Coast Guard Essay

Letting slowly off of the throttle, the Coast Guard coxswain deliberately beached his boat onto a desolate shore on U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Marines aboard leap to their feet dawning M240Bs and rucks filled to the brim with three days’ worth of essential field gear, and file toward the bow of the boat jumping onto the beach. Their amphibious landing of a tactical insertion is successfully accomplished.

The Coast Guard of Joint Task Force Guantanamo and Marines assigned to NSGB conducted a joint operational amphibious training exercise, July 26.

“The Marines requested our assistance in training for their insertion exercise,” said JTF GTMO Trooper U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Roberto D. Bobonis, the Port Security

“By using the Coast Guard’s insertion platform of a boat, it offered us an alternate means than what we use organically such as Humvees. This gave us the ability to insert directly into the training area, and to not limit ourselves with locations we can only drive to.”

The importance of knowing each other’s capabilities and understanding each other’s roles are important factors to consider before you need each other in a critical time, explained Bobonis. He believes the success of a mission is improved when the different teams involved work more frequently together.

“The most important thing when executing exercises between branches is communication,” said U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Christopher M. D’Arcy, a Marine platoon sergeant. “Getting to know each party involved and understanding what everyone brings to the table is the key factor. However, we can plan it out on a table all day but until we get out there and actually execute, we don’t know what’s going to happen.” All five service branches play an active role within the naval defense area of JTF GTMO; most times those roles overlap at the