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Expeditionary command shows off its skills

NAVAL WEAPONS STATION YORKTOWN, CHEATHAM ANNEX, Va. — The SH-60 Seahawk swoops low over the York River, banks right toward the crane ship Flickertail State, hovers 20 feet above and, within seconds, a series of sailors in flight suits and skateboarding helmets rapidly slide down a rope and onto the ship.

This type of vessel boarding — used when a ship refuses to allow a visit by small boat — is a specialty of special operators, and it’s dangerous enough that it’s been left to them, until now. The only kind of boarding more dangerous is when the suspect ship actively resists.

But the sailors now searching the cargo ship for contraband or so-called ‘bad actors’ are not SEALs. They are fleet sailors assigned to “Unexpected Company” — the new helicopter-borne Visit, Board, Search and Seizure team of Mobile Security Squadron 2.

Its 24 handpicked sailors have been training since February to learn the techniques usually left to special operators but now taken on by the ever-evolving Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.

Their officer-in-charge, Lt. Dustin Lonero, was about to leave the Navy for law school when he was offered the job of leading the small group of highly trained sailors targeted on vessel boardings. He stayed.

“This is exactly why I went to the Naval Academy in the first place,” Lonero said.

His team had done the same type of helicopter-borne boarding the night before on a ship at sea as part of a major NECC exercise to integrate its various forces.

Known as COMET — for Command and Control, Operational Maritime Training — the two-week exercise is another step toward certifying NECC’s coastal warfare, riverine, expeditionary logistics and other units to operate with a strike group. Its scenarios were based on the fictional nations of Sapphire and Mica, the same countries used for a recent deployment certification of the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group.

“This is the same scenario as the [joint task force exercise] because the next step of this is to integrate with a strike group in a JTFEX,” NECC Commander Rear Adm. Donald Bullard said. “That’s what this is ultimately about, bringing all those forces together.”

In addition to testing integration, the exercise has been testing the sort of highly mobile, adaptive force packages that NECC is meant to provide, Bullard said.

“I can take this anywhere,” he said.

Capt. Dave McDuffie is commodore of Naval Coastal Warfare Group 2, which, under an Oct. 1 realignment, will become Maritime Expeditionary Security Group 2. He said the training has involved about 1,000 sailors — with surges of reservists bumping the numbers higher — at Cheatham Annex, Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek and Fort Pickett, all in Virginia.

A major element has been establishing command and control of the disparate units and testing new unmanned aerial vehicles such as the hand-held, 10-ounce Wasp, which is launched with a slingshot.

Under the realignment to an expeditionary security group, McDuffie said, the coastal warfare squadrons will be merged with maritime security squadrons, which means decommissioning two Reserve boat squadrons.

“We had to reorganize the billets, and some people had to move,” he said.

Another potential change in the works could mean an assignment to these expeditionary combat units will become a “closed loop,” where sailors stay rather than go back to the fleet after a tour.

While the various NECC units work toward certifications, individual sailors have been doing the same.

Gunner’s Mate 1st Class (EXW) John Johnston is a training officer with Inshore Boat Unit 28. Toward the end of the training exercise, on Sept. 11, he pinned on one of the new and rare expeditionary warfare qualification pins.

He’s been doing the work long enough that earning the qualification came down to paperwork.

“I had the requirements. I needed a few signatures, and we were good to go,” he said.

Like most sailors in these units, he feels like he must have one of the best jobs in the Navy.

“It’s really has to do with personality. On a ship, you feel like a body. Here, you are part of a team and a crew,” Johnston said.