FORT SILL, Okla.-- The 14th Marine Regiment came to Fort Sill Feb. 6-10 to prepare for a deployment that will take them to Morocco for a combined exercise called African Lion 2013.
African Lion is an annual exercise coordinated by U.S. Africa Command, the combatant command that oversees operations in that theater. It is the largest military exercise held on the African continent, now in its 13th year. More than 1,400 U.S. military personnel will participate in exercises with the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces to improve interoperability and mutual understanding of each nation's tactics, techniques and procedures.
Marines will make up more than 600 of the U.S. force that will deploy to Morocco in April. To prepare for that deployment about 250 Marines from seven states spent time on the ranges here performing live-fire missions with their High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers and M777 155mm howitzers. For their regimental commander, there was no place better than Fort Sill for these exercises.
"Fort Sill has a tremendous amount of range area for live-fires," said Col. Roger Garay, 14th Marine regimental commander based in Fort Worth, Texas. "It gives us the best place to replicate the 600-mile command and control area we will have in Morocco.
"And the airfield at Fort Sill made it possible for us to bring in Quebec Battery, 5th Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment from Aurora, Colo. If we hadn't been able to land our KC-130T transports here to bring Q Battery down, I would have lost one-third of my participants in this exercise."
Having all of the elements available for the exercise was certainly important for Maj. Brandon Frazee, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment, out of Grand Prairie, Texas. Frazee said, as operations officer, he manages two shooting batteries of Reserve HIMARS rocket launchers that make up the battalion, but, for this exercise, there was something added.
"For the African Lion exercise we have a cannon battery attached to us from the 5-14th Marines out of Colorado," said Frazee. "So I am managing the placement of them, what they are firing, and ammunition management, that sort of thing. It is different to have the cannon batteries working together with the rocket batteries.
"What Fort Sill provides for us is the opportunity to shoot live-fire, which we can't easily do because we're based in the greater metropolitan Dallas area. So coming here gives us that degree of reality when we have a live round in the air. And that isn't something we can get down in the Dallas area," he added.
Coordinating the various units that were on the ground at Fort Sill during the exercise was critical for the unit commanders.
"A lot of elements are here supporting us as we are trying to replicate the footprint here that we will have in Morocco," Garay said. "I want to have the problems here so we can work them out as much as possible before we go. The learning is happening here so we can apply it in Morocco."
As the cannon crewmembers of the 5-14th Regiment went through their routines for firing rounds from an M777 howitzer on Fort Sill's West Range, Staff Sgt. Alvin Clarkston talked about his role as operations chief for Q Battery.
"Safety is my biggest task out here, just making sure these young Marines know their job and do it well. We want to make sure every round goes downrange safely and hits its expected target," Clarkston said. "I've been a Marine for over 12 years and I love it, every day. I wish we could shoot more out here in the Reserve world, but it is what it is."
Lance Cpl. Alex Styles, Q Battery, said he was excited about the mission to Morocco.
"That's why I joined the Marines, to see new countries and meet new people," he said. "My job as a cannoneer is to put the gunpowder into the cannon. I close the breech and prime the system for it to be fired. It's a pretty awesome job, and I love it."
When Garay arrived to inspect the firing batteries, the young Marines had questions for their regimental commander.
Styles asked, "Are we going to be interacting with their forces on our guns, doing our firing team duties, or will we be separate?"
"You will man your own guns and they will man their own, because they have different weapon systems from ours, and safety always dictates that we run our own crews," Garay said. "But they will want to see how we do our business, just like we want to see how they do theirs. You will find that the Moroccans are a very capable and professional military. They are the real deal."
Frazee talked about the complexities of having cannon batteries training under the command of a rocket battalion.
"There are two challenges. First, the requirements for firing the training rockets are different from firing the cannon artillery. You can't fire a training rocket over the head of personnel, because it can endanger people on the ground, whereas cannon artillery can be fired overhead," said Frazee, "And, the resupply of ammunition, parts and maintenance are different for the two weapons systems, which makes it more complex to manage.
"How you move them is different. You can drive a HIMARS launcher with a full pod of six rockets on it. You can't tow a M777 howitzer around with a projectile in the tube. So everything is a little bit different."
A couple mountain ridges away on Fort Sill's Thompson Hill, the HIMARS units of F Battery, 2-14th Marines from Oklahoma City, were preparing to fire rockets downrange, right after they got communications issues worked out. That task fell to Cpl. Matthew Bass.
"I've been troubleshooting the equipment and getting the comms systems up so the command operations center can communicate with the launchers and other vehicles so we can do a fires mission," said Bass, F Battery radio operator. "It's a challenge, because some days everything can go wrong.
Bass added that he's ecstatic about going to Morocco because he has never been across the Atlantic Ocean. He believes it will be a great experience for him and the five junior Marines in his platoon.
Maj. Shane Murphy, F Battery commanding officer, explained the importance of working out the kinks in the systems while they are still stateside.
"We have 75 Marines and one civilian technician out here. This will be the exact number of personnel we will take to Morocco. So we are trying to keep it as realistic as possible without any extra bodies that we won't have available over there," Murphy said. "We have a dozen active-duty Marines, but the majority of our Marines are full-time reservists, and we will be ready to deploy to Morocco for African Lion when the time comes."
"Every one of our artillerymen cycles through Fort Sill, so our roots are here. Training on these ranges provide us with resources and experts that we don't normally have access to, which enhances our training and helps us cut costs," said Lt. Col. John Dunne, 2-14 Marines inspector instructor. "As a Marine, whether you shoot rockets or cannons, you are still an artilleryman. Everybody in the 2-14th was a cannon artilleryman at one point."
With the communications link to the HIMARS launcher restored, the command to fire was given. The rocket shot away from the launcher on a pillar of fire, causing a sonic boom. Garay stood on a nearby ridge with other officers observing the launch, and turned and said, "And that, gentlemen, was the sound of the African Lion's roar."
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