CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (WNCT) – Camp Lejeune Marines within the 2D Marine Expeditionary Force welcomed Finland, France, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands for their Burmese Chase training.
Forces from the six NATO allies have spent the last five weeks with Marines focusing on supporting one another. When they first arrived from overseas, they worked on troubleshooting the differences between communication systems.
“We basically hooked all of our systems, our tablets, computers, any software and we tried to make them talk that fed into this final exercise,” said Maj. Joseph Peraino.
They also focused on any language barriers between the six countries.
“They’re able to now communicate simultaneously using the same language and they already understood because of the training that we conducted here at Burmese Chase, in the familiarity they get with different techniques, tactics and procedures,” said Capt. Christopher Tighe.
They say this will help assist them with deployments in the future.
“Trust between our units between the countries is essential,” said Capt. Jostein Knaplund with the Norwegian Army. “When your guys come out to Norway for the winter training, to be able to trust us as the instructors to survive in wintertime, and for us to come over here and do live fire exercise with live rounds, where the Americans and the allies.”
They used 81-millimeter mortars and the 155-millimeter Howitzer system to work together as one.
“It’s not just a single country working with the United States. It’s all the countries kind of meshing together and working on the different tactics, techniques and procedures, and kind of having all those systems to be interoperable,” said Lt. Col. Nathan Golike.
Wednesday was their final exercise of the annual event and those we spoke with hope to continue their relationships for years to come.