SAUDI ARABIA -- Wherever Marines go, whether a military exercise or deployment, they undergo a course of action known as Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration. Exercise Native Fury 22 is no exception.
It is exercises like NF 22 that allow U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Central Command, the ability to rehearse effective RSO&I that, in turn, enables the U.S. Central Command combatant commander the flexibility to task the Marine Air Ground Task Force to support a variety of missions in support of U.S. and regional partner operations.
“Native Fury represents a tremendous opportunity for MARCENT to practice key enabling capabilities for MAGTF’s and the Marine Corps as a whole,” said Maj. Gen. Paul Rock, commander of MARCENT. “Those are the Maritime Prepositioning Force offload, RSO&I, and the employment of Marines.”
“As Marines, we never know where we will be sent next. We need to have the experience of working in other nations in order to better execute the mission.” 1st Lt. Cesar Morales, a Combat Logistics Regiment 1 training officer
RSO&I is a critical link between the deployment and employment of forces. It is the process of transforming arriving personnel and material into a mission capable force throughout an area. It is an enabling capability that helps keep the Marine Corps responsive around the world.
“In the simplest form, RSO&I is matching the right troops to the right equipment, giving them the correct support to make sure they’re ready for the geographic combatant command,” said U.S. Army Maj. Joshua Lackey, 135th Expeditionary Sustainment Command Support Operations officer-in-charge, 1st Theater Sustainment Command.
This year, the Marines of NF 22 had the assistance of the U.S. Army’s 1st TSC in supporting RSO&I in the new location. While the exercise is in its 8th iteration, 2022 is the first year Native Fury is hosted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“The 1st TSC’s priority is to support the warfighters and we want to go where we’re needed,” said Lackey. “[NF 22] is a great opportunity to show that we can provide RSO&I to those warfighters in any part of our area of operations.”
Since arriving in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 1st TSC has helped play an important role in completing the mission.
“A part of RSO&I was the receiving and offloading of Marine vessels, equipment, and the supporting movement to the Logistical Support Area for staging of the equipment, to include the receiving and processing of personnel when arriving,” said Lackey.
The process of RSO&I enables strategic access because of the partnerships being built. According to Lackey, [NF 22] gives the opportunity for service members to practice RSO&I in an area not typically operated in and become more mission capable in the new area of operation.
According to 1st Lt. Cesar Morales, a training officer for Combat Logistics Regiment 1, RSO&I is relevant to not only NF 22, but all future operations.
“As Marines, we never know where we will be sent next,” said Morales. “We need to have the experience of working in other nations in order to better execute the mission.”