BABADAG TRAINING AREA, Romania -- “Stand by, targets!” shouted Cpl. Mitchell Staats to a line of U.S. and Macedonian troops holding their rifles with steady hands. A fraction of a second later, just as the Marine finished his words, the targets appeared and the air erupted with the pop of dozens of Kalashnikov rifles.
U.S. Marines currently deployed to Eastern Europe conducted a combat marksmanship program training exercise with Macedonian Army soldiers at Babadag Training Area, Romania, June 3.
Macedonian Army Lt. Dushko Stookoski, a soldier with Scorpion Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade, said the exercise was a good way for the company to enhance its marksmanship skills before deploying to Afghanistan in July.
“I learned a lot today,” said Stookoski. “It was nice to have a lot of time behind the trigger.”
Staats, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the range, with scout platoon, Headquarters and Service Co., 1st Tank Bn., out of Twentynine Palms, Calif., said the exercise ran smoothly.
“We learned what we did well with the Romanians and what we didn’t do so well,” said Staats, a Columbus, Iowa, native. “So this time, things went a lot better. As we go through these next few weeks of training with other nations, we should have a pretty good grasp on how we run these ranges.”
The training marked the halfway point of the Macedonian’s peacekeeping operations training, and also of the deployment for the Marines and Sailors of Black Sea Rotational Force 2010, the Security Cooperation Marine Air-Ground Task Force which is fulfilling Marine Corps Forces Europe’s commitment to a rotating presence of Marines in Eastern Europe to meet U.S. European Command’s theater security objectives.
The Marines are working in the Black Sea, Balkan and Caucasus regions to promote regional stability, build enduring partnerships and build the capabilities of partner nations’ military forces.
The Macedonian training evolution runs through June 11, but the Marines and Sailors of scout platoon intend to push on with training as Ukrainian and Romanian forces are slated to report for training June 14.