U.S. Military Maneuvers in Desert Conclude

MARCH AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — Large-scale military maneuvers in the Southern California desert ended Sunday with the top commanders saying that the four services are learning to work together better.

“We have hit just about every one of our objectives,” said Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Beyer, who directed the Gallant Eagle ’86 exercise.

Almost all of those goals involved the long-running Pentagon effort to cut down on interservice rivalry among the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines, Beyer said in a news conference shortly before the active phase of the maneuvers ended.

Beyer spoke with the 13 journalists in the Pentagon pool who were flown from Washington to the Mojave Desert. The pool was secretly activated Friday by the Defense Department in the fourth test of the organization, which was created after the military was criticized for barring journalists from the initial stages of the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada.

The Gallant Eagle maneuvers involved 35,000 personnel from all four services operating under the aegis of the Central Command. While the exercise officially spread over eight Western states, it was concentrated in the harsh desert southeast of Los Angeles.