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Exercise Vigilant Shield Kicks Off

  • Published
  • By Maj. Susan A. Romano
  • 1st Air Force Public Affairs

First Air Force (Air Forces Northern) along with its parent command, U.S. Northern Command, is participating in Exercise Vigilant Shield 09 that began Wednesday and will continue through Nov. 18. 

The focus of VS09 is on homeland defense and civil support. The exercise will include several scenarios to achieve exercise objectives within the maritime, aerospace, ballistic missile defense, cyber, consequence management, and counter terrorism domains. AFNORTH's involvement focuses on air defense of the homeland and defense support to civil authorities. 

VS09 will run concurrent with other Department of Defense-sponsored and international exercises to more realistically test the synchronized response of federal, state, local and international mission partners in preparation for homeland defense, homeland security and civil support missions in the United States and abroad. 

VS09 is a Command Post Exercise (CPX). During a CPX, many of the forces involved in the exercise are notional and most of the real forces and equipment are not deployed from their home bases. 

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Media are encouraged to cover AFNORTH's involvement in this national-level exercise. If interested, please contact the 1st Air Force Public Affairs office at (850) 283-8659 to coordinate media escort into the Air & Space Operations Center. On camera interviews are available upon request.