Javelin Thrust 2012 Trains More than 5000 Marines

More than 5,000 Marines are training at Twentynine Palms this week as part of Javelin Thrust 2012—the largest annual training of active duty and reserve forces in the Marine Corps.

Camp Pendleton Marines of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade and members of the I Marine Expeditionary Force, as well as reserve Marines from 38 states.  Also participating is a coalition partner—the 33 Canadian Brigade Group from Ottawa.

The large-scale exercise is the first in a three-part continuum, culminating with a Navy and Marine Corps led amphibious exercise Dawn Blitz in 2013.

“This is a bit of an interesting exercise in that we’re working with (the Marine Forces Reserve) again, rather than those units that are assigned to 1st MEB,” said Maj. Gen. Melvin Spiese, the 1st MEB commanding general. “Javelin Thrust completes the package for us. Albeit with forces not assigned to the MEB, it will give the staff the ability to really function at that higher end.”

Marines taking part in the exercise are being tested and challenged in a series of complex scenarios, said Brig. Gen. James Hartsell, deputy commander of the 1st MEB.

 “The individual skills that each Marine gets in an exercise like this, in this desert environment, a combined arms live-fire scenario is what every Marine needs,” Hartsell said. “Regardless of what kind of crisis response, all the way up to a general officer whose commanding and controlling an exercise of this scale which again exercises me and my ability to command and control all the elements of the (task force), that’s what makes this better and different than things we’ve done in the past.”

—Information comes from a 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade Public Affairs release

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