Kentucky Guard’s 940th Military Police Company partners with Ecuadorian forces for historic Exercise EL GATO, celebrates 30 years of partnership

SALINAS, Ecuador—For many Kentucky Army National Guard Soldiers, annual training usually means familiar ground: Wendell H. Ford Regional Training Center, Camp Atterbury or Fort Knox.

But for the 940th Military Police Company, this year’s training meant heading down to South America.

Exercise EL GATO, or Ecuador Liaison Guard Annual Training Operation, held in Salinas, Ecuador, May 10-19, brought Kentucky Soldiers together with members of Ecuador’s army, navy and air force for combined training during the 30th anniversary of the Kentucky-Ecuador partnership under the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program (SPP).

The State Partnership Program connects each state’s National Guard with partner nations to build enduring military-to-military relationships, strengthen interoperability and support broader security cooperation objectives. Kentucky’s partnership with Ecuador began in 1996, creating a long-term relationship built through exchanges, training events and leader engagements between Kentucky Guardsmen and Ecuadorian forces.

This exercise represented more than another engagement in the 30-year partnership. It strengthened relationships by moving from small-scale subject-matter expert information exchanges to combined unit training.

For U.S. Army Capt. Demitri Ray, commander of the 940th, that shift was central to the exercise.

“With the outlook to strengthen that partnership, we do this because we want to bring not just 10 or 12 people down on an SPP mission,” Ray said. “We want to get to the point where it’s an Ecuadorian unit and a Kentucky National Guard unit training together.”

The training began with an opening ceremony, where Soldiers of the 940th met their Ecuadorian counterparts before breaking into platoon-level training groups. The company’s 1st Platoon partnered with the Ecuadorian army, 2nd Platoon partnered with the Ecuadorian air force, and 3rd Platoon partnered with the Ecuadorian navy.

Each platoon conducted training exchanges, which opened with an overview of military policing fundamentals before moving into interpersonal communication, conflict de-escalation, search and apprehension procedures, and riot suppression movements and formations.

Throughout the exercise, Kentucky Soldiers and Ecuadorian service members compared techniques and discussed how each force approaches similar missions. The exchanges enabled each unit to reinforce skills through the experience of their partners while building the familiarity needed to operate together.

During the culminating exercise, Ecuadorian forces integrated with military police Soldiers from the 940th and worked together to defend a simulated official building from a riot. The scenario required the combined teams to apply the communication, de-escalation, movement and crowd-control techniques they had practiced throughout the exercise.

The exercise was also directly tied to readiness requirements for the National Guard Reaction Force (NGRF) mission.

“The MP battalion has been tasked with the NGRF mission for the Guard, and every unit is responsible for recertifying and keeping their Soldiers to standard in those tasks that we learned during the NGRF academy,” Ray said. “We came down here to maintain certification on those tasks and to conduct hard, intense training with our partners that would inspire that partnership.”

Changing the setting increased the value of the training. Rather than executing annual training at a familiar stateside location, Soldiers had to operate in a foreign country, work through language barriers and cultural differences to integrate with partner forces in real time.

According to Ray, the experience of training in a foreign country helped make the reality of their deployment mission tangible for his Soldiers.

“When you actually put boots on the ground in another country, it gives them confidence that we can actually deploy and conduct an operation.”

For Sgt. Aide Figueroa, a clerk for the Kentucky National Guard’s Joint Force Headquarters G-3 (Operations) section, who joined the exercise after supporting a previous SPP engagement in Kentucky, the mission was about more than an exchange of information. Figueroa grew up speaking Spanish as her first language and helped bridge the cultural gap between Kentucky Soldiers and their Ecuadorian counterparts.

“When I say communicate, it’s not just words,” Figueroa said. “It’s tone, facial expressions, body movements. All that helps understand what someone’s trying to say to the other person.”

Figueroa said one of the most meaningful moments came during riot control training, when Kentucky Soldiers demonstrated techniques and Ecuadorian troops compared them with their own methods.

“They were trying to communicate, compare and contrast,” Figueroa said. “All of us learned from each other the different techniques we used for riot control.”

Ray also expressed how critical the unit’s bilingual Soldiers were to the exercise.

“When we first came, I was wondering if we were going to be able to do this without interpreters,” Ray said. “But our bilingual Soldiers impressed me so much that it’s changed my outlook on it. I think it worked out better than having private professional interpreters because those Soldiers are with us 24/7, and they understand the training.”

For Figueroa, the shared language created an immediate connection.

“When you speak the same language, it’s as if you already know them,” Figueroa said. “It’s like distant family.”

Ray noted the significance of the enduring partnership.

“It’s hard to maintain relationships,” Ray said. “Some marriages don’t last that long, but our partnership is still going strong, and we look forward to more training together to come.”

Ray said bringing a full unit to Ecuador, rather than a small delegation, changes what the partnership can become. Future exercises could expand beyond Salinas, he said, taking advantage of Ecuador’s varied terrain, including the Amazon rainforest and highlands. The precedent could also open the door for larger Ecuadorian units to train in Kentucky.

“Bringing a large unit like this opens the door to so much more we can do,” Ray said.

Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Webb, readiness noncommissioned officer for the 940th, said the exercise also laid a foundation at the Soldier-to-Soldier level.

“I hope that they take away a little bit on the training side, but the bigger piece is the relationship building across the board,” Webb said. “Every one of our Soldiers has made fast friends with their partners in the Ecuadorian branches. I like to think that we’ve laid a good foundation for that across all three of our platoons and theirs.”

That relationship building is central to the State Partnership Program, Ray said, especially in a global security environment where long-term trust between military partners can matter in moments of crisis.

“I like to look at it this way: when Ukraine was invaded by Russia in 2022, the first people they called were their partners in the California National Guard,” Ray said. “We want that same level of trust and partnership with Ecuador.”

The scale of EL GATO required coordination across the Kentucky National Guard, including the U.S. Property and Fiscal Office, Joint Force Headquarters, the 198th Military Police Battalion, the 149th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, the U.S. Embassy in Quito, and Ecuadorian partners.

Ray described the process as “all hands on deck.”

Webb said coordinating a unit-level overseas training event required building a new administrative path from the ground up.

“The challenge was that a collective training event of this scale had not been executed under this funding model in recent years,” Webb said. “We didn’t have a template. We had to work closely with the state headquarters, the National Guard Bureau, and our partners within USSOUTHCOM to establish the framework and template for the type of training we conducted.”

Webb’s role was to help ensure the company had the people, training and equipment required to execute the mission. Preparing Soldiers for Ecuador meant identifying who would travel, completing country-specific requirements, tracking immunizations and adapting as new administrative requirements appeared.

“Readiness isn’t just administrative or personnel-oriented as people think,” Webb said. “You’re expected to be an expert in all fields. So, if you’ve got people and equipment, but you don’t have training for them, you’re not ready. And vice versa, if you’ve got the training and the equipment, but not the people, you’re still not ready.”

The exercise was executed using annual training funds rather than a named exercise umbrella, which typically provides access to specialized training budgets. According to Ray, this limitation made the resourcing effort even more critical. However, the experience ultimately served as a successful proof of concept for future exercises.

“Demonstrating that we can conduct high-impact, overseas joint training within our standard annual training resource requirements gives our leaders incredible flexibility in planning similar missions by other units in the state,” he said.

For the 940th, that process reflected the company’s motto: “Make a Way.”

Ray explained that the phrase is more than a slogan—it is the culture of a young unit that has become known for solving problems and completing missions despite limited resources.

“The reason the 940th was selected for this was because we’re known for getting things done,” Ray said. “A company-level deployment under this funding model had never been done before, but we did what we do best—make a way.”

The mission’s legacy will be measured in what comes next. The 940th did not simply complete annual training in Ecuador, it created a process which future units can follow, paving the way for expanded, joint exercises involving larger elements from both nations.

“Next year, we get to be the people they call when they need help,” Webb said.

For the Kentucky Army National Guard, EL GATO was a 30-year anniversary, a combined training exercise, a funding proof of concept and a renewed commitment to Ecuador. For the 940th, it was much more. It was their specialty: a complex mission with no pre-existing template and no easy path. So, they made a way.