Posted on 09/26/2003 8:21:45 AM PDT by swarthyguy
U.S. Marines put Mongolian Armed Forces to the test last week during the final training phase of Khaan Quest ’03 in Five Hills, Mongolia.
First Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment Marines set up a simulated logistics base for Mongolian forces to run from Sept. 13-15, according to a Marine Corps news release. They were also put through a mobility exercise to prepare for a February deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“We have specifically been showing the Mongolians how to do vehicle checkpoints and personnel checkpoints,” battalion operations chief Master Sgt. Robert Lowery said in the release. “We have shown them how to establish a checkpoint, set up a checkpoint and how to conduct a checkpoint.”
Mongolian forces were subsequently given a chance to demonstrate what they had learned during the three days of field practice.
“It was obvious that [the Mongolians] paid attention during the classroom portion,” Lowery said in the release. “They went from A to Z in a short period of time. And within that period of time, they excelled at what they did.
“Everything we taught them, they would practice on their own and the last day, when we had our exercises, they handled themselves very well. In my professional opinion, once they get on the ground [in Iraq], they will be able to conduct themselves as a professional army.”
In their training, Mongolian forces ran into roadblocks and ambushes, exercise officer-in-charge Maj. John Osborne Jr. said in the release. He added the challenges tested their ability to work as a team.
“The mobility exercise is meant to draw several of the training aspects together as far as command and control, and units supporting each other,” Osborne said in the release.
Mongolian troops also took an embarkation class as well as a C-130 familiarization flight.
Staff Sgt. Marylyn Sabol, 3rd Transportation Support Battalion, 3rd Force Service Support Group embarkation specialist, taught the class, which included general C-130 characteristics, the release said. She then showed Mongolian forces a generic load plan and demonstrated how to build an Air Force pallet for embarkation.
“The first group that went was very limited on the training they received,” she said in the release. “I was only able to train them as I was doing the embarking. This second group was able to get physical training, and they are picking it up so fast. They will be able to do it 100 percent without our help next time.”
How can there be Mongols without horses?
And bows and arrows, lots and lots of arrows.
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A Mongolian servicemember closely observes the characteristics of the M-203 grenade launcher during the second phase static display portion of Khaan Quest '03, a bilateral and interoperability exercise between Marines and the Mongolian Armed Forces. (Photo by Cpl. Michael D. Darbouze).
Coalition dittos.
Hungary gets it's name from them. IMO, they became the Hakka who migrated to Southern (Guongdong) China. Also, these people were the hardest hit by the SARS outbreak
Can't we just have them patrol Kirkuk instead???
"Very well. But it is far from Damascus..."
--T.E. Lawrence.
Next stop: Mecca!
-archy-/-
And you thought you'd seen anger and rage in the Arab world.
*****
Budding Gurkhas BUmp.
The Afghanis were not real happy to learn that the infidel Gurkhas now working there include both Jainists who follow the way of their Nepalese forebears, as well as those exposed to the British who've joined the Church of England. But the muslums learned to be at least pretend real respect toward them. I expect the Iraqis will develop some similar sentiments.
The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy and drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather to your bosom his wives and his daughters.
-- Temujin, the Genghis Khan, ca. 1226
Ayo Gorkhali! Per the pic in #36, they're being used as a contract security force for essential US communication facilities and other interesting taskings. And they're busy with a counterinsurgency campaign against upstart Maoists at home, but aside from some Gurkhas serving with the initial British forces that helped remove Saddam Hussein from power, there are also some involved with the follow-on securing of the country and the nation rebuilding effort.
Very fun guys to work around, though serious when it's work time. And about as good as what they do anywhere in the world, or in their own neck of the woods. And the thought of playing bukashi with Saddam's head in a leather sack would be as great a sport for the Gurkhas as it is for the Afghani and Mongol horsemen. Some of those Gurkhas are pretty good riders, too.
Just wait until they find out what the muezzins in the mosques are going to be replaced with....
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