FORT CUSTER, Mich. -- The 131st Bomb Wing conducted a deployment readiness exercise to multiple locations in Michigan in support of the National Guard’s exercise Northern Strike, August 2-16, 2025.
Along with Air Force Reserve, and National Guard units from across the nation, approximately 200 Soldiers, Airmen and Marines trained to develop joint operational skills and deployment readiness in austere conditions.
“I’ve been really impressed with people’s attitudes to overcome adversity they’re facing in this exercise,” said Col. Daniel Nelsen, 131st Mission Support Group commander and wing senior planner for the exercise. “We’ve faced a number of logistical and other challenges, but our Airmen came through with solutions. Our Airmen reached across their military specialties to take on obstacles that got in our way.”
Northern Strike itself is not a single exercise, but an exercise framework scalable to individual unit needs and held across Michigan’s National All-Domain Warfighting Center, and various locations throughout the state’s lower peninsula. This year, the 131st conducted training at both Fort Custer and Oscoda.
“Two locations created twice the logistical challenge, but also offered twice the opportunity for Airmen to take on new leadership roles and learn more about planning and sourcing the logistics necessary for the kind of scenarios that our wing could end up supporting,” said Nelsen.
Performing missions in multiple locations is frequently required when the wing fulfills its disaster response mission, for flooding, severe weather, or most recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the 131st led multiple teams across the state of Missouri offering vaccinations to any resident who needed one.
In addition to solving the puzzle of transporting more than 27,000 pounds of gear, equipment, and weapons to the correct locations, then safely home again, the wing was able to bring a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber into its exercise as 131st Airmen performed a crew change at the Oscoda, Michigan, location. The B-2 lands at relatively few airfields, and any experience ground crews can get landing and launching the aircraft at new locations adds to the aircraft’s mission flexibility.
“We know that we have the potential to called up for deployment,” said Nelsen “This is our main training event to develop multi-capable Airmen with skills to do not just their Air Force jobs, but can establish, survive, and maintain operations in a hostile environment and some of the various scenarios they could face downrange.”
Bringing training scenarios to life requires expertise not available within the 131st. The wing welcomed partners from the Air Force Reserve, sister service units across the DOD, and other National Guard units. The multi-service nature of each training location also more accurately mirrors a deployed environment.
In turn, the 131st supported the Air Force’s 22nd and 23rd Air Task Forces which are further along in their own deployment training process and allowed them to validate their ability to support forward operating bases.
“I’ve never had a chance before to do any training like this in my previous units, getting out, putting boots on the ground, and having a hand in a lot of different career fields.” said Staff Sgt. Eric Maxon, a services NCO with 131st Force Support Squadron. “I’ve especially enjoyed getting to learn the base defense aspect. We all should be capable of defending ourselves and the people next to us during an attack. It’s important, and I’m glad we got a chance to do that.”
The wing is already eager to build upon this year’s success and take the exercise further next year.
“I think people are doing great. they’re recognizing success in what we learned, but also in identifying additional or more in-depth skills that we want to add,” said Nelsen.