Senior Military Officials Participate in I/ITSEC Panel

By Shane Klestinski, Associate Editor

 

High-ranking leaders from the Defense Department’s military branches and one NATO ally shared insights and discussed their concerns during a senior leader panel at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in Orlando, Florida, Dec. 3.

 

I/ITSEC is the world’s largest modeling, simulation and training (MS&T) event that occurs every year during the week immediately after Thanksgiving. It draws thousands of MS&T professionals to the Orange County Convention Center, to include high-ranking civilian and military government officials, C-suite industry executives, and senior academics from leading research institutions.

 

Retired Navy Vice Adm. Sean Buck, who recently became the National Training and Simulation Association’s new president, moderated the conversation. Panel participants included Navy Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever, commander of Naval Air Forces and commander of Naval Air Forces, Pacific Fleet; Marine Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, commanding general of the Marine Corps’ Training and Education Command, Thomas Lawhead (SES), assistant deputy chief of staff, strategy, integration and requirements at Headquarters Air Force; Space Force Maj. Gen. Timothy Sejba, commander of the Space Training and Readiness Command; Army Brig. Gen. David Zinn, director of training for Army Headquarters G-3/5/7; and Swedish army Brig. Gen. Rickard Johansson, commander of the Swedish army’s 1st Division.

 

After initial comments, Buck asked Sejba about the Space Force’s plans for incorporating national technical means into Space Force modeling and simulation (M&S), particularly in joint exercises with other military services. Sejba explained that each year the Space Force supports well over 80 different exercises across the service, joint forces, and with allies, and that the demand for these exercises is “far greater” than current, available capacity. This situation has required the Space Force to prioritize those it considered the most important, especially as it focuses on joint effects and the Indo-Pacific Command.

 

“As I look to the future, we have ways of partnering [such as] coming to a conference like [I/ITSEC] with so many experts across industry – a key to our success is partnership,” Sejba said. “The only way we’re going to support the joint force and our allies is to partner with industry differently than we have in the past. As we look at how we build out our test and training infrastructure, as we think about how we operate the ranges that will give us the combat credibility and the readiness we need as a service, [we are] looking for opportunities where industry can help us expand our capabilities so we can go well beyond the 80-plus exercises a year and get to the scale that we know we need for the service each and every year.

 

When the discussion turned to a STEM studies, Buck asked the panel what they believed were the most valuable skills sets to have, particularly in how leaders should best educate and prepare young warfighters, and those would join the military in the future.

 

“For the Air Force… the ability to adapt to technology is critical,” Lawhead said. “It’s less of a STEM skill and more of a mindset. We need to be agile, resilient and effective, so the ability to use that science, that technology [to] process that information and responsibly use autonomy, AI, machine learning – et cetera – the user skill is what’s needed [as opposed to] the actual degree.”

 

Military recruiting has been especially topical in how it has presented difficulties to all the Defense Department’s services recently. When the panel addressed how modeling and simulation could help overcome those challenges, Watson noted that the quality of experience during one’s service “really matters,” especially as it affected retention, particularly with respect to the increasingly sophisticated nature of the military’s tools now in use. He emphasized that it was one reason the military needed to evolve its training methodologies.

 

“The role of M&S in improving realism within our training speaks to… that sense of value and purpose, and the idea that, ‘I’m not only good at what I do, but I’m prepared for what may be asked of me in the future,’ is critical,” Watson said. “Physics-based modeling that is accurate with authoritative data sets [is important]. But, it is simulations that get the blood pumping, that raise the level of emotions and cause you to deal with the elements and the nature of war – friction, fear, uncertainty, things like that – that increase confidence as you go forward.”

 

Zinn echoed Watson’s comments of the impact M&S had on the quality of training and quality of service in influencing a new recruit’s desire to be “part of a world-class team” with an important mission that is bigger than themselves, as well as keeping current personnel on that team.

 

“Modeling and simulations affects their quality of service [in providing] realistic training that retains the folks that come in and inspires others to want to come in,” Zinn said. “The Army is transforming now at a high pace. One of our initiatives is called ‘transformation and contact,’ [which is] focused on near-term innovation, leveraging young soldiers and young leaders to apply their skills to change quickly. It’s a particularly exciting time to be part of the Army – and we’re hiring right now.”

 

The Swedish military is dealing with a completely different set of circumstances in improving its readiness and accepting new responsibilities as a newly joined member of NATO. Part of this adjustment has involved reestablishing its conscript system.

 

“We tried to build up a professional army, but we have too few people in Sweden to bring up the standards and the amount of people for a professional army, which is why we’re going back to a conscription system,” Johansson said. “From that perspective, we need more of these modeling and simulation systems to bring conscripts up to the best of standards we can get.”

 

The final question Buck presented involved what advice the panel members would give a recent college graduate.

 

“As the dad of triplets just coming out of college with one in the Marines and one in the Navy, I would say, ‘focus on what your passion is, go after it, and have a fallback plan if it doesn’t turn out the way you want,’” Cheever said. “I was a marketing guy and thought I wanted to be a millionaire, and a couple years into the journey, it left me wanting. So, I joined the Navy to find what I needed, which was the camaraderie and the sense of purpose that we talked about earlier [during the panel], and that’s what you need to go after. [Follow] whatever your passion is and talk to people along the way who have either been there or can mentor you along the way. This is key.”