OOSTENDE, Belgium  – Swedish Marine Brigadier General Ola Truedsson visited the participants of NATO exercise DYNAMIC MOVE 16 (DME16) March 10 in Oostende, Belgium.

DME16 is an annual Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM) tactical-level Mine Counter Measure Command Post Exercise and is designed to train participants from NATO and Partner Nations on naval mine counter-measures (MCM) tactics and procedures.

During the visit, the general was briefed by various participant groups on their progress thus far in the exercise and shared why he thought a multinational training exercise, like DME16, was important for Sweden to participate.

"I think it’s great for a small country like Sweden to come together with other nations to exercise various scenarios so when we come into a real operation we have the same way of doing things, the same operating procedures, and this exercise brings it all together,” said Truedsson. "We can’t see a scenario in our area where we will be alone, so we can come together with our Nordic partners and challenge ourselves to learn.”

DME16 will run from March 7-18 and has nearly 160 participants from 17 NATO and two Partner Nations. The exercise is facilitated by a team of MARCOM staff officers, naval mine warfare experts, and scientists from NATO and Partnership for Peace nations, and hosted by Belgium’s EGUERMIN Naval Mine Warfare School.