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 26,000 National Guard Soldiers mobilized from 28 states to assist with medical evacuation, communications, security, logistics and safety support. Last year, we executed 64 brigade-equivalent deployments and moved 45 thousand pieces of equipment through 55 ports of embarkation/debarkation in support of worldwide missions.

This past year highlighted the need for the Army to defend the Nation at home as well as abroad. In response, the Army continually demonstrated its capability and capacity to provide timely and effective support in crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic expanded the Army’s existing mission set as DoD’s leader in protecting the warfighter from biological threats and investigating infectious diseases that threaten public health. Since last March, Army scientists, medical professionals, engineers, and logisticians from all components have deployed nationwide to aid COVID prevention and response efforts. For its vaccine development and distribution initiative, America turned to an Army logistician to lead operations. Our National Guard and Reserve units across America supported both neighbor and nation in an unprecedented level of mobilization, not only for COVID support, but in response to civil unrest, hurricanes, and wildfires, all while continuing to train for wartime missions.

In 2020, the Army demonstrated strategic readiness through its series of DEFENDER exercises, despite the constraints of a pandemic environment. Strategic readiness involves installation capabilities to mobilize, train, and deploy formations and then sustain them from the homeland. DEFENDER-Pacific 2020 witnessed the deployment of combat credible forces across the breadth of the Indo-Pacific theater from Guam and Palau to the Aleutian Island chain and mainland Alaska. Under the command and control of U.S. Army Pacific, combined joint forces executed strategic readiness operations that included cargo delivery, forcible entry operations, rapid infiltration of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), operational maneuver of Army watercraft, and fighter combat patrols. DEFENDER-Europe 2021 is currently underway with over 30,000 multinational forces from 27 nations conducting nearly simultaneous operations across 30 training areas. This year’s exercise will incorporate Security Force Assistance Brigades, the Army’s new V Corps, and U.S. Air Force and