenarios where they attack and seize objectives, defend against or attack conventional enemy forces and rapidly transition into a stability operations posture.

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