MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER, TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. -- The Army’s 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, based out of Fort Lewis, Wash., concluded their side-by-side integration exercise with their armored infantry vehicles, known as Strykers, and Company C, 1st Tank Battalion March 18 in the Combat Center’s Delta Prospect training area.
The exercise is meant to better affiliate the Marine Corps’ and Army’s units and tactics with the other branch of service, said Capt. Peter M. Rummler, the Company C, the commanding officer and a native of Oscar, La.
“This is an excellent exercise for both branches to engage in,” Rummler said. “It provides a great opportunity for both us and the Army to learn the other branches’ strategy.
“Both groups are seeing other ways of doing things,” he said. “Being different branches we of course are going to use our capabilities and resources differently.”
Rummel said working with the Army was a good experience and they are great to work with.
“The Army, from what I have seen, is a very professional group,” Rummler said. “They are pretty good at what they do. Maybe in the future both groups can take what we learn during this exercise and use it on their own.”
Rummler said the exercise was great training for what their jobs are overseas.
“This will help both parties with seeing different sides of the story,” he said. “Overseas we could use a lot of the experience we get from this training to make ourselves better at accomplishing our mission.”
Soldiers serving with 1/23 took a lot from the exercise and enjoyed working with another branch of service, and for some of them it was a reminder of past missions working alongside Marines.
“This is outstanding training,” said Spc. Jeremy Wallace, an infantryman with Headquarters Company, 1/23, and a native of South Bend, Wash. “I fought alongside Marines in 2004 when we invaded Fallujah. They’re great to work with and all the training we do with them is outstanding.”
With their co-op training finished here, 1/23 is slated to deploy later this year.