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CARIBBEAN SEA — Members of the U.S. Army have embarked aboard the amphibious dock transport ship USS Mesa Verde.
"I've been fortunate enough to work with Naval personnel before in joint assignments around the world, but I've never spend this much time out to sea on a U.S. Navy ship before," said Lt. Col. Carl Nelson, civil affairs planning officer for the M-5 division of the FA PANAMAX multinational force aboard Mesa Verde.
"It's been a privilege to be part of this ship in this exercise. This exercise is joint in every sense. When we go to war or conduct some sort of humanitarian assistance operation, it is rare the Army or Navy would do all the work; we fight jointly and train jointly. This exercise encompasses that," said Nelson.
Nelson said this also presented a unique opportunity for Army helicopter crews to train aboard a Navy platform and improve upon their aviation skills.
"Army aviation works under different regulations than Navy helicopter aviation," said Lt. Cmdr. Jason Ziebold, TACRON 21's assistant operations officer. "For example, Army helicopters cannot operate single-ship, over water. However, their UH-60s carry more fuel and have longer endurance than our MH-60S. When moving groups of passengers, we have to plan carefully to ensure we execute the mission while adhering Army regulations, maximizing assets and most
importantly, accomplishing the mission."
Ziebold said joint-operations, such as these, can only benefit the whole American military.
"By gaining experience working with other services, we can understand their strengths and weakness to plan more effective military operations," said Ziebold. "Through understanding our services, we can provide the taxpayer with more effective and efficient personnel, especially when it comes to planning."
Ziebold said he admits the operational procedures between the Army and Navy are quite similar and require only slight modifications to planning factors due to different platform capabilities and service-specific regulations.
"While the U.S. military is very effective, we can always learn from others," said Ziebold. "Just working with the Army, has improved our interoperability and understanding."
Nelson said he feels U.S. armed forces have many global responsibilities and no one service can handle all the work alone. He said it's important for American forces to work together as a joint force and with other partner nations in theater.
Nelson said he hopes in the future to see a more expansive land component added to the exercise by deploying forces into Panama directly for the exercise.
"I would imagine the Panama government allowing a land component access to address an incident in Panama, requiring land forces of some size to respond to a scenario," said Nelson.
FA PANAMAX 2009 is an annual U.S. Southern Command joint and multi-national exercise involving over 20 countries including Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Netherlands, Nicaragua,
Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, Uruguay, and in cooperation with the
United Nations and Conference of Central American Armies, to respond to a variety of simulated
events tailored to the defense of the Panama Canal.
| Date Taken: | 09.21.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 09.21.2009 12:14 |
| Story ID: | 39097 |
| Location: | USCENTCOM, AT SEA |
| Web Views: | 323 |
| Downloads: | 307 |
This work, Army Boots Walk the Deckplates of Mesa Verde, by CPO Patrick Grieco, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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