Honing a new tip for our nation's amphibious spear

Courtesy Photo | Capt. Todd A. Lewis, USN Commodore Amphibious Squadron Six, emphasized the key to relationships in accomplishing the ARG/MEU Mission. (Photo/Lance Cpl. Dylan Carpenter)  

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA, UNITED STATES

12.18.2015

Story by MILISSA WHITFIELD 

EXPEDITIONARY WARFARE TRAINING GROUP, ATLANTIC

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Marines and Sailors of the USS WASP Amphibious Ready Group, comprised of Amphibious Squadron 6 and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, recently underwent two weeks of intense training at the Expeditionary Warfare Training Group, Atlantic (EWTGLANT) aboard Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Ft Story. This course is the first of many steps in the Navy’s Fleet Response Training Plan and Marine Corps’ Pre Deployment Training Program designed to prepare these warriors for their upcoming deployment.

The Amphibious Ready Group, Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU)Staff Planning Course (AMSPC) is designed to provide the opportunity for Marines and Sailors to integrate, plan and begin to think and plan like a team. Colonel James W. Frey, USMC, Commanding Officer, EWTGLANT provided welcoming remarks that defined the purpose of the training. "EWTGLANT is proud to host, train, and assist the staffs of the PHIBRON and MEU during the first phase of their respective predeployment training plan and program. The learning and refinement that occurs culminates with the successful deployment of this ARG/MEU team."

The ARG/MEU Staff Planning Course (AMSPC) emphasizes unity and provides the ideal environment to ensure that core of experience from seasoned amphibious warriors, instructors and mentors resident at EWTGLANT transfers to the lesser experienced of the training audience in order begin the transformation from separate units to one team.

The AMSPC is the first of many events in the training pipeline for the ARG/MEU, and key senior officers were present to shape expectations and to emphasize the criticality of the mission ahead for Commodore Todd A. Lewis, USN, Amphibious Squadron 6 and Colonel Todd P. Simmons, USMC, Commanding Officer, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit as they commanded their units to accomplish work through multiple scenario based training exercises involving missions that the ARG may face in their coming deployment. Together, these commanders and their subordinate ships and units comprise the ARG/MEU, often referred to as the Blue Green Team, a forward deployed force with unique capabilities that is often chosen for missions requiring a rapid task organized response.

Opening remarks by two Navy Flag Officers emphasized the importance of the training ahead. First, Commander Expeditionary Strike Group 2, Rear Admiral Cynthia M. Thebaud, emphasized The importance of understanding personalities and how to compensate and pull together as a team. She also addressed the need to train for the full scope of missions in order to provide the best possible support to the combatant commands whose areas of responsibility include numerous global hotspots.

Secondly, Rear Admiral Richard W. Butler, Commander of Carrier Strike Group 4, provided insight from his position as the leader for much of the certification training for the ARG. He stressed that their getting together early would assist them in working well together as the mission areas became more inclusive to include all composite warfare commander and warfighting functional areas of expertise and how they would be applied to all environments including surface, subsurface, space, and cyberspace. He also stressed the importance of planning for operational risk management and ensuring that everyone in the amphibious force understood procedural items such as rules of engagement, command and control, fires, and battlespace awareness.

Training consisted of approximately 80 hours of classroom and laboratory work of increasing intensity, stimulated by scenario driven planning exercises, review and critique orchestrated by course manager Major Glen Taylor, USMC. The schedule was made all the more rigorous by the recent decision by the units to conduct the last two scenario training exercises onboard the USS WASP. This was done to give the Marines maximum exposure to the ship and the support systems onboard.

The AMSPC is scheduled for six days per week, ending on the second Thursday, Dec. 17, with a highly valued hot wash which, when combined with the debriefs of the scenario training exercises, formed a useful foundation in rapid response planning. They have their start, now they need to continue through their predeployment training and then on to their deployment and the stuff legends are made of.

Approximately 250 personnel who had just recently formed up are now working more closely together, aware that they are now greater than the sum of their separate parts and ready to hone their skills to be the best our nation has to offer; ready for anything wherever they might deploy. They are the tip of the spear.

• Date Taken: 12.18.2015
• Date Posted: 02.03.2016 10:58
• Story ID: 187775
• Location: VIRGINIA BEACH, VA, US