Marines rush into a building in a high-speed exercise to clear the area of armed defenders, part of an extended training session under way at Naval Station Rota, Spain. (Ben Murray / S&S)
Marines rush into a building in a high-speed exercise to clear the area of armed defenders, part of an extended training session under way at Naval Station Rota, Spain. (Ben Murray / S&S)
Lance Cpl. Mitch Rowley, left, and Lance Cpl. Chris Moritt, members of the Marine Corps Security Force Company Europe's 1st Platoon, guard a vehicle checkpoint at an ad-hoc training area at Naval Station Rota, Spain. (Ben Murray / S&S)
NAVAL STATION ROTA, Spain — The Marines at Naval Station Rota are, as a general rule, a physical group. They spend time hacking at each other in martial arts exercises, building up fortified machine-gun positions and holding mock firefights as they train for the war on terror.
But one of the most difficult battles the Marines face is often the fight against boredom, a struggle typified by long hours of tedium at an isolated post or droning repetition at a busy security gate.
“Let’s face it, this stuff can be pretty boring,” said 1st Lt. Lance Day of the Rota-based Marine Corps Security Force Company Europe’s 1st Platoon.
This week, Day spent several days leading his leathernecks through a variety of training exercises designed to sharpen the local Marines’ guard skills and drill them in basic infantry tactics. The exercises were held at a fenced-in pair of unused buildings.
Fighting complacency, as the company’s executive officer Capt. Mark Zarnecki puts it, is important for the security force, which plays a distinct role for the U.S. military.
The company stationed at this base in southern Spain has three main missions: to provide onboard security for ships passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, to conduct what Zarnecki called “random anti-terror measures” at European bases and to augment security forces at nearby Navy bases. A portion of their site security duties may also include guarding embassies throughout Europe and beyond, when threats to American diplomatic outposts arise, he said.
It’s a job, he said, that may sound dynamic but often has the Marines standing in one place, watching stuff.
Many times, “there’s nothing sexy, nothing high-speed about it,” he said. Which is exactly why the Marines drill it.
And it’s not all boring, Day said. A major part of the regimen, held for several days at a time every few months, is focused on honing the Marines’ basic infantry skills, including kinetic hand-to-hand combat workouts and intense house-clearing exercises using low-velocity rounds tipped with paint cartridges.
Lance Cpl. Chris Moritt and Lance Cpl. Mitch Rowley, manning a machine gun at the training area’s vehicle processing station, agreed that it wasn’t easy to keep their minds fresh hour after hour, but that the training was necessary.
“Being out here for long periods of time can be hard,” Moritt said.
But guarding installations against terror threats outside the gates of Rota, Rowley added, “is exactly what we do.”
“It’s good training, for all intents and purposes.”
