South Dakota National Guard begins annual Golden Coyote exercise

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Military units from nine states will be in the Black Hills for South Dakota Army National Guard’s 39th annual Golden Coyote Training Exercise which runs from Saturday through June 16.

The annual exercise gives soldiers the opportunity to hone war-fighting skills as well as performing some public service missions.

“Those include making improvements and repairs to the corrals down in Custer State Park for the buffalo, for the round-up ... as well as we are going to be doing timber haul, hauling timber out of the Black Hills National Forest to reservations to the northeast Standing Rock and to the southeast down to Pine Ridge.” Col. James Linn stated.

The exercise will train soldiers for both federal and state missions.

“Part of the federal mission is their training in their basic soldier tasks all the way from immediate life-saving measures up to the squad and platoon tactics and convoy operations,” Linn explained. “And as far as their state missions, just working with the different state agencies and doing all the coordination we need to do to make those project happen.”

These missions allow soldiers to build and strengthen relationships with state agencies, so when they are needed, they can drop everything and be secure in the knowledge those relationships are already in place.

So if you see the convoys on the roads over the next few days ... “It’s a big presence on the road and a lot of those vehicles got major blind spots and they just want to get here safely and we wanna make sure you can get home safely, so when you see those convoys keep your distances and wave at all the soldiers, sailors, and airmen,” Linn said.

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