USJFCOMLive

We’ve already told you what Bold Quest 09 is all about: U.S. and allied militaries working on technical andprocedural solutions to help cut down on friendly fire incidents in ground-to-air engagements.  In order for the pilots to test these solutions, they need an enemy on the ground to “shoot” at.  That’s where the opposition force – OPFOR – provided by Camp Lejeune’s Combat Logisitics Regiment 27 and 2nd Marine Logistics Group comes into the equation.

If you’ve walked the streets of Baghdad, the gargantuan MOUT site nestled somewhere in Lejeune’s back 40 starts feeling eerily familiar some time betweeen the time you step off the road leading to it and the moment you realize you’re surrounded on both sides by tan walls too tall to glance over.  It’s easily the best military operations in urban terrain training area I’ve come across.  Buildings three and four stories tall tower over narrow alleyways.  Doors lead to stairways which lead to ladders which lead to rooves overlooking courtyards, wells, walled-in back alleys, and a big blue mosque in the center of town.  They’ve even got the bricked-up bus stops right.

But a great MOUT site is of little use without an OPFOR.  The Marines of CLR 27 and the 2nd MLG made a patrol through town by the 10th Mountain Division’s 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment – playing the friendly forces pilots overhead were trying not to notionally shoot – look and feel a lot more like another day in the dusty, hot cities they may patrol when they deploy to Afghanistan next year.

Marine Staff Sgt. Michael Barrera, a radio chief with CLR 27, was the head role player for a group of Marines dressed to look like the militants and random people on the street.  He and his Marines harassed, cajoled, begged, pleaded with, and fired at the soldiers as they came through.

What we’re doing is trying to make everything a real-world relevant scenario, based on what kinds of things they would be going through in Iraq or Afghanistan.  We are villagers, sheephereders, regular farmers, just the local populace.  There are also bad guys in the mix.  We’re giving the Army training as far as identifying what they may run into in the future.

 I talked to a group of the Marines after they finished giving their soldier counterparts a hard time.  All of them had volunteered to spend the next two weeks playing targets for the planes overhead, and many of them told me it was their first time acting as an OPFOR.  One, Cpl. Charlotte Larrive, a fire team leader in CLR 27’s Military Police Company, told me it was old hat.

I like to help out the coalition forces and show them how we do things and just help them train because they are our brothers out there in the field.  Whenever we deploy, it’s good for them to get that knowledge.  Whenever we put out scenarios here, they can start getting into that combat mindset and get mentally prepared for when they deploy.

Some of the benefits of what the Marines in the OPFOR are doing are obvious: providing targets for coalition close-air support pilots and realistic training for soldiers on the ground certainly have their virtues.  But Barrera told me the Marines also get something out what they’re doing: better understanding of the cultures in which they too will operate and fight and a chance to try and think like the enemy.

It works both ways.  They always teach us to think like the enemy.  We always want to know what they would do and what they’re thinking.  I think switching roles a little bit, if they ever have the opportunity to go out, they’ll know what to look for.

For photos of the action taken by Air Force Staff Sgt. Vanessa Valentine, click here.