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NEWS | June 24, 2019

Diamond Saber sharpens FM Soldiers’, Danish leadership skills

By Mark R. W. Orders-Woempner U.S. Army Financial Management Command

It’s been said that as iron sharpens iron, people and leaders often sharpen each other.

This year, exercise Diamond Saber was used to sharpen Army financial management Soldiers from the regular and reserve components, as well as soldiers from the Danish Home Guard, during an Army Reserve Company Leader Development Course at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, June 17-22.

“The Company Leader Development Course is a course designed to teach the leadership team at the company level,” said U.S. Army Maj. Rudy Vaca, CLDC director. “They work together, they build products, and it’s focused on leadership and training management.”

CLDC is a reboot of the Army’s old Company Team Leader Course, and the event at Diamond Saber was the eight course offered during CLDC’s inaugural year.

“As a junior officer, learning from captains and majors is building me into an even better leader,” said U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Jia Greene, 2/374th Financial Management Support Detachment finance officer and CLDC participant. “You may have your way of thinking and your way of doing things, but it’s always good to hear how other people do things so…you can make yours better.”

Vaca said one of the big pushes is to give young leaders the tools they need to maximize training and performance.

“We want to make sure we’re being efficient with our training, utilizing our time effectively when we have battle assembly,” he explained. “We talk about using command systems like (the Commander’s Strength Management Module) to pull data for readiness measures.”

Greene said she especially appreciated the sections going over how to create and use and operations order.

“I didn’t really get to break down in ROTC, so to break it down here in this course was amazing for me,” the lieutenant said, adding that she learned as much from her fellow students as her instructors.

Adding both diversity and perspective, some of those students were Soldiers from the Danish Home Guard.

“We’ve got four Danish soldiers here as part of the MREP program, which is the military reserve exchange program, and the 83rd (Army Reserve Training Center), which is what our course falls under, is partnered with the Danish Home Guard,” Vaca said. “They’re attending our course, and this summer, we’ll be sending four of our over to Denmark to learn instruction from the Danish Home Guard.”

“We are here to learn how you do things over in the USA and see how the instructors are doing, to learn about them and tell how we do in Denmark,” said Danish Home Guard Capt. John Outzen, military police leadership instructor.  “I learned that the finance and the Army guys like me, we do a lot of things the same way.

“You have a lot of numbers and computers, but the way we think of leadership is much like each other,” Outzen continued. “Because we are NATO partners, it’s very important we understand the way we work, and when we have to work together, it’s important we know it’s the same way we do it.”

Diamond Saber, the Army’s only large-scale financial management exercise, is designed to provide realistic technical training to regular Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard FM units through interactive scenarios and transactions based upon current policy in a collective environment. Diamond Saber helps achieve the National Defense Strategy objectives of a more lethal force, strong alliances and partnerships, and greater performance and affordability.

Stay connected with Diamond Saber at facebook.com/DiamondSaber.