BY AIR FORCE STAFF SGT. JESSICA SWITZER
Special to The Post and Courier
Thursday, October 13, 2011
CAP DRAA, Morocco — The sun barely peeked over the horizon when the stillness was shattered by the roar of artillery. The sons of a North Charleston couple crawled out of their tents into the southern Moroccan morning to begin another day.
Marine Corps Reserve Lance Cpls. Charles M. and Jacob D. Thames, sons of Judy R.H. and Mark R. Thames of North Charleston, are in Morocco supporting exercise African Lion 2011. They are members of Fox Company, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, in Eastover, S.C.
Air Force Tech. Sgt. Sean Worrell
Marine Corps Reserve Lance Cpls. Charles M. and Jacob D. Thames are assigned to Fox Company, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Eastover, S.C. They recently deployed to Morocco in support of a bilateral training exercise with the Moroccan military.
“I am a gunner on a light armored vehicle,” said Charles, a 2008 graduate of Wando High School.
“We will be showing the soldiers of Morocco the capabilities of our LAVs,” said Jacob, a 2004 graduate of Wando.
African Lion is an exercise between Morocco and the United States that involves more than 2,000 U.S. service members and about 900 members of the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces. The exercise serves as a way for U.S. and Moroccan military members to hone skills and learn to work together to accomplish missions.
“I have been training in the turret to work on my proficiency on the gun,” said Charles.
“Morocco is more like the other places that we fight throughout the world than the places that we train in the United States,” said Jacob.
Despite the barriers, the brothers and their fellow service members worked with the Moroccan forces on different types of military training, including command post, live fire, peacekeeping operations, disaster response, aerial refueling, and low-level flight training.
“Training here is good because the terrain is a lot like in Afghanistan,” said Charles.
“We have had classes on everything that we need to know and things that are involved with our jobs, anything from the weapons we use to the radios and vehicles,” said Jacob.
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The service members not only trained in the Moroccan desert, also they lived there. They experienced sandstorms, rain during the wet season and the heat of the desert. They even spent some time experiencing the culture and seeing the sights.
“It rains more in Morocco than I would have guessed. It has rained on us every day so far. It also gets hot, but not as bad as I thought,” said Jacob.
“Since I don’t have much longer in the service, my goal is to pass my knowledge down to my junior Marines to prepare them for what their future holds,” said Charles.
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