News: 3/6 Marines raid MOUT village to capture high value target
Story by Sgt. Steve Cushman
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Sgt. Steve Cushman (From Front) Lance Corporals Jordan Unsworth and Sergei Cribben clear the courtyard of a compound during Military Operations in Urban Terrain training, Oct. 22. Both Marines serve with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, 2nd Marine Division. Unsworth is a squad leader and native of Harrisburg, Penn., and Cribben is an Infantry Automatic Rifleman and native of North Canton, Ohio. 3/6 is in Yuma supporting the Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course taught by Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron-1 located at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz.
YUMA PROVING GROUNDS, YUMA, ARIZ. – A quiet village, in the southwestern deserts of Arizona, is suddenly surrounded by the noise of a Combined Anti-Armor Team’s Humvees and three 7-ton trucks rolling around the outskirts of town, Oct. 22.
The Humvees roll quickly into position to setup a cordon of the town, while the 7-tons stop to unload squads of Marines from Company L, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, 2nd Marine Division who sprint to the outskirts of town and attack hard and fast, clearing buildings searching for a high-valued individual suspected of hiding in a building.
Instead of sending in a large force to take and hold terrain, the mission of a raid is to attack to kill, capture or destroy a specific person or target. Raids also allow for the small unit to operate in inhospitable terrain where for example the civilian population is friendly to the enemy and allows the unit to accomplish a limited objective and go away.
“A raid, generally speaking, is a focused, rapid attack with a planned egress,” said 2nd Lt. Zack Devlin-Foltz, a platoon commander with Lima Company and Silver Springs, Md. native. “It has a very limited objective, you do just one thing very quickly, in enemy territory, generally, and get out as quickly as you can.”
The scenario that Lima Company was given involved capturing an insurgent leader who was stirring up the population to wage guerilla warfare on American forces.
“Our task was to go in and knock off and either kill or, preferably, capture Lt. Col. Sathdar Motamidi, who was a revolutionary guard commander, but who actually turned out to be a sergeant from one of the other companies,” said Devlin-Foltz. “This was a fairly standardized training event, other companies have done it too. We put our own spin on it and made some adjustments to the mission. Some companies do it as a company-sized element. Lima Company decided to do it in platoon-sized elements, because of the size of the (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) town we had to work with.”
The company conducted three days of MOUT training, prior to the culminated raid exercise. The Marines started with the basics, including room clearing and how to enter rooms, single and two man stacks, all of the rudimentary things an infantryman would learn at the School of Infantry.
“When the platoon conducted its attack, it all came together really well,” said Sgt. Walter Lee Osteen, III, a Lima Co. squad leader and Denham Springs, La., native. ”The platoon was very aggressive and you could tell the past two days they'd worked really hard. The team leaders stepped up and took charge of their teams. In a MOUT environment, you're so spread out, not like in a field or wooded environment where you can see everyone and keep control of them.”
Because of the limited view an urban environment presents to commanders in the field, small unit leaders take charge of their Marines and communicate with their superiors to keep the information flowing.
“The platoon sergeant and I talked about it and we didn't really have a role in the mission once we planned it. The squad leaders are pretty good and they talked to each other throughout the mission,” said Devlin-Foltz. “They don't really need us there in most situations, which is exactly how it should be.”
Corporal Will Cox, a squad leader from Cincinnati, Ohio, agreed, “I have excellent team leaders who work for me that make my job so much simpler. We have two really good squad leaders by my side to work with and my Marines in general are locked on.”
The Marines had two possible sites where intelligence said the target could be. By attacking both target locations at once, they were able to rapidly locate and capture the HVI and just as suddenly as they attacked, exfiltrate back to the trucks, with their prisoner having spent less than 20 minutes inside the town.
“My Marines, did great,” said Osteen, “they gave 100 percent every time, as tiring as it was. We were going pretty hard with training. They pushed really hard and the company overall did great, so it was definitely good to see the training pay off and see the Marines prepare for whatever is to come.”
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Date Taken:10.29.2012
Date Posted:10.29.2012 12:50
Location:YUMA, AZ, US
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