USS BONHOMME RICHARD, At Sea -- Despite bearing a title honoring their amphibious roots, many of today’s Marines have had few opportunities to spend time at sea.
Nevertheless, Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force 3 aboard U.S. Navy Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) are hearkening back to these roots.
Largely comprised of Marines from Marine Corps Base Hawaii-based 3rd Marine Regiment, SPMAGTF-3 is participating in Exercise Rim of the Pacific 2010, the world’s largest multi-lateral maritime exercise. The exercise, which began June 23 and ends Aug. 1, provides an opportunity for the Corps to re-establish and rehearse their crisis response force as part of a forward-deployed naval force.
“The SPMAGTF is a great way to focus the regiment on our special amphibious mission-essential tasks,” said Lt. Col. Seth Yost, executive officer, 3rd Marine Regiment and SPMAGTF-3. “Allowing Marines of all ranks to get back into amphibious operations is critical to the future success of our Corps.”
In comparison with a Marine Expeditionary Unit, which has a permanent command element, SPMAGTF-3 will execute RIMPAC at a regimental level in close coordination with international forces. This allows the regiment to gain experience with conducting amphibious operations as opposed to strictly dealing with land-based operations.
“This exercise isn’t like training in your backyard,” Yost said. “It requires the regiment staff to work hand in hand with our coalition partners in compressed environments.”
Given no small task, the exercise requires SPMAGTF-3 to execute a robust training plan in 30 days with very little work-up or previous coalition interoperability, Yost said.
Regardless of the limited time for building cohesion, “Everything we do is coalition-based,” Yost said. “We can’t turn around without the help of our coalition partners.”
In working together with these coalition partners, the goal for the SPMAGTF-3 Marines is to impart and gain knowledge, in addition to enhancing regional security in an ever-changing global climate. Personnel from Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Tonga and the United States are working on the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) alone.
“The reality is that we won’t always be in Afghanistan,” said Yost, of Wellsboro, Penn. “We’re practicing to take the fight to the enemy through amphibious operations as opposed to a forward operating base or combat outpost.”
No stranger to sea life himself, Staff Sgt. Andrew Scott, company gunnery sergeant, Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Marine Regiment, experienced the 22nd MEU in 1993, two SPMAGTFs, Joint Task Forces 160 and 180 in 1994, and the 31st MEU in 2003.
“RIMPAC is a prime experience for the Marine Corps to get back into doing what it does best — being the amphibious war machine for the United States,” said Scott, of Jacksonville, Fla. “It’ll give us some time to train Marines besides going into the desert [in Iraq and Afghanistan].”
The major difference between SPMAGTF-3 and a MEU lies in the training work-up requirements.
In preparation for a MEU, elements spend six months conducting work-up training, including realistic urban training exercises and special operations capable certification exercises. Upon successful completion of the training, the MEU spends six months at sea as a forward deployed, self-sustaining force in support of geographic combatant commanders.
In addition, the large volume of international participants and extensive battle group make the RIMPAC exercise more challenging than a regular MEU, Scott said. There are typically three ships on a MEU, compared to 34 ships participating in this year’s exercise.
For the generation of young Marines that haven’t experienced life on a ship, the exercise provides both new experiences and expanded knowledge, training them to operate from the sea while reconfirming the Corps’ capabilities as a sea-based crisis response force.
“Every Marine should have the opportunity to go on a ship,” Scott said. “It opened my eyes to a lot of the things Marines do that I didn’t know about.”