VAZIANI TRAINING AREA, Republic of Georgia -- After three days of learning and countless practices of counterinsurgency tactics and techniques, Georgian soldiers from the 4th Infantry Brigade, and Marines of Company A, Anti-Terrorism Battalion pulled it all together in a final capabilities exercise here July 22.
Several military and diplomatic officials, including the Georgian Minister of Defense, Bacho Akhalaia, observed from an elevated hilltop as a combined force of Georgian soldiers and U.S. Marines, based out of Rochester, N.Y., stormed into an urban-training area to liberate it of role-playing insurgents during a cordon and search demonstration.
“It was very important that the two sides conducted simultaneous training using similar tactics to execute a cordon and search,” said Georgian Maj. David Makhishvili, battalion commander, 4th Infantry Brigade.
The mission: patrol into a village, possibly filled with hostiles and find a high-value individual. They had practiced the necessary steps needed for such a counterinsurgency mission numerous times in the past three days. The previous days’ training focused on basic principles, tactics and techniques of counterinsurgency operations on an individual to squad level, such as proper patrolling, room clearing, communication and handling detainees.
“We want the individual warfighter to improve their skills or learn a new skill to help do their job,” said Maj. Selden Hale, Ground Combat Element commander, Black Sea Rotational Force 11.
“The training and exchange of information and ideas gave everyone tools for their toolbox.”
A combined, motorized convoy of Marines and Georgian soldiers surrounded the village. They sealed it off, sighted in their rifles and held a 360-degree net of security around the village. A few hundred meters away, a combined assault force awaited in the tall grass for the order to enter the village. Discharged smoke grenades covered their entry into the village as the assault force dashed to search buildings in the village. The assault force engaged hostiles while advancing through rattling small arms fire from blank rounds and thundering flash bang grenades. Georgian squads and Marine squads hit different buildings, clearing rooms of mock insurgents and searching for their target.
“We utilized a lot of the classes that we received on room clearing and searching personnel,” said Sgt. Spenser McAvoy, a squad leader with 1st Platoon, Co. A., and a Penfield, N.Y., native. “My Marines picked up a lot on the room clearing techniques.”
Within a matter of minutes, the firing had ceased, hostiles were eliminated and the Georgian soldiers had found and detained the high-value individual. The combined mission was a success and the force returned to base.
This exercise was not a stretch from the combined counterinsurgency missions currently being conducted in Afghanistan; it is beneficial for future Overseas Contingency Operations.
“This training goes hand-and-hand with when the [Georgian military] deploy and are working with Marines because we ensured that our counterparts understood our procedures from juniors all the way up to a command level,” said Master Sgt. Christopher Kenney, platoon commander of 1st Platoon, Co. A.
“It gives the younger Marines an opportunity to work with another country before deploying to a combat zone.”
“Rehearsing and sharing common tactics eased the challenge of the language barrier and gave us a better understanding of how other militaries operate,” said Capt. Colin Wallace, commander, A Co., and New York City-native.
“We learned some new tactics and new procedures that we could possibly incorporate into our own operations.”
The cordon and search demonstration was part of Exercise Agile Spirit 2011. Agile Spirit is designed to increase interoperability between the forces by exchanging and enhancing each other’s capacity in counterinsurgency and peacekeeping operations, including: small unit tactics, convoy operations, and counter-Improvised Explosive Device training.
Agile Spirit is the first of what is scheduled to become an annual exercise and supplements other elements of our military partnership with Georgia, such as the Georgia Deployment Program, which is a U.S. Marine Corps program that prepares Georgian Armed Forces to deploy to Afghanistan in support of the International Security Assistance Force.
Black Sea Rotational Force is a rotational deployment of Marines to the Black Sea, Balkan and Caucasus regions of Eastern Europe to participate in security cooperation to build military capacity, provide regional stability, and develop lasting partnerships with nations in the region. BSRF-11 will be operating as a Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force until September of this year.