Your Chamber’s Military Affairs Council was honored to visit Joint Base San Antonio - Fort Sam Houston to take a behind the scenes tour of U.S. Army South’s PANAMAX 2018, the U.S. Southern Command’s largest joint military training exercise in the Western Hemisphere. The Council members began the visit in the historic USARSOUTH headquarters Commander’s Conference Room and learned about recent changes to the Command’s mission, as well as the structure and vision of this invaluable Army Command. After receiving the Command Briefing, attendees took a charter to the Exercise site and were greeted by Major General Mark Stammer, Commander, U.S. Army South, as well as his fellow leaders representing the other nations supporting the exercise. This year, USARSOUTH was host to more than 300 Soldiers, service members and civilians from 16 nations at several training sites around JBSA-Fort Sam Houston.
During Operation Futuro Noble, the name of the operation in defense of the Panama Canal, participants worked around the clock, learning to collaborate and work together as part of a joint task force in order to strengthen interoperability and enhance security cooperation. Effectively conducting joint operations is critical when responding to natural disasters, humanitarian assistance missions or real-world threats.
“PANAMAX is about personal relationships and organizational partnerships. It’s about bringing like- minded countries together and going after tactical and operational kinds of problems,” said Maj. Gen. Mark R. Stammer, U.S. Army South commanding general. “Within this training environment, we work on our interoperability and doctrine, so if called upon by our governments to go and do this in an operational environment, we know each other’s doctrine and how to communicate effectively.”
PANAMAX began in 2003 with three participants: Panama, Chile and the U.S. Today, it has grown into one of the largest joint military training exercises in the western hemisphere, with more than 2000 participants working together simultaneously from various locations, including U.S. Southern Command Headquarters, Miami, Florida; Homestead Air Force Reserve Base, Florida; Naval Station Mayport, Florida; JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, Texas; and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.
