Photo Information

Marines with 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment wait for nightfall to conduct live-fire exercises on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., Jan. 24, 2018. The Marines of 1/2 conducted immediate remedial action drills and traversed, searched and engaged targets moving from one to another.

Photo by Cpl. Juan Madrigal

1/2 Marines engage in live fire exercise

23 Feb 2018 | Cpl. Juan Madrigal The Official United States Marine Corps Public Website

Marines with 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division conducted platoon attacks at range G-27 Infantry Squad Battle Course Range on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Jan. 24, 2018. The Marines conducted day and night live-fire drills to build their confidence moving forward into future operations.

“We just got new joins this last week and some of these guys, it’s their first range (with the unit),” said Cpl. Joseph Rose, bravo company machine gun section leader, 1/2. “Working platoon attacks is a little complicated, but I think the squad leaders and mortars are killing it out here. The new joins that just came in are getting hands on training, so they’re experiencing what it’s like to do a full platoon-sized attack and understand what goes into those attacks.”

The new Marines weren’t the only ones learning from the exercise, team leaders and squad leaders were also refining their skills.

“Team leaders are being able to work on their communication between the other gunner as well as being able to give ADDRACs (alert, direction, description, range, assignment and control) on the spot to their gunner,” said Rose. “Squad leaders are able to see the whole picture and control his squad’s fire.

“Shifting fire and communicating with his 11s as well as letting them know that ‘hey we’re picking up the rate of fire or we’re taking a rocket shot and we need you to pick up the rate of fire,’ are the things we’re working on."

The Marines fired M240B machine guns, M4 carbines, AT-4 rocket launchers and 60mm mortars. The Marines conducted immediate remedial action drills and traversed, searched and engaged targets moving from one to another.

“The Marines have exceeded our expectations for them at this range,” said 2nd Lt. Austin Ahmed, bravo company commander, 1/2. “Prior to this range we had about 14 new joins, so this is their first time doing an attack with us however they’re performing way above what we expected them to.”

The Marines are training to become proficient in their field for future deployments and to move onto more training.

“We’ve accomplished a lot at this range,” said Rose “We’re also preparing for future training at Fort Pickett. As machine gun section leader, I’m evaluating squad leaders and giving them the input on how they can better their squad and how they can better themselves. We’re definitely not where we need to be, but we’re on the right track to where we’re going.”

More Media