Photo By David Overson | Lithuanian Army Lt. Col. Viktoras Bagdonas, chief of staff for the Lithuanian Army...... read more read more
RUKLA, Lithuania — Cranes hoisted five U.S. Army tanks into Lithuania Sunday, March 15, 2015, marking the first time the two nations will train with tanks since 1990, when the country became an independent state.
After a more than 5,000-mile journey, the 60-ton Abrams M1A2 and other vehicles of the 2-7 Battalion, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, based in Fort Stewart, Georgia, arrived at the railhead at Rukla, Lithuania, to begin its training and support for Operation Atlantic Resolve.
“It’s humbling to be in someone else’s country, being afforded the opportunity to work with allied NATO nations hand-in-hand in an operation that is this size — across these countries and working together,” Capt. James Lewis, assistant operations officer (S3) for the 2-7 Infantry Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.
The 1st Armored Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division is deploying 900 Soldiers and about 70 armored fighting vehicles to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland in March.
During the next several months, the unit will conduct multinational training with NATO allies in the region to demonstrate the continued U.S. commitment to security in Eastern Europe following the Russian violation of Ukrainian sovereignty in 2014.
Multinational training is schedule to the first U.S. tank firing in Lithuania in early April and force-on-force interoperability training through April, said Capt. Lewis, a Clarksville, Tennessee, native.
“It is an amazing feeling to know we have to opportunity to come here and conduct this type of training and to have been selected is exciting. We are really looking forward to partaking in the training with the Lithuanians and other nations across the Baltic states.”
Lithuanian National Defense Minister Juozas Olekas told reporters the U.S. military in the country sends “a clear message to those who may attempt on the stability and peace in the region and to whom the values we have been cherishing for nearly a quarter of the decade are foreign.”
Among the assets deployed to Lithuania are about 10 track vehicles and wheeled vehicles, including five Abrams M1A2 tanks.
Those vehicles originated from Fort Benning in Georgia before they were loaded onto a ship from Charleston, South Carolina to Latvia, then transported by train to Lithuania.
Upon arrival, towering 10-ton cranes based in Lithuania arrived at the Rukla railhead to lift the tanks and trucks into place.
“The vehicles have had a long journey,” said 1st Lt. John Meckley, platoon leader for 2nd Platoon, C Company, 2-7 Inf. “[The Lithuanians] set everything up for us very nicely — all these assets are great. Today is a testimony about how well [Lithuanian forces] coordinate things for us.”
The U.S. Soldiers on the ground represent both veterans, who have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, and young service members testing their abilities abroad for the first time.
Twenty-year-old Tanker (19K) Pfc. Jordan Mudge is among those in another country for the first time in uniform.
Mudge says he is looking forward to getting to display his job to the other NATO units during the upcoming training.
“It is intense — especially being inside the turret,” he said, who holds the position of loader inside the tank placing the 120 mm rounds into the primary weapon.
“I’m looking forward to training with NATO and do what we have to do out here — showing them what we do, seeing what they do and hopefully become better Soldiers because of it,” Mudge said.
| Date Taken: | 03.15.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 03.25.2015 19:54 |
| Story ID: | 158099 |
| Location: | RUKLA, LT |
| Web Views: | 340 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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