About 200 members of the New York Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry (Rainbow) Division headquarters participated in a command-post exercise with the Egyptian army in Cairo late last year as part of Bright Star 2007.

They combined with nearly three dozen officers from the Egyptian army's 9th Armor Division to help command a fictitious multinational force of 110,000 troops on a computer-simulated battlefield.

Lt. Gen. R. Steven Whitcomb, commander of the Third Army and U.S. Army Central, the 42nd's higher headquarters in Egypt, called the proceedings a "brain exercise."

He said Bright Star also provided U.S. participants a unique educational opportunity.

"There is no better expert on warfare in this maneuver box that we are conducting operations in than the Egyptians," Whitcomb said. "This is their territory, they know how to fight this fight and we ought to learn from them."

The exercise completed nearly a year of planning, training and coordination for 42nd leaders and staff. They trained with Third Army officials and Egyptian training officers throughout 2007 on both sides of the Atlantic.

"We came with a plan," said Col. Carl Pfeiffer, division chief of staff. "We [also] demonstrated to the Egyptians that we were willing to work,-partner and listen to them as we worked through the [training] scenario."

Operating in the Middle East was nothing new for the New York Guard soldiers. Many served with the division in Tikrit, Iraq, in 2005, when the 42nd become the first Guard division to command forces in combat since the Korean War.

In fact, much of the exercise in Cairo involved applying the division's lessons learned from Iraq.

"We are, I believe, the National Guard division of choice," Pfeiffer said.

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