Courtesy Photo | Maj. Fletcher Tidwell, aviation officer with Special Operations Training Group, III...... read more read more
Subscribe
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam - Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit conducted a mechanized amphibious assault on the island of Tinian, trained in the Republic of Palau, including Koror and on Peleliu, and have also been operating in and around Guam, all thanks to the efforts of the III Marine Expeditionary Force’s Special Operations Training Group.
The 31st MEU, known as a force in readiness in the Asia-Pacific region, is conducting their Certification Exercise, a series of evaluated full mission profiles in the Marianas and Caroline Islands designed by SOTG to bring the Marine Air Ground Task Force to a high state of readiness prior to patrolling the region.
“SOTG has the responsibility to establish the exercise environment for the MEU’s pre-deployment training,” said Col. Brandon McGowan, Officer in Charge, SOTG. “This allows for the continuing state of high readiness of the MEU.”
A platoon-sized element of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force is also doing bilateral training for the first time alongside the Okinawa-based 31st MEU’s Marines and sailors during their CERTEX here to develop greater interoperability of forces and to further enhance the security of the region, according to officials.
“The JGSDF soldiers integrated with the Marines as they trained both on ship and as they came ashore on Guam for the missions is a big first,” said McGowan. “This is the first time the Japanese have done a bilateral exercise with the Marines in the Marianas. As you know, we do bilateral exercises all the time in Japan, but this is a new facet to a long-standing partnership.”
“The Certification Exercise brings it all together,” said Maj. Fletcher Tidwell, Air Officer, SOTG. “We design it to incorporate all the essential tasks of the MAGTF, and we flex the 31st MEU through all of its missions in a short period of time. And this time is very unique because we have the JGSDF incorporated with us for the first time.”
SOTG, based out of Okinawa, is responsible for planning and orchestrating training for the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit as it begins deployments to the Asia-Pacific region.
“The major training events SOTG conducts for the 31st MEU as it goes through its workup are Interoperability Training for the reconnaissance elements, the Realistic Urban Training Exercise which adds levels of complexity mirroring real world situations, and finally the capstone Certification Exercise here in the Marianas Islands,” said Tidwell.
First came the mechanized assault using Marine amphibious assault vehicles on a beach in Tinian, which began the two weeks of training across the islands. The assault secured the old military runway areas, which were used in World War Two by allied forces, including the launching of the Enola Gay.
“The island of Tinian provides many resources for training,” said Staff Sgt. Danny R. Keller of San Antonio, Texas, a site controller with SOTG. It is really an untouched island which hasn’t seen much military activity for many years, so it provides very realistic training for our Marines.”
The second event was a long-range raid was based in Palau, with military actions taking place in on nearby Peleliu.
“We coordinated closely with the government of Palau to ensure a successful sequence of training events,” said McGowan. “Everyone was very supportive of the training there, and U.S. Ambassador Helen Reed-Rowe and her staff were essential to the success. SOTG takes great pride in working closely with local authorities in order to facilitate safe, environmentally-friendly training and building close relationships along the way.”
Finally on Guam, SOTG managed bilateral boat raids, a helicopter-borne raid and also a bilateral combat service support area to support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions.
Due to its location, Guam offers the ability to host multilateral training on U.S. territory, providing a strategic advantage with developing or enhancing partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region and building multilateral capabilities.
The whole exercise was conducted over 6,000 square miles, a good challenge for logistics and communications, and a situation great for realistic training, according to McGowan.
“Okinawa training areas are very familiar, both to the organizations and the individual Marines who are used to the terrain,” said McGowan. “So coming out here really made it better and more challenging training for the MEU, and also more challenging for us to develop training over so many remote sites that we had to run simultaneously.”
SOTG must start planning six months in advance in order to set the training areas, logistics, and permissions necessary to do the training across the Asia-Pacific, according to Tidwell. And there are many considerations to be taken into account as the planning goes along.
“Going to a new place, we have to learn the capabilities as well as the limitations of each training area,” said Tidwell. “There might be environmental or cultural factors which must be considered, or even historical or archeological sites which we want to protect. We go out of our way to ensure every detail is covered, every permission is granted, and everyone is in the know about what we are planning.”
SOTG has other important missions aside from doing CERTEX for the MEU. According to Tidwell, they also train all of the individual augments from III MEF, do theater security missions in the area, train reconnaissance elements, conduct swim and navigation courses and hold rope suspension training.
“We could not have done this without a significant support from the MEF staff,” said McGowan. “We have a platoon from 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines as role-players. We have 7th Communications Battalion Marines. This teamwork shows the capability the MEF has to do this kind of thing wherever and whenever it is needed.”
| Date Taken: | 09.24.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 10.21.2012 22:45 |
| Story ID: | 96526 |
| Location: | ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, GU |
| Web Views: | 414 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, SOTG brings US Marines, Japanese service members back to Marianas Islands, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
