Marines to participate in Kadena readiness exercise

  • Published
  • By Scott Hallford
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan (AFPN) --  The Marines have landed. Personnel from Marine Aircraft Group 12 based at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, will be major participants in Kadena Air Base's local operational readiness exercise next week.

Approximately 600 MAG-12 Marines and 32 F/A-18 Hornets began arriving at Kadena Nov. 28 to start preparing for next week's joint training.

"We wanted to deploy the whole MAG as a group to focus on unit-level training," said Lt. Col. M.P. Antonio, MAG-12 operations officer. "As we were planning for an exercise, we found out the 18th Wing was going to conduct a LORE and wanted to be part of it. It's great because we don't get to train on large-force bases very often and Okinawa provides the best air-to-ground training ranges in Japan."

While the Marines benefit from the joint training, so does Team Kadena. One of Kadena's critical missions is to receive and bed down large numbers of forces in the event of a contingency, a perfect training scenario in hosting the Marines for this exercise.

"The principal advantage for Kadena as a host base support function is the opportunity to exercise our reception of forces plan on a large scale," said Col. Max Kirschbaum, 18th Mission Support Group commander. "Our installation deployment officer and our reception processing unit will run all incoming forces and cargo through our reception processes to smoothly integrate the MAG-12 into an operational posture with the wing."

The exercise will also test Kadena's unit reception monitors' ability to handle real people and cargo, rather than simulations they often deal with during LOREs, said Colonel Kirschbaum. In addition to processing the incoming Marines, Kadena will receive approximately 500 tons of MAG-12 cargo by air and sea. Billeting and meals will also be provided for all the Marines for their duration here, but as part of integration of support forces, Marine cooks will help prepare meals. Marine military police will integrate with Air Force security forces as well to assist with base security forces.

"The last reception we had at Kadena of a similar size was during the Joint Air and Sea Exercise in 2005," said Maj. Michael Thomas, 18th Wing liaison officer to Marine Liaison Wing Kadena. "There were almost 60 aircraft involved then."

After participating in Kadena's LORE, MAG-12 will continue their own training with other Marine elements on Okinawa through Dec. 12.

"Overall, this is excellent training for us," said Colonel Kirschbaum. "It will certainly help us validate our plans and processes as we ramp up for the Pacific Air Forces Operational Readiness Inspection in March." 

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