U.S. Army Soldiers arrive for
exercise DEFENDER-Europe 20 at the Nuremberg Aiprort, Germany, March 5, 2020.
(U.S. Army/Capt. Ellen C. Brabo, 7th Army Training Command)
12 Mar 2020
Military.com | By Richard Sisk and Oriana Pawlyk
The U.S. military in Europe is
weighing how best to get what may be thousands of troops stateside following
the release of a Defense Department policy memo Wednesday ordering a 60-day suspension of military travel to and from countries, including those in
Europe.
Navy Lt.
Cmdr. Joe Hontz, a spokesman for U.S. European Command, told Military.com on
Thursday that command officials are working with individual bases and major
commands within the continent to evaluate which troops will be sent home
following their temporary duty assignment, and which will move on to their next
duty station, which could be within Europe.
00
Hontz stressed the options are in
line with Defense Secretary Mark Esper's latest guidance, which was distributed
to personnel just hours after President Donald Trump announced a separate
travel suspension. The Defense Department guidance imposes a 60-day ban on
travel for service members, military families and DoD civilians to all
countries designated as "Level 3 locations" by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention due to the widespread and ongoing transmission of the novel coronavirus.
Those locations now include China,
Iran, South Korea and all of Europe.
Military personnel stationed within
countries that have had an abundance of cases are adhering to installation
commander and host nation instructions, as well as CDC guidelines, Hontz said.
The military has already canceled or
scaled back multiple exercises in an effort to protect troops from exposure to
the disease, known as COVID-19.
On Wednesday, U.S. European Command
announced that the number of U.S. troops participating in DEFENDER-Europe 20
was being cut back, although several U.S. units have already arrived and moved
into position in NATO alliance states.
DEFENDER-Europe 20 was set to be the
biggest deployment for an exercise in 25 years, with 20,000 soldiers deploying from the U.S. and
training with 17,000 allies.
"In light of the current
coronavirus outbreak, we will modify the exercise by reducing the number of
U.S. participants," the EUCOM statement said. "Activities associated
with the exercise will be adjusted accordingly, and we'll work closely with
allies and partners to meet our highest priority training objectives."
Reducing military exercises is an
obvious step to stop the spread of the virus, said Mark Cancian, a retired
colonel and senior security adviser at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. He said he does not believe the command will cancel the
exercise completely.
"This is just the beginning of
widespread curtailment of military exercises overseas," he said.
"[Europe] is not more dangerous than the United States. It would be
different if the United States was unaffected [by the virus] and [troops] were
going to a place that was severely affected, but that's not the case."
But as the virus continues spreading,
he said the U.S. will most likely have to "eliminate virtually all future
military exercises overseas" and quarantine the troops and equipment
deployed to participate in exercises like DEFENDER-Europe 20.
The announcement followed on EUCOM's
cancellation of two other joint training exercises within a week that were
already underway -- one in Norway and a second in Israel.
A statement Wednesday from EUCOM
headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, said that Norwegian authorities had called
off the remainder of Exercise Cold Response.
The cancellation, two days after the
cold-weather exercise officially began, followed the precautionary isolation of about two dozen soldiers and Marines who
may have come in contact with a Norwegian service member who tested positive
for COVID-19.
In a statement Wednesday, Maj. Adrian
J.T. Rankine-Galloway, spokesman for U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe-Africa,
said that no troops who had taken part in Exercise Cold Response had exhibited
any symptoms.
Last week, EUCOM and Israel called off a military exercise in
Israel that had
already begun in an effort to contain the spread of coronavirus.
A missile defense exercise with the
Israeli Defense Forces, called Juniper Cobra 20, began March 3, but EUCOM said
the remainder, which had been scheduled to run through March 13, was being
canceled as a precaution.
About 2,500 U.S. service members had
been scheduled to support the exercise, and about 600 were already on the
ground in Israel. A EUCOM spokesman said that the 600 were being pulled back,
either by military or commercial air.
Hontz said future exercises are still
in the planning stages.
"We're always assessing what the
threat of COVID is to [the area of responsibility]," he said. "Other
[exercises] that are still in the planning phases will be planned accordingly."
Annual spring and summer exercises in
the region, which typically involve thousands of troops, include Saber Strike,
led by the U.S. Army in Europe, and United States Naval Forces
Europe's Baltic Operations, or BALTOPS.
"Right now, we're following
SecDef's guidance," Hontz said. "Anything we're planning to do in the
future, we will let our [communities] know."
The virus had already spread to NATO
headquarters in Brussels from Italy ahead of an address to the nation Wednesday
by Trump announcing restrictions on travel from Europe, but the alliance echoed
the Pentagon in stressing that readiness to defend member states would not be
affected.
In a statement Monday, NATO said that
a staff member returning from a holiday in northern Italy had come down with a
fever and tested positive for COVID-19. The staffer is in isolation at home,
and other staff members who had come in contact with the infected individual
are working from home, NATO said.
Also Monday, Army Lt. Gen.
Christopher Cavoli, commander of U.S. Army Europe, and several members of his
staff reported that they were working remotely as a
precaution after
they may have been exposed to the coronavirus at a recent conference, Army
Secretary Ryan McCarthy said.
"Out of an abundance of
caution," Cavoli and his staff are "self-monitoring" while
continuing to carry out their duties, McCarthy said in a statement.
Trump's announcement Wednesday night
of a 30-day ban on travel to the U.S. from Europe and a ban on cargo coming
from Europe sowed confusion.
The president quickly went on Twitter
after the address to clarify that cargo from Europe is not banned and the travel ban does not apply to Americans
and U.S. permanent residents.
The direct effects of the coronavirus
on U.S. service members, dependents, Defense Department civilians and defense
contractors thus far has been minimal compared to civilian populations, but the
epidemic has forced limitations on travel by the military and the cancellation
of several joint military exercises.
On Tuesday, Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state announced that a service
member assigned to base and the service member's spouse had
tested positive for coronavirus and are isolating at their home off-base.
At a Pentagon briefing later
Tuesday, Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Friedrichs, the Joint Staff
surgeon, said the cases at JBLM brought the total number of confirmed cases
among DoD personnel, dependents and defense contractors to at least 11.
Friedrichs said that all infected
personnel are doing well but cautioned that COVID-19 could be more widespread
in the ranks among individuals who have not yet shown symptoms.
"We're still learning how easy
it is to spread this," he said. "Yes, absolutely, it could be more
[cases]."
-- Chiara Vercellone of Medill News
Service contributed to this report.
-- Matthew Cox contributed to this
report.
-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached
at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @oriana0214.
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