Stars&Stripes: Sailors being prepped for land combat roles

[JohnyCanuck]

Isn't that what Hitler was doing in the last days of the Reich, using the German sailors as infantry?


Sailors learn Army basics to prep for downrange deployment

Navy’s individual augmentees now get training in ground combat

By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes


Sailors know the walk, when it’s from stem to stern. It’s the walking in formation that has some feeling like fish out of water.

With more than 10,000 Navy “individual augmentees” deployed around the world, of which 7,000 are in the U.S. Central Command’s combat zones, the Navy is training its sailors like soldiers more than ever before.

“You take a sailor … who has lived on a 564-foot ship, and all of a sudden, you’re integrating him into a ground combat environment. It’s night and day for us,” said Master Chief Petty Officer Anthony Evangelista, fleet master chief for U.S. Naval Forces Europe/6th Fleet.

SNIP

With the Pentagon’s call on the Navy to provide forces to ease the strain on Army and Marine Corps ground units, naval individual augmentees are flocking to South Carolina to learn the basics of ground combat.

http://stripes.com/article.asp?article=36208§ion=104

[Shipwack]

1. This has been going on for about a year, at least...

When I volunteered for the augmentation force, I was scheduled to go through this. Fortunately, when it was decided that I would be sent to Bahrain (a relatively safe country), saner minds prevailed(!) and I got to skip those reindeer games.

The two guys that were there before me weren't so lucky, and while they got to have "fun" in Texas doing training that was ultimately useless, they were issued a rifle and body army, which made air travel a major pain in the butt.

These sailors aren't necessarily being put in the field (in theory at least; reality could be different). The idea is to put them behind the front lines, doing things like manning communication stations, etc, which frees up the professional ground pounders to do what they were trained to do. Since things are so fluid in Iraq and Afghanistan (to use an understatement), they are given some combat training, just in case...

[FloridaPat]

2. Next will be the coast guard. Maybe empty the pentagon? Who

else can * grab without consent?