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West Coast exercise gets back to roots of Corps

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — With a hulking Navy cargo ship anchored nearby, sailors maneuvered floating platforms into the shore break along the beach.

But the sea refused to cooperate, with large Pacific swells forcing a two-day delay in the scheduled offload of dozens of Marine vehicles and equipment for Pacific Horizon, a brigade-level amphibious logistics training exercise involving more than 750 members of I Marine Expeditionary Force and U.S. 3rd Fleet. It’s the first training of its kind held by these two groups at the Red Beach training area since Kernel Blitz exercises in 2001.

Pacific Horizon, which lasts through the end of October, marks a renewed emphasis on expeditionary amphibious training for I MEF.

“This allows us to practice our trade craft, the Navy and Marine Corps together,” Brig. Gen. Charles Hudson, who commands 1st Marine Logistics Group at Camp Pendleton, said Oct. 15 as he watched the activity. “We have been unable to do that over the last several years.”

Here, he said, “We can fine-tune and practice what we may have to do in the near future.”

Sustained operations ashore in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with a lack of amphibious training, have degraded core skills in both services, Navy and Marine officials say. That makes training such as this more important.

“The whole thing is a huge learning experience,” added Maj. David Van Bennekum, a MEF operations officer. “We’ve lost a lot of expertise and a lot of knowledge.”

Pacific Horizon began with a mock beach assault and offload of about 85 vehicles, containers and other equipment from the Pfc. Dewayne T. Williams, a roll-on, roll-off cargo ship with the Corps’ Maritime Prepositioning Force squadron in Saipan and Guam. The vessel is named for a Marine Medal of Honor recipient killed during the Vietnam War.

Once forces assemble ashore, they will continue on to other training scenarios, including combined-arms exercises at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., later this month.

“This is something we don’t get to do often” with the Marines, said Navy Capt. James O’Connor, who commands Naval Beach Group 1, a Coronado, Calif.-based force that includes Beach Master Unit 1, Amphibious Construction Battalion 1 and Assault Craft Units 1 and 5. “There’s a lot of moving pieces to offload the ship.”