Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Brigitte Peters | Lt. Ashlee Wasowski, U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Diego, and Capt. Kuba Wasowski, U.S....... read more read more
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Story by LT Ashlee Wasowski
SAN DIEGO – U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Diego, Station San Diego, Air Station San Diego, Cutter Haddock (WPB-87347) and U.S. Marine Corps Marine Wing Communications Squadron 48 (MWCS-48) test communication capabilities during an interagency communications exercise off the San Diego coast between June 21-24th.
This exercise purposefully removes connection abilities, challenging the various services to bridge communication gaps in the maritime domain. This marks the second joint interagency communications exercise of this kind in the San Diego area.
“I thoroughly enjoyed my time on this operation,” said Cpl. Richard Lowe, U.S. Marine Corps. “The biggest takeaway for me is that we must incorporate more radio etiquette courses into our training plan regardless of rank and Military Occupation Specialty (MOS). Marines of all MOS’s had to operate a radio during this exercise and they should be properly trained on a radio.”
This joint exercise was conceptualized by Lt. Wasowski and her husband, Capt. Kuba Wasowski, U.S. Marine Corps MWCS-48. In doing so, they challenged members to stretch capabilities from ship-to-shore and air-to-ground communications, all while changing platforms and assets to really identify gaps. Assets and personnel include a U.S. Coast Guard 33-foot small boat crew, 87-foot patrol boat crew, HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew, Marines on shore at U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Diego and U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar members. Additionally, the Coast Guard transported a Marine from Miramar to Sector San Diego to simulate a medical evacuation in the field.
“Understanding how to operate together will make us stronger as a nation in a real-world conflict,” said Lt. Ashlee Wasowski, emergency management specialist at Coast Guard Sector San Diego. “By combining our strengths between the Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps, we will better present a unified maritime force to overcome our adversaries. This hinges on communications and the ability to establish and maintain successful communications channels with each other and our allies.”
Lt. Wasowski and Capt. Wasowski hope to embed communication specialists and add these simulated challenges to other annual exercises like Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), eventually taking the challenge worldwide and deploying these challenges to a Non-secure Internet Protocol Router (NIPR) and Secret Internet Protocol Router (SIPR). They're also researching the possibility of MWCS-48 providing temporary radio coverage with one of the Coast Guard's Remote Fixed Facility (RFF) towers, monitoring Channel 16 (VHF 156.8 MHz), the international hail and distress frequency.
“The level of teamwork between the ships crews, leadership, operations sections of USCG Sector San Diego; and our Marines was an eye-opening experience into the flexibility and responsiveness of the USCG,” said Capt. Wasowski. “The future fight requires us to be mobile, light, and adaptive. This OP is a perfect example of how to meet that requirement against a near peer adversary.
-USCG-
| Date Taken: | 07.25.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 07.25.2023 18:15 |
| Story ID: | 449979 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 396 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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