Today, May 9, at the military barracks “Jane Sandanski” in Shtip, the Distinguished Visitors Day for the Strategic Deployment Readiness Exercise (SDRE) was held.
The event was attended by the Chief of the Army General Staff (GS), Major General Sashko Lafchiski; the Commander of the Operations Command (OC), Brigadier General Mirche Gjorgoski; the Commander of the Training and Doctrine Command, Brigadier General Lulzim Nuredini; the Commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade, Brigadier General Dejan Chiplakovski; representatives of the U.S. Embassy in our country; representatives from the U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC); a representative from the United States European Command (USEUCOM); and other guests. The attendees were briefed on the activities conducted so far for the preparation and deployment of the designated reinforced company from the Light Infantry Battalion Group (LIBG), which will participate in the Saber Junction 2025 (SJ-25) exercise in Germany, scheduled for the second half of this year. This exercise will evaluate the operational capabilities of the LIBG.
Furthermore, a demonstration exercise was conducted to prove the readiness of this company, focusing on the inspection of completeness of personal and collective equipment, verification of transport documents and simulations of equipment loading procedures.
The Chief of the Army General Staff congratulated the exercise organizers, stating that what was demonstrated gives confidence that the SJ-25 military exercise will be carried out successfully. In other words, he emphasized that lessons learned from this activity should be transformed into procedures for future deployment of our troops abroad.
The SDRE exercise, led by the Army GS and OC, was conducted in cooperation with the Defense Transformation Team from the U.S. Institute for Security Governance. The goal was to develop a structured framework that outlines the necessary steps, requirements, and functional tasks for preparing Army units for future deployment in missions, operations, and exercises, in accordance with national and NATO documents and procedures.
