On August 20, the U.S. Marine Corps announced that 3rd Marine Expe­di­tionary Brigade Marines con­duct­ed a Joint Human­i­tar­i­an Assis­tance Sur­vey Team rapid deploy­ment drill in sup­port of con­tin­ued Alert Con­tin­gency Marine Air Ground Task Force train­ing here.

Accord­ing to a recent ser­vice news release, the Marine Expe­di­tionary Brigade (MEB) con­tin­ues to con­duct essen­tial, real­is­tic train­ing while adher­ing to strict COVID-19 safe­ty pro­to­cols to mit­i­gate the spread of COVID-19 and are pre­pared to deploy in sup­port of our allies and part­ners through­out the region.

The MEB exe­cut­ed the drill with sup­port from two MV-22 Ospreys from Marine Medi­um Tiltro­tor Squadron 265, 1st Marine Air­craft Wing, out of Marine Corps Air Sta­tion Futenma.

In less than 12 hours, a con­tin­gency of about 30 MEB Marines arrived at Kade­na Air Base from their home sta­tions across Oki­nawa and board­ed an MV-22 Osprey, tak­ing off in a sim­u­lat­ed rapid deploy­ment. Upon land­ing back at KAB, the team estab­lished a secure com­mu­ni­ca­tions link with the III Marine Expe­di­tionary Force com­mand cen­ter, sim­u­lat­ing the first steps in a real-world deploy­ment of the JHAST.

“Drills such as these ensure that 3rd MEB remains pre­pared to respond to a cri­sis on short notice,” said Col. Michael Wylie, 3rd MEB chief of staff. “Whether we are asked to deploy to assist our part­ners and allies as a part of a for­eign human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance oper­a­tion or in response to a con­tin­gency that is kinet­ic in nature, we need to be ready.”

3d MEB is struc­tured to rapid­ly respond to cri­sis around the globe imme­di­ate­ly, effec­tive­ly, and effi­cient­ly, whether they are human­i­tar­i­an or combat-related.

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