(Cap Draa, Morocco) — The sun barely peeked over the horizon when the stillness was shattered by the roar of artillery. Navy Lt. j.g. Ryan M. White crawled out of his tent into the southern Moroccan morning to begin another day.
White, son of Kathy Nusbaum of Gary Cooper Street in northwest San Antonio, is in Morocco supporting exercise African Lion 2011.
“We are here providing exercise-related construction. We are building an expeditionary river crossing for tanks and constructing a prefabricated metal building,” said White, a 2003 graduate of William Taft High School. He went on to earn his Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of San Antonio in 2007.
African Lion is an exercise between the Kingdom of Morocco and the U.S. that involves more than 2,000 U.S. service members and approximately 900 members of the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces. The exercise serves as a way for both U.S. and Moroccan military members to hone their skills and learn to work together to a accomplish missions.
“Training in Morocco is very different. There are definitely some barriers we have to work around, specifically the language barrier. We don’t directly work with the locals though,” said White, the detail officer in charge of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74, Miss.
In spite of the barriers, White and his fellow servicemembers 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. Both the Moroccan and U.S. forces receive valuable training during the course of the exercise.
“I am getting the chance to learn various construction and leadership skills here,” said White.
White and his fellow service members not only trained in the Moroccan desert, they lived there as well. They experienced sandstorms, the rain showers of the wet season and the heat that traditionally goes with a desert. They even had an opportunity to spend some time off duty experiencing the culture and seeing the sights.
“This is my first time to Morocco, and it’s not bad and the weather is comfortable,” said White, who has completed three years of military service.
As the artificial thunder of artillery fire dies away for a moment, the sun rises fully above the desert horizon and begins its journey toward the nearby Atlantic Ocean. White and the other participants in African Lion 2011 go about their business sharing experiences and knowledge with each other and their Moroccan counterparts.
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