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Fort Worth Star-Telegram | Chris Vaughn
FORT WORTH — The Fort Worth-based 14th Marine Regiment, on a steady diet of Iraq and Afghanistan deployments for eight years, is readying itself for yet another deployment to a Muslim country.
Except this time, the country is Morocco, the war is practice and the objective is cooperation, not combat. That has led to a whole different level of excitement, and far less anxiety, for the reservists who are shipping out of Naval Air Station Fort Worth, where the regiment is headquartered.
Morocco, south of Spain and home to such famously exotic cities as Casablanca and Marrakech, was the first country to seek diplomatic relations with the U.S., in 1777, only two years after the founding of the Marine Corps.
“If they hadn’t volunteered me for it, I would have volunteered,” said Staff Sgt. John Perkins, a Farmers Branch firefighter who has served in the unit for 10 years. “I’ve worked with Iraqis and Afghans, but I’ve never gotten the chance to work in a joint combat operations center in a high-level environment.”
For only the second time, the Marine reserves are commanding a major joint training exercise overseas with the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces. Dubbed African Lion,Ithe exercise falls under the U.S. Africa Command, which didn’t exist until 2007 and reflects a greater emphasis on nation building on the continent.
More than 1,200 U.S. military personnel, including 250 Marine reservists from North Texas, will participate in the exercise, which begins in early April. An advance team left Sunday night. The rest will leave later this week.
Col. Roger Garay, commander of the 14th Marines, said the U.S. personnel will work with Moroccans on anti-terrorism initiatives, intelligence gathering and combat exercises and will provide humanitarian assistance in remote areas.
A 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks described the Moroccan military as plagued with inefficiency, poor education and corruption.
Active-duty Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., reservists from Marine Aircraft Group 41 in Fort Worth, Army National Guard soldiers from Utah and California, Air Force communications specialists and Navy medical personnel will all play a role.
The U.S. has in recent years sought to improve its relationships with African nations, and the events of the Arab Spring have driven that point home further. Although not nearly as widely known or deadly as uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria, thousands of people protested for reforms in Morocco in 2011.
Morocco was already a moderate Arab state, but King Mohammed gave more power to the parliament and increased the independence of the judiciary.
“If we can get the Moroccans to work with their neighbors too, who then might work with us in the future, it promotes stability and cooperation,”Garay said. “We need more stability in that part of the world.”
The exercise has drawn high-level military and civilian interest in the U.S. and Morocco and been given far more support than an ordinary training event, Garay said. The fact that it is being led by a reserve unit is evidence to Garay that the unit has proved its worth over the past eight years in Iraq andUAfghanistan.
“This is precedent-setting stuff,” he said. “The Marine Corps is working hard to operationalize the reserves. The reserve outfit we have today has so much capability from having gained experience in the fight the last few years.”
Not every Marine making the trip is a veteran of deployments, however.
Cpl. Stephanie Atwood, a lifelong Benbrook resident now attending college, has never been overseas and never flown on a military airplane. She isn’t sure whether there will be any women in the Moroccan military.
“I’ve wanted to be deployed; I just haven’t gotten the chance,” she said. “Last year I wanted to go on this exercise, but I broke my arm. This year, I made sure I was going to go. I want to explore another culture and see how another military works.”
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