Coalition Navies Sharpen MSO Sword During Bright Star Exercise
Navy NewsStand
Story Number: NNS050928-06
Release Date: 9/28/2005 12:00:00 PM
By Lt. Ron Flanders, Expeditionary Strike Group 1 Public Affairs
ABOARD USS INGRAHAM (NNS) -- Sailors from the United States, Pakistan, Italy and Egypt trained together in Maritime Security Operations (MSO) Sept. 23-24 off the Egyptian coast as part of Exercise Bright Star.
The focus of the two-day training was Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS), the boarding and searching of vessels for terrorists, drugs, weapons or other contraband.
“This exercise is great exposure for our personnel,” said Lt. Shahzad Akbar of the Pakistani destroyer Tariq (PNS 181). “We came to learn a lot of things, to improve our tactics, and to better be able to stop vessels on the open sea.”
During Bright Star, the coalition vessels did just that. Sailors from the frigate USS Ingraham (FFG 61) teamed with their Pakistani counterparts from Tariq to practice a compliant boarding on the Egyptian frigate Mubarak (ENS 911). While the Egyptian sailors played the role of a civilian merchant crew, the joint American-Pakistani boarding team quickly searched the pilot house, engineering and crew spaces, searching for weapons or illegal contraband.
As the boarding team cautiously made its way forward toward the pilot house and the foc’sle, the Americans and Pakistanis communicated via hand signals. By the time the drill was over and the ship was successfully searched, the Sailors walked away from the event with a newfound respect for one another.
“The Pakistanis did an excellent job picking up the searches,” said Senior Chief Operations Specialist (SW) Terry Schweizer, Ingraham’s boarding officer. “Our combined teams worked exceptionally well together, demonstrating the three principles of successful VBSS - speed, silence and violence of action.”
As the joint Pakistani-American team conducted a boarding on Mubarak, another joint boarding team conducted a successful VBSS on the Egyptian frigate Sharm el Sheik (ENS 901). The boarding team consisted of Sailors from the dock landing ship USS Pearl Harbor (LSD 52) and their Italian counterparts from the corvette Battica (INS 492).
On the second day of the training, it was the Egyptians’ turn to demonstrate their MSO prowess. Sailors from Mubarak came alongside Ingraham and performed a compliant boarding, this time with the American Sailors dressed in civilian clothes, acting as merchantmen.
According to Cmdr. Ricks Polk, Ingraham’s commanding officer, the four nations worked seamlessly as a team during Bright Star, improving their already-sharp MSO skills.
“This is why we are so successful in coalition MSO,” Polk said. “Having coalition partners who know more than we do about an area and its waters, who speak the language, it helps tremendously. The Pakistanis operate in some of the same areas we do, and the highway of terrorist activity is from the Arabian Sea into the Gulf of Aden.”
Coalition navies patrol international waters in the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, denying terrorists the use of the maritime environment, and deterring piracy. Additionally, coalition ships protect key Iraqi infrastructure nodes in the North Persian Gulf, which protect the ability of the Iraqi people to rebuild their economy.
Polk credited the excellent training that boarding teams from Ingraham, Pearl Harbor, the amphibious transport dock USS Cleveland (LPD 7), the guided-missile cruiser USS Chosin (CG 65) and the guided-missile destroyer USS Gonzalez (DDG 66) received just prior to deployment as being a key element to the ability of Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 1 to complete its mission of setting the conditions for security and stability in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations (AOR).
Ingraham Sailors, who proudly wear the moniker “Warriors,” say they are ready to carry out this mission for the next few months in the 5th Fleet AOR.
“Our presence out there, Pearl Harbor’s presence out there, plus now that we’re working with all of our coalition partners, it is definitely going to have a big impact on what goes on in terms of smuggling out there on the sea,” said Operations Specialist 3rd Class John Paul Candelaria, a VBSS breacher from Ingraham.
Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class Chris Mason accurately summed up Ingraham’s “warrior” spirit, saying that in the North Persian Gulf, ESG 1’s VBSS teams, and their coalition partners, will be ready to pressurize the maritime environment.
“We’re doing our part,” Mason said. “We’re doing all we can to get whatever weapons, explosives, terrorists, drugs out of the water. We’re ready.”
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