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Military Sealift Command

MSC PAO 03-13
April 7, 2003
For more information, contact:
Marge Holtz or Dan Kuester
(202)685-5055

More than 1,300 Army reservists have been activated to provide force protection and security aboard Military Sealift Command ships sailing to and from Southwest Asia.

The soldiers, from Puerto Rico National Guard Unit 92nd Separate Infantry Brigade, are called Guardian Mariners and are organized into 110, 12-person teams that began reporting aboard MSC ships Mar. 19.

As non-combatant vessels, all ships sailing under the operational control of MSC carry no weapons systems and are crewed by civil service mariners or mariners employed by commercial firms under contract to MSC.

Until the Guardian Mariners began centralizing the ship protection duties, crew members and members from the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps were responsible for ship security.

MSC and its parent command, U.S. Transportation Command, established the Guardian Mariners to provide additional protection to crew members aboard ships that are transiting to and from the Persian Gulf area.

"We are doing everything that we can to keep our mariners safe and our ships protected," said Vice Adm. David L. Brewer III, Commander, Military Sealift Command, in Washington, D.C. "These Guardian Mariners will do that."

Guardian Mariners are being trained by both U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps instructors during the 21-day course at Fort Bragg, N.C., and Fort A.P. Hill, Va. Army instructors are focusing on weapons and arms training, while Marines are training the reservists on shipboard security.

Guardian Mariners are learning how to defend the ship from attacks while the ship is at sea or in port.

Much of the training that Guardian Mariners are receiving focuses on how to survive a chemical, biological and radiological attack. The Guardian Mariners will also help train ships' crews on how to continue to operate the ship in case of CBR contamination.

Military Sealift Command, the ocean transportation provider for the Department of Defense, operates about 120 civilian-crewed, noncombatant ships around the world each day during peacetime. MSC ship missions vary from the transport and afloat prepositioning of defense cargo to underway replenishment and other direct support to Navy ships at sea and at-sea data collection for the U.S. military as well as other U.S. government agencies.