Marines at Twentynine Palms prepare
for real world confrontation
By Carlos Bongioanni,
Stars and Stripes
Carlos Bongioanni / Stars and Stripes
Cpl. Roger Zion, left, Staff Sgt. Nicholas Ballowe, center, and Sgt. Nathan Butts scan a
map to locate their next desert destination. |
TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. — It was dark and getting darker as
Lance Cpl. James Moran’s slow Humvee lumbered over a rugged dirt road without any
headlights to lead the way.
A sliver of moon offered only a paltry amount of reflected light.
Even that gave way to more darkness as it dropped behind the mountain range that framed
the desert where the young Marine drove.
“This is real Marine Corps training,” said Moran, as he
aimed his vehicle toward a faint glow of chemical lights indicating an encampment ahead.
Moran, 22, said he hoped he followed the right trail leading to the
camp he was seeking. He already had been to one wrong camp that night and backtracked
several times to get to his current position.
Besides, it wasn’t safe to be out at night, driving around a
desert that serves as a live firing range for U.S. Marine Corps units in a combined arms
exercise.
Capt. Jay Williams led the way on foot when a deafening boom, and
then another and another and another, surrounded the Humvee.
The big guns, 155mm Howitzers, had begun the night attack.
Motor Transport Officer Capt. Tim Bowles says the rough dirt roads, desolate
terrain and austere conditions in the desert at Twentynine Palms are very similar to what
troops will find in Afghanistan. |
With each blast from the powerful guns, Williams flinched. No one but
those shouldering him noticed, so dark was the night.
It was unnerving, and Williams murmured something about getting the
heck out of there.
The road was the correct one, and within a few minutes, Williams and
Moran were standing outside a tent of the command operations center for the 3rd Infantry
Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.
The guns belonged to the 1st Artillery Battalion, 11th Marine
Regiment and were launching live shells to a battlefield five miles away where the
infantry engaged in battle.
“This is the best place a Marine unit can be, considering the
world situation right now,” said Col. Anthony Jackson, the Marine Air Ground Task
Force Commander who was overseeing the combined arms exercise.
“The strength of the Marine Corps is its combined arms combat
power – the combination of aviation, artillery, infantry, combat service support
assets.”
Units that trained at the exercise could fight in the escalating
conflict in Afghanistan, Jackson said.
Spent artillery shells litter the desert ground around a discarded tank that
serves as a target for live fire exercises. |
“We don’t know what tomorrow will hold … That’s
why this is a good place for us to be right now.”
Three-quarters the size of Rhode Island, the Marine Corps’ Air,
Ground Combat Center at 29 Palms gives Marines the chance to train like they’re in
actual war.
Tanks and armored assault vehicles have ample room to perform attack
maneuvers over long tracks of barren, rocky land.
The desolate landscape bears a striking resemblance to the
Afghanistan many Americans have seen on television. The fireworks of blazing light
illuminating the mountains on the western end of the desert looked like television images
of Kabul, erupting in light as cruise missiles and ordnance from U.S. planes hit the city.
It takes great coordination to focus the Marine Corps’ vast
array of air and ground combat elements to a single battlefield during a combined arms
exercise, noted Jackson.
FA-18 fighter aircraft from Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar,
outside of San Diego, fire live ordnance. CH-53 and CH-46 helicopters transport and drop
troops and equipment. Cobra attack helicopters fire their weapons to provide cover.
Artillery units launch their rounds with astonishing precision from miles away.
And the infantry holds its position and fires its close range weapons
while all hell breaks loose around them.
Moran |
One lance corporal, participating in his first CAX, said it’s
“weird” being on the front lines when the artillery starts coming in.
“At first, when you see it happening, the ground shakes and you
think, ‘Oh well, that’s just arty [artillery] going off.’ But then you
start thinking, ‘Hey that’s going off right in front of me.’
“If you dwell on it, it’s kind of creepy,” said the
lance corporal, who requested anonymity.
As a radioman for a forward-ground combat element, the Marine
normally stayed close to the front lines to report to the command operations center what
he sees happening on the battlefield and with enemy movements.
Having artillery rounds explode nearby is not something he expects to
get used to, he said.
“I just accept it… that everybody knows what they are
doing.”
Lance Cpl. Dominic Ricci is a scout observer for an artillery unit
that fires the rounds, he explained. He usually positions himself near the battlefield to
relay information up the chain to let the command know where to dispatch the rounds.
When not in the trenches on the front line, he operates
advanced-field, artillery-tactical, data system within the command operations center, he
said. The computerized system compiles field information, then gives artillery battery
units coordinates where to fire, he explained.
“With all the systems working, it’s supposed to do it all
in 60 seconds,” said Ricci. “But I’ve never seen it happen that fast.”
When the Army system first came online in the early 1990s, it
miscalculated coordinates at times: U.S. soldiers were hit by friendly fire.
As a backup, the Marine Corps manually checks the coordinates, Ricci
said, on battle maps to prevent accidental misfiring on their own troops.
Still, there is room for human error. During this exercise, Ricci
said, an artillery battery missed its target by a thousand feet. That unit was returned
for additional training, when it was learned that they punched in a single wrong
coordinate.
Human error is very real, noted Cpl. Shawn Jorgensen, a Marine who
works in the communications field. During the exercise, Jorgensen worked in the command
operations center helping to de-conflict the data coming in from the field.
The communications aspect of the exercise is vital, he said.
“Lives are at stake.”
Without communications, the Marine Corps wouldn’t be able to
hold such exercises, much less win wars, said Capt. Gregory Rhoden, the communications
officer for the Marine Air Ground Task Force.
“It’s the glue that holds the entire mission
together.”
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