U.S. Marine Corps Crisis Response Prepares for a Middle East Mission


U.S. Marines with 1st Battalion and 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, attached to Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Central Command (SPMAFTF-CR-CC) 19.2, prepare gear in response to a mission in Kuwait, October 11, 2019. The SPMAGTF-CR-CC is designed to move with speed and precision to support operations throughout the Middle East. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Sgt. Robert G. Gavaldon, LCpl. Sahara Luna, Sgt. David Bickel)

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Transcript

The Crisis Response Force that we can push forward really encompasses facets and capabilities and men and women from across the MAGTF. So, I think when you think crisis response company, you think of the O3s, you think of the trigger pullers, but they are supported both in the air and on the ground by pilots and crew chiefs from the ACE. They’re supported by EOD techs, mechanics, and operators from the LCE, and you know, take off and landing, they’re supported by the Marine Wing Support Detachment that really is an incredible enabling effort to get us into the air, get us back down onto the ground safely, so we can execute our mission.

We do our maintenance checks and we look around the plane and ensure that it is safe to fly, then we prepare the aircraft for whatever mission is gonna be at hand and overall, that whole process can take under two hours.

We’re ready, and we proved it. We proved that we can be in the air within a couple of hours with the people and the equipment if we need. All the while, having a good understanding of the plan and the situation that we’re flying into because the rehearsals and the repetitions of getting on and off birds, of conducting planning meetings, allowed us to achieve mastery and muscle memory in all of those processes and procedures required to execute a mission at such short notice.

Throughout our training, we learned to talk to ground personnel and ground personnel talk to us, and we communicate with them and they can tell us what’s going on on the ground and then we can make a determination from what they’re telling us to say if it’s safe to land or what kind of threats to look out for, as well as if they have issues, we can relay stuff that we can see from up in the air.

Well, within the MAGTF, it’s a force that’s postured to respond to really any number of contingencies across the spectrum of operations. It’s a force that can aggregate up to a company level, and when notified is supported really by the efforts of the entire MAGTF, and it’s got the ability to serve as the theater command or even the combatant commander’s hip pocket asset here at CENTCOM. Everybody from the command element on down has to be rowing in the same direction in order to successfully enable the men and women that are closing in the last hundred yards.

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