C000045

Round shaped, chrome colored coin 1¾ inches in diameter.

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BRIGHT STAR is a biennial, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) directed, USCENTCOM scheduled joint/coalition exercise designed to increase regional involvement in pursuit of improved security and defense capabilities. It is a multi-national exercise conducted in Egypt and co-hosted by Egypt and the United States. This exercise is ARCENT's largest, and USCENTCOM's premier, OCONUS exercise. The numerical designation of the biennial Bright Star exercises can be confusing, since it is based on the American fiscal year in which the exercise is conducted, which begins on 01 October of the preceeding calender year. Thus, Bright Star 2000 was conducted during the September-November 1999 timeframe.The biennial Bright Star exercise traces its roots back to Egypt’s signing of the 1979 Camp David Peace Accord. It was shortly after this that the United States military began to train side-by-side with their Egyptian military counterparts in the Egyptian desert. What began as small unit training has now evolved into a Joint/Combined Coalition computer-aided command post exercise and a tactical air, ground, naval and special operations forces field training exercise involving 10 countries and more than 70,000 troops.