thedrifter
12-19-06, 02:20 PM
December 25, 2006
4-day program prepares 3/1 for deployment
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — The convoy of amtracs headed up the dirt road to drop off its load of India Company men as engineers raced ahead to breach several enemy obstacles. Scores of infantrymen sped toward positions to fire their weapons at insurgent targets and strongholds as the air crackled with mortars, artillery and the fire of Huey gunships’ rockets and machine-gun rounds.
The battalion’s unit operations center got a report from a reconnaissance team: 30 insurgents in a village had just executed a Marine. The commander ordered a company slated for a humanitarian-aid run to do a “cordon and search” to find their fallen comrade and grab the suspected killers.
After roadside bombs destroyed a vehicle, killing two, and slowed the convoy, Lima Company rolled into a makeshift camp. The mayor and sheikh denied that their village supports the insurgency, but Marines found several weapons caches. By sunset, they left the village with their lost leatherneck and promised to help train local men in security.
For the men of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, the day’s field training packed in as many pieces from the spectrum of warfare — from humanitarian aid and stabilization operations to raids and outright combat — as could be had over a four-day period from Dec. 11 to Dec. 14.
Think of it as a mini-Mojave Viper.
Taking a few pages from the 30-day Mojave Viper desert exercises, 3/1 planners developed an intense, four-day training package that enabled the battalion to hit its mission-essential tasks at home, not far from the battalion’s Camp Horno base.
Since last year, battalions and other units heading to Iraq have gone through Mojave Viper, a modernized version of the Combined-arms exercise at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif., that focuses on security and stability operations and includes live-fire maneuver ranges and new convoy courses. It is tailored more to a full-on Iraq deployment.
But units on a Marine expeditionary unit rotation — such as 3/1, which is the battalion landing team for the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit — usually aren’t slated for Mojave Viper, although some units were able to get the training into their schedules. Since 3/1’s schedule wouldn’t allow it, battalion planners crafted a shortened training package that also served as its final field exercise.
“It’s all about timing. All the battalions want to do the same thing,” said Master Gunnery Sgt. Brad Chandler, battalion operations chief. “We know it’s important. We knew we had to do the Mojave Viper. It is one of the steppingstones we knew we had to complete as a battalion.”
“This is a progressive package,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Armando Garcia, 1st Marines’ regimental gunner and most recently 3/1’s battalion gunner. “We’ve got to use whatever available means to prepare for the unexpected.”
And these days, missions won’t mean only Iraq.
As a “theater reserve” unit, a MEU may be ordered anywhere, so it prepares for two dozen different missions. “It’s across the spectrum of warfare, from high-intensity combat … to the mid- and low,” said Lt. Col. Phillip Chandler, BLT 3/1’s commander. “It’s the same type of training at Twentynine Palms.”
The battalion has rotated to Iraq three times — in 2003, 2004 and 2005. “These Marines, they know Iraq. They do it well. They know it well,” Chandler said.
Since 3/1 returned from Iraq in early April, about half of the men have left. Several hundred new members have joined the battalion, including infantrymen fresh from school, and some combat veterans have taken on new small-unit leadership roles as the men built up their skills.
In September, 3/1 hit the Sierra Nevada for mountaineering and high-altitude training at the Marine Corps’ Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Calif. — training that will come in handy if the unit is sent into Afghanistan. Last month, elements of the MEU, including a 3/1 platoon that’s part of the West Coast’s first Marine special operations company, took to the coastal hills of Central California for specialized urban training.
Next month, the Marines will join the rest of 13th MEU and board ships for the battalion’s first sea training period since 2000.
Until 2003, 1st Marines was known as “the MEU regiment,” its battalions rotating to ships while other West Coast infantry regiments cycled their battalions through Japan. But Commandant Gen. James Conway says Marines need to shift their focus back out to sea and regain the Corps’ unique amphibious capability.
“It’s a strong learning curve for us,” Chandler said. “It’s something different. A lot of them have never been on a ship before.”
Testing and stressing realism
During the four-day field exercise, the men were hammered on the law of armed conflict, rules of engagement and escalation of force.
“We’re constantly teaching them ‘shoot-don’t shoot’” scenarios and emphasizing that “now you have to think about every decision,” Chandler said.
The Marines sat through classroom instruction and discussed scenarios, “and we really put them into scenarios so they can ‘image’ themselves — how will I react in that situation?” he said.
The four-day training was 24/7 to help simulate the fog of war. “We’re getting them to engage their brain before they engage their weapon,” said Capt. Warren Cook, Lima Company commander. “So putting the fatigue factor in there really tests their muscle memory.”
Each scenario is meant to stress and challenge the Marine not to let down their guard. “You get them to think: ‘OK, what is the primary threat?’” said Gunnery Sgt. Amman Catalan, Headquarters and Service Company gunnery sergeant. Leaders “have to make that command decision.
Ellie
4-day program prepares 3/1 for deployment
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — The convoy of amtracs headed up the dirt road to drop off its load of India Company men as engineers raced ahead to breach several enemy obstacles. Scores of infantrymen sped toward positions to fire their weapons at insurgent targets and strongholds as the air crackled with mortars, artillery and the fire of Huey gunships’ rockets and machine-gun rounds.
The battalion’s unit operations center got a report from a reconnaissance team: 30 insurgents in a village had just executed a Marine. The commander ordered a company slated for a humanitarian-aid run to do a “cordon and search” to find their fallen comrade and grab the suspected killers.
After roadside bombs destroyed a vehicle, killing two, and slowed the convoy, Lima Company rolled into a makeshift camp. The mayor and sheikh denied that their village supports the insurgency, but Marines found several weapons caches. By sunset, they left the village with their lost leatherneck and promised to help train local men in security.
For the men of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, the day’s field training packed in as many pieces from the spectrum of warfare — from humanitarian aid and stabilization operations to raids and outright combat — as could be had over a four-day period from Dec. 11 to Dec. 14.
Think of it as a mini-Mojave Viper.
Taking a few pages from the 30-day Mojave Viper desert exercises, 3/1 planners developed an intense, four-day training package that enabled the battalion to hit its mission-essential tasks at home, not far from the battalion’s Camp Horno base.
Since last year, battalions and other units heading to Iraq have gone through Mojave Viper, a modernized version of the Combined-arms exercise at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif., that focuses on security and stability operations and includes live-fire maneuver ranges and new convoy courses. It is tailored more to a full-on Iraq deployment.
But units on a Marine expeditionary unit rotation — such as 3/1, which is the battalion landing team for the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit — usually aren’t slated for Mojave Viper, although some units were able to get the training into their schedules. Since 3/1’s schedule wouldn’t allow it, battalion planners crafted a shortened training package that also served as its final field exercise.
“It’s all about timing. All the battalions want to do the same thing,” said Master Gunnery Sgt. Brad Chandler, battalion operations chief. “We know it’s important. We knew we had to do the Mojave Viper. It is one of the steppingstones we knew we had to complete as a battalion.”
“This is a progressive package,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Armando Garcia, 1st Marines’ regimental gunner and most recently 3/1’s battalion gunner. “We’ve got to use whatever available means to prepare for the unexpected.”
And these days, missions won’t mean only Iraq.
As a “theater reserve” unit, a MEU may be ordered anywhere, so it prepares for two dozen different missions. “It’s across the spectrum of warfare, from high-intensity combat … to the mid- and low,” said Lt. Col. Phillip Chandler, BLT 3/1’s commander. “It’s the same type of training at Twentynine Palms.”
The battalion has rotated to Iraq three times — in 2003, 2004 and 2005. “These Marines, they know Iraq. They do it well. They know it well,” Chandler said.
Since 3/1 returned from Iraq in early April, about half of the men have left. Several hundred new members have joined the battalion, including infantrymen fresh from school, and some combat veterans have taken on new small-unit leadership roles as the men built up their skills.
In September, 3/1 hit the Sierra Nevada for mountaineering and high-altitude training at the Marine Corps’ Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Calif. — training that will come in handy if the unit is sent into Afghanistan. Last month, elements of the MEU, including a 3/1 platoon that’s part of the West Coast’s first Marine special operations company, took to the coastal hills of Central California for specialized urban training.
Next month, the Marines will join the rest of 13th MEU and board ships for the battalion’s first sea training period since 2000.
Until 2003, 1st Marines was known as “the MEU regiment,” its battalions rotating to ships while other West Coast infantry regiments cycled their battalions through Japan. But Commandant Gen. James Conway says Marines need to shift their focus back out to sea and regain the Corps’ unique amphibious capability.
“It’s a strong learning curve for us,” Chandler said. “It’s something different. A lot of them have never been on a ship before.”
Testing and stressing realism
During the four-day field exercise, the men were hammered on the law of armed conflict, rules of engagement and escalation of force.
“We’re constantly teaching them ‘shoot-don’t shoot’” scenarios and emphasizing that “now you have to think about every decision,” Chandler said.
The Marines sat through classroom instruction and discussed scenarios, “and we really put them into scenarios so they can ‘image’ themselves — how will I react in that situation?” he said.
The four-day training was 24/7 to help simulate the fog of war. “We’re getting them to engage their brain before they engage their weapon,” said Capt. Warren Cook, Lima Company commander. “So putting the fatigue factor in there really tests their muscle memory.”
Each scenario is meant to stress and challenge the Marine not to let down their guard. “You get them to think: ‘OK, what is the primary threat?’” said Gunnery Sgt. Amman Catalan, Headquarters and Service Company gunnery sergeant. Leaders “have to make that command decision.
Ellie