THAILAND -- On February 20th, the Thai and U.S. Air Forces, along with the Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron-242, practiced defensive, counter-air tactics against mock enemies based on a scenario of enemy troops invading local areas.

“We were doing defensive counter-air,” said 1st Lt. Matthew “Stab” Schuets, 35th Fighter Squadron wingman. “Basically we were defending a point against a set of [mock] enemy aircraft.”

The crews split up into two teams for the exercise, one acting as friendly forces and the other as the enemy force.

We worked with four of the Royal Thai Air Force’s F-16s, and we were against the Marine F/A-18 Hornets and some other Thai F-16s, Schuets said. Overall there were eight versus six, so there was a lot of diversity in the air today.

Diversity within exercises ensures quality cooperation, interoperability and collaboration among participating nations in order to achieve effective solutions to common challenges. Greater diversity can also lead to greater challenges such as language barriers; however, obstacles such as these are easily overcome when allied nations share common goals.

“It’s kind of difficult at first with the language barriers but once you brief up the flight and get air born they’re just another F-16 pilot up there,” said Cpt. Bill “Easy” Garlisi, 35th Fighter Squadron wingman. “The fact that we can integrate with a country that speaks a different language is pretty amazing.”

Thai and U.S. forces have built a longstanding relationship over the past 36 iterations of Cobra Gold, giving both nations the ability to successfully integrate during training missions. It also shows the two countries commitment to working together in support of peace and security in the region.