CAMP COURTNEY, OKINAWA, Japan -- More than 50 Marines were out in the rain during the dark hours of early morning Oct. 4 participating in Camp Courtney’s anti-terrorism exercise Constant Vigilance.
Constant Vigilance is an annual scenario-based exercise designed to enhance the ability of Camp Courtney and Marine Corps Base Camp Butler to respond to threats on the base, explained 1st Lt. Marco L. Anich, Camp Operations officer-in-charge.
“Constant Vigilance is to ensure we are ready at any given point for any anti-terrorism scenario and to ensure the overall readiness of our incident responders,” he said.
In this year’s scenario, three aggressors gain access to Camp Courtney shortly after midnight. They staged a vehicle with an improvised explosive device in it. The aggressors, volunteers from the Army’s 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) based at Torii Station, continued on foot toward the Staff Noncommissioned Officers’ Club.
Before reaching the club, they encountered a military policeman on vehicle patrol, whom they wounded before moving on to the club. At the club, the aggressors took several individuals hostage.
As a result of the scenario, the camp’s Auxiliary Security Force, military police and other first responders had to respond to three incidents almost simultaneously: a vehicle-borne IED, an MP down and a hostage situation at the club. The role-playing wounded officer called the camp’s Provost Marshal’s Office, starting the exercise.
The exercise “tested our security response plans; it tested our capabilities,” said 1st Lt. Diana J. Salmela, a platoon commander with Military Police District North. In addition to Military Police District North, elements of Military Police District South, based at Camp Foster, also responded to the exercise.
Other than the exercise planners and volunteer role players, participants were not given prior notice of when the exercise would take place, Anich explained.
This was in part so that the camp could test its ability to recall members of the military police and ASF after working hours to respond to a crisis, he said.
The call to come back to work shortly before 1 a.m. was certainly a surprise, said Lance Cpl. Richard L. Wranitz Jr., a member of Camp Courtney’s ASF.
Wranitz helped cordon off the barracks where the notional vehicle-borne IED was located.
“Communication is key,” Wranitz said of the experience. “We need to work together. The group I was with, we worked together pretty good. We should do more of these.”
Sgt. Damion R. Palmer, sergeant of the guard for the ASF, said he was pleased with how well the ASF Marines were responding to the multiple events of the exercise.
While the ASF Marines did not train specifically for the Constant Vigilance scenario, they have conducted training in various aspects like cordoning procedures, he said.
“They are doing what they are supposed to be doing,” he said. “Night is a little bit harder to operate during, but they are doing pretty good.”
By exercise’s end, Camp Courtney’s incident responders had rescued the hostages, captured the terrorists and secured the vehicle-borne IED.
The exercise was “another big success in exercising our mission assurance/force protection plans — and learning some great points,” said Col. Michael L. Kuhn, Camp Courtney camp commander and commanding officer of Headquarters Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force.
“My appreciation to all those involved in setting up the exercise — which I thought tested some tough parts of our plan on the camp,” he said. “A lot of work went into this annual exercise.”
Though the exercise is complete, Kuhn said he wants Courtney’s Marines and sailors to remain constantly vigilant of the camp’s security.
“I challenge each of you, regardless of where you work, to always think mission assurance/force protection every day,” he said. “It is always a mission set of ours each and every day here in Okinawa. We must always remain on the watch.”