{"id":9710,"date":"2024-05-31T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/?p=9710"},"modified":"2024-09-04T13:25:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T13:25:29","slug":"maryland-army-national-guard-soldiers-integral-to-african-lion-exercise-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/2024\/05\/31\/maryland-army-national-guard-soldiers-integral-to-african-lion-exercise-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryland Army National Guard soldiers integral to African Lion exercise success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Article by Sgt. Lindiwe Henry<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

BALTIMORE, Md. \u2014 Approximately 230 Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment from the Maryland Army National Guard participated in the African Lion 2024 Exercise from April 19 to May 31, 2024.<\/p>\n

This exercise marks the 1-175th Infantry Regiment\u2019s largest deployment of Guard members in more than 10 years.<\/p>\n

The exercise locations spanned the countries Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana and Senegal. The 1-175th Soldiers trained in the latter three countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving different units across different parts of Africa has been a really challenging but also rewarding opportunity,\u201d said Maryland Army National Guard Lt. Col. Alexi Franklin, commander of 1-175th Infantry Regiment, Maryland Army National Guard. <\/p>\n

The first phase of the exercise was in Tunisia. Approximately 140 Soldiers from battalion staff, Headquarters-Headquarters Company, Charlie Company and Delta Company worked with their Tunisian counterparts to conduct expeditionary deployment operations training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They trained on various weapons systems, conducted squad live fire, and crew gunnery platform target practice. They shipped over and used their military vehicles for transportation and training purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why it\u2019s important to have these trucks deployed overseas to conduct the training is that it preps the unit in mobilizing all our cargo,\u201d said Maryland Army National Guard Lt. Ronnan Rodas, 1-175th Infantry Regiment.<\/p>\n

The training culminated in a distinguished visitor day on May 10. The distinguished visitors included U.S. Ambassador Joey Hood; Maj. Gen. Wasmund, U.S. Army Southern European Task Force – Africa Commanding General; Maj. Gen. Janeen Birckhead, Adjutant General for Maryland; Brig. Gen. Andrew Collins, commander of the Maryland Army National Guard; and many Tunisian and partner nation military leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very pleased with this exercise,\u201d said Wasmund. \u201cIt provides us an opportunity to train together, to develop our capacity and our capabilities and to achieve greater interoperability so that we can meet the challenges that we face here in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event demonstrated the 1-175th\u2019s commitment to partnering with allies, and their ability and willingness to seamlessly integrate their Soldiers and resources against a common enemy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with the Tunisians was absolutely phenomenal,\u201d said Franklin, reflecting on the training. \u201cIt was a really fantastic experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next phase of the exercise took place in Ghana. More than 50 Soldiers from Bravo Company 1-175th Infantry Regiment conducted expeditionary combat operations training with the Ghanaian military.
Bravo Company demonstrated squad live fire while the Ghanaians demonstrated static range fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a good opportunity here to see what our counterparts are doing, and how they train and their tactics,\u201d said Maryland Army National Guard Sgt. David Thanga, 1-175th Infantry Regiment. \u201cIt\u2019s been very eye-opening, and we\u2019ve been learning a lot from them as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scheduling of daily training needed to be adjusted to account for the extreme heat during different parts of the day. However, Bravo Company and the Ghanaians successfully completed all the training they set out to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis multinational exercise has been helpful,\u201d said Ghanaian Armed Forces Lt. Roland Nettey, public relations officer, Northern Command. \u201cIt has been able to boost our bilateral ties with our United States counterparts especially.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The last phase occurred in Senegal. More than 40 Soldiers from the 1-175th Infantry Regiment successfully integrated the Senegalese military and the U.S. Army 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade into their training.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite cultural and linguistic differences with the host countries, the 1-175th strengthened bonds with existing allies and mutually benefitted from the training.<\/p>\n

African Lion 2024 is a multi-component, multinational, annual joint, combined exercise that showcases a full array of capabilities. It is U.S. Africa Command\u2019s largest U.S. military training event conducted on the African continent and its twentieth year.<\/p>\n

According to the Maryland National Guard historian Dr. Julie Shively who attended the exercise, the 1-175th Infantry Regiment\u2019s involvement was integral to the successful execution of African Lion 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m phenomenally proud of all my Soldiers,\u201d said Franklin. \u201cThis was an extremely difficult undertaking we\u2019ve taken on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article by Sgt. Lindiwe Henry BALTIMORE, Md. \u2014 Approximately 230 Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment from the Maryland Army National Guard participated in the African Lion 2024 Exercise from April 19 to May 31, 2024. This exercise marks the 1-175th Infantry Regiment\u2019s largest deployment of Guard members in more than 10 years.  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":9713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33,2],"tags":[138,1009,145,205],"class_list":["post-9710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-infantry","category-news","tag-1-175th-infantry-regiment","tag-african-lion","tag-maryland-army-national-guard","tag-maryland-national-guard"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9710"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9762,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9710\/revisions\/9762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}