 Marines and sailors from Fox Company 2nd Battalion 9th Marines worked alongside Army aviation to conduct a mock air raid and assault at the Rodry-Geslev Fire Complex as part of Korean Marine Exchange Program 1515 from December 5th through the 8th. The enemy situation in this case is that we're in South Korea. Enemy forces have infiltrated in and have set up some special operating forces command and control nodes here to be able to provide information and command and control, follow on conventional forces coming into the area. We've identified where those SOC units are and we're going to be using our heliborne raid to rapidly close with them and destroy them before they have an opportunity to displace to another location. Once the Marines and sailors were inserted into the area and the initial air raid was complete, mission accomplishment rested solely on what Marines do best. Locate, close with and destroy the enemy. The fire team leaders are predominantly in charge and just maneuvering their teams, keeping them under control, pushing them throughout through the shoe house. The most challenging is just keeping control of the fire team because you don't want to run them. You don't want to run a fire team or squad too fast because then you become complacent and you start missing things. So basically slowest moves move as fast. Fox Company's exercise focused heavily on time-tests strategies as well as modern warfare in order to be the most effective. The benefit is it prepares the Marines for real world operations. I mean look at where we're sitting, we're pretty close to the DMZ, Seoul is a very built up urban environment obviously, so if we were to have to fight, this would be what we would have to fight in, is an urban environment and the challenge is you have to know the guy in front of you, the guy beside you, the guy behind you, what they're doing, thus all the rehearsals prior to going live fire. The team mount has challenges of itself when you add live fire with it and you also add the factor that this is something the Marines haven't done a lot of, it becomes pretty complex. Whether in the air, land or sea, the goal of any bilateral training is to build not only confidence, but ensuring mission accomplishment. The reality of it is if we're going to go anywhere in the world and do real world operations, we're going to go and play with who's available, who's there. That could be Marine Aviation, it could be Army Aviation, it could be Air Force Aviation, we have to be able to work jointly. Now for the individual Marine, what he's going to realize is he's going to do the same thing that he's done, had we been supported by Marine Aviation or Army Aviation, but the other side of that is he's going to get a chance to experience what it's like to actually be on the helicopter, get off the helicopter, to see Apaches, to see Kyle as in support, doing simulated close air support on the objective. What that really does for the Marines is it builds confidence in himself that he knows how to do it and he can do the right things, but also that those systems and those people when they need to support him are going to be right there when he needs them, when we're actually downrange. Reporting from Rodriguez Live Fire Complex, Republic of Korea, I'm Corporal Wes Lucco.