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CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Navy hovercraft began roaring over the beach at Camp Lejeune just before dawn Monday morning. Within minutes, one of them, LCAC-68, had disgorged four U.S. Marine light recon vehicles and their crews, executed an about-face and scooted back toward the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge for more.
The forcible entry at the heart of exercise Bold Alligator had begun hours earlier, as Navy LCAC crews began final preparations to launch and Marines began descending the steep, wide passageway linking the hangar and well decks on Kearsarge and climbing aboard their LAV-25s, already chained down and ready to go. To the rear, other Marines were unchaining amphibious assault vehicles that would be moved forward and into the emptied LCACs once they returned.
The entry operation was unopposed, although U.S. and French platoons who came ashore near this landing point moved inland to begin force-on-force training or conduct other training.
The essence of Bold Alligator was planning, staging and getting them here — and not a few platoons, not a Marine Expeditionary Unit but an entire Marine Expeditionary Brigade that could number upwards of 14,500 Marines and sailors.
The exercise is the largest amphibious workout in a decade, a void caused by heavy Marine Corps involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and not having enough money, forces and suitable amphibious platforms available to go large-scale. Bold Alligator seeks to revitalize this once-common type of training, albeit to some degree with notional or "synthetic" forces "alongside" the real ones, which also include forces from the U.K., Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, New Zealand and France.
Navy amphibious and Marine expeditionary forces have demonstrated a wide range of capabilities over the past several years: combat operations in Libya, humanitarian relief in Pakistan, disaster assistance in Japan, and much more.
What's been missing from that list is the amphibious assault, a time-honored Marine Corps mission.
Planners chose to narrow the Bold Alligator focus to such an assault. By doing so, said Col. Bill Jurney, commander of the 2nd Marine Regiment and Regimental Landing Team 2, it "allows you to do a more deliberative planning process for some of those specific enemy threats, and things of that nature."
While the focus was singular, said Capt. Peter Pagano, commander of Amphibious Squadron 4, "We still are prepared to execute other missions across the full range of capabilities."
As all the planning and preparation gave way to boots on the beach Monday morning, Navy beachmasters were enjoying the scale of the operation.
"It's fun. It's actually fun," said Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class (SW) Dion Frazier of Beachmaster Unit 2. "Usually when we do operations … it's quick, it's over. It's good to be able to do it all at once. Everything we do, we're doing at one time."
Marines agreed.
"It's exciting," said Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gustavo Munoz, a 10-year veteran with Command Logistics Bn. 26, a unit that handles Marine Corps traffic after the Navy gets it ashore. "It's crazy. It's uncomfortable. Because I've never done anything this size."
