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    Georgia Guard Soldier returns to Africa for African Lion 21

    Georgia Guard Soldier returns to Africa for African Lion 21

    Photo By Maj. Bryant Wine | U.S. Army Spc. Reginald Aikins, a medic assigned to the Forsyth-based Headquarters and...... read more read more

    TAN TAN, MOROCCO

    06.19.2021

    Story by Capt. Bryant Wine 

    48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team

    U.S. Army Spc. Reginald Aikins is a medic with the Georgia Army National Guard’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. He also was born in Ghana and immigrated to the U.S. in 2013.

    Now, Aikins has returned to the African continent as a participant in exercise African Lion 21.

    African Lion 2021 is U.S. Africa Command's largest, premier, joint, annual exercise hosted by Morocco, Tunisia, and Senegal, 7-18 June. More than 7,000 participants from nine nations and NATO train together with a focus on enhancing readiness for U.S. and partner nation forces. African Lion 21 is a multi-domain, multi-component, and multinational exercise, which employs a full array of mission capabilities with the goal to strengthen interoperability among participants.

    “It’s great,” said Aikins. “Getting back to your roots, getting back to the people you lived with, it’s a pretty great feeling.”

    Aikins’ father was a businessman, and frequently traveled to the U.S. for work. His father’s connections eventually brought Aikins and his family to the U.S. as immigrants in 2013.

    “I was about 17 or 18 years old,” said Aikins.

    Aikins enlisted in the Georgia Army National Guard as a medic in January 2017. Education benefits attracted Aikins to join the Georgia Guard. Aikins currently resides in Miami where he is a student at the University of Miami.

    Aikins chose to be a medic because he aspires to be a neurosurgeon and believed becoming a medic would help him get a head-start in his career field.

    Exercise African Lion 21 offers participants to train in deployment operations and in their occupation specialties at an austere setting. Though Aikins has worked in the field plenty throughout his career, African Lion 21 is his first overseas deployment training mission.

    African Lion 21 is the largest military exercise on the African continent. Also, the Georgia Army National Guard has deployed more personnel and equipment to African Lion 21 than any other overseas deployment training in the organization’s history by deploying 640 personnel and 200 vehicles, including nine M109A6 Paladin howitzers.

    “So far it has been a great experience,” said Aikins. “We’ve had to deal with adversity out here that we really never deal with on a day-to-day basis.”

    Strengthening partnerships is another key focus of exercise African Lion 21. Georgia Army National Guard Soldiers live, train and interact with soldiers from Morocco and Senegal.

    “I’ve gotten a chance to interact with a little bit with Senegalese. My French is a little bit limited, so we use hand signals,” said Aikins. “It’s fun; it’s interesting because we have a lot in common despite the speech barrier.”

    Aikins said he had fun and interesting experiences growing up in Ghana, and he’s thrilled about the opportunity to return to his home continent to train alongside multinational partners and do the job he enlisted in the Army to do.

    One benefit of multinational exercises, like African Lion 21, is the opportunity to travel for participants to travel to world. But for some, exercises almost become a homecoming.

    “I had to lose my citizenship when I immigrated to the United States, but I’ll always be a citizen of Ghana in my heart.”

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 06.19.2021
    Date Posted: 06.19.2021 06:02
    Story ID: 399301
    Location: TAN TAN, MA

    Web Views: 521
    Downloads: 0

    PUBLIC DOMAIN