Georgia Army National Guard to participate in African Lion 21

Photo By Sgt. 1st Class R.J. Lannom | Georgia Army National Guardsmen with the Elberton based 1st Battalion, 214th Field Artillery Regiment conduct movement during the Kansa National Guard's Big Bow, a brigade artillery exercise featuring Guardsmen from Kansas, Missouri and Georgia at Fort Riley, Kan., on June 11, 2019. The battalion conducted three weeks of active duty training focused on combined fire capability with other National Guard units. U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. 1st Class R.J. Lannom Jr  

MARIETTA, GA, UNITED STATES

04.27.2021

Story by Capt. Bryant Wine 

Georgia National Guard

More than 740 U.S. Army Soldiers from the Georgia Army National Guard will participate in training exercise African Lion 21 in the country of Morocco June 7-18.

African Lion 21 is a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-sponsored, U.S. Africa Command-scheduled, Southern European Task Force, Africa, -led, joint and combined exercise conducted in the Kingdom of Morocco, Tunisia, and Senegal. The U.S. will deploy approximately 4,000 U.S. service members to join nearly 5,000 members of the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces, Tunisian Armed Forces, Senegalese Armed Forces, and participants from the armed forces of Italy, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, along with military observers from more than a dozen nations.

Georgia Army National Guard units participating in African Lion include the Fort Benning-based Headquarters, 648th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade; the Cumming-based 420th Signal Company, 648th MEB; the Elberton-based 1st Battalion, 214th Field Artillery, 648th MEB; and the Forsyth-based 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. Soldiers from the Moroccan and Tunisian militaries will be attached to Georgia Army National Guard units during the exercise.

All Georgia Army National Guard units will train in Tantan, Morocco, throughout the exercise. Exercise tasks include operating a tactical command post, conducting situational training exercise lanes, conducting field training exercises and conducting indirect fire gunnery table qualification. The exercise culminates with a combined and joint live-fire exercise.

African Lion offers the opportunity to improve interoperability and cooperation while demonstrating the strong military bond that exists between the participating nations. It is designed to provide training for U.S., Moroccan, Tunisian, Senegalese, and other regionally-based African partnered forces while simultaneously reinforcing lessons learned from past African Lion exercises, and provides a foundation and structure for future military cooperation and engagements.

Last year’s African Lion exercise was canceled during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

For this year’s exercise, planners have implemented safety measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spread and infection amongst U.S. personnel and partner nation forces. This includes mandatory quarantines and COVID-19 testing prior to travel, wearing of masks and social distancing during the exercise, and procedures to respond in the event a participant contracts COVID-19.

• Date Taken: 04.27.2021
• Date Posted: 04.27.2021 09:51
• Story ID: 394874
• Location: MARIETTA, GA, US