Cobra Gold 2009
Sgt. Michael Ramey, satellite communications specialist with 7th Communications Battalion, works on a Phoenix satellite, Feb. 3, during Exercise Cobra Gold 2009. Cobra Gold is a joint, coalition exercise focused on maintaining and improving military interoperability among its participants.
Hosted by the Kingdom of Thailand, Cobra Gold involves command post exercises, filed training and a variety of humanitarian assistance projects.
The U.S. Embassy in Thailand describes the exercise:
The exercise will combine Thai, U.S., and Singaporean armed forces in a coalition task force headquarters staff exercise. Thailand, Singapore, Japan, and the United States will conduct field training exercises. Thailand, The United States, Singapore, Japan, and Indonesia will participate in an exercise designed around the United Nations multi-national peace support operations scenario. Thailand, the United States, Singapore, Indonesia, and Japan will participate in humanitarian and civic assistance projects, designed to improve quality of life and local infrastructure for the host Thai people.
In addition to the five main participating countries, the royal Thai government has invited several other nations to participate in various roles during the exercise. The following countries have been invited: Australia, Brunei, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Bangladesh, India, Philippines, Peoples Republic of Cambodia, China, Canada, Germany, South Korea, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Mongolia.
Sgt. 1st Class Brandon Cabanilla of Kahalui, Hawaii and Pvt. 1st Class Michelle Almeida of Kihei laugh as they prepare the frames for the windows in the new classroom facility the Hawaii National Guard, 230th Engineer Company, Vertical is building jointly with the Royal Thai Marine Engineer Battalion during the Cobra Gold joint engineering civil assistance mission hosted at the Ban Nong Buatong school in the Chanthaburi District of Thailand Jan. 24 to Feb. 11.
Today’s Bloggers’ Roundtable was with LTG Benjamin Mixon, U.S. Army Pacific Command. He discussed Cobra Gold 2009 in detail, and placed it in a regional context. A number of nations, including China and Vietnam, are observing.
One of the highlights of the exercise will be a combined arms Marine amphibious combat landing, involving some 3,000 U.S. Marines in cooperation with Thai Marines. General Mixon pointed out that this serves to sharpen skill sets for major combat operations as well as demonstrate the ability of the United States to project power in the region.
Cpl. Jason O’Hearn, land support company, Combat Logistics Regiment 3, guides a 7-ton truck onto a tractor-trailer Jan. 28 during the Maritime Prepositioning Force offload operation in Laem Cha Bang, Thailand in support of Exercise Cobra Gold 2009.
Planned elements of Cobra Gold will take place across the Kingdom of Thailand, from the southeast near Cambodia to the northwest near Burma. Naval and Marine sea borne elements will take place in the vicinity of the city of Utaphao.
Cobra Gold 2009 map of Thailand
The General cited the New York Army National Guard for providing a battalion of troops, the 2nd of the 108th, as the Army ground force. He also pointed out that a platoon of Strykers from the 2nd of the 23rd in Ft. Lewis, Washington, were also involved. There is also an A Team of Special Forces troops deployed to train the Thais.
The Thais have expressed interest in counter-IED training, Mixon said, and counter insurgency operations. The General does not see the U.S. becoming involved in COIN in Thailand as we have in the Philippines.
A total of around 7,500 Americans are involved, from all branches of the military.
Table of contents for Bloggers' Roundtable
- We Don’t Commute to Work Anymore
- Terror Investors Might Want to Look Elsewhere
- I Hear It’s Safe
- In Our Area the Taliban Are Paying More a Month
- Iraqi Police Progress
- Sept. 11 Conspirators Going to Trial
- Continued Courage and Committment
- The Year of Opportunity – 2008
- Competent, Capable, Effective Leadership
- Afghan Army Acts: Decisive, Overwhelming
- Iraqi Military Medical Services
- Dallas Reporting: Aid Mission to Georgia
- Military Integration Into NIMS
- Status Report From the Afghan South
- Status Report From the Afghan East
- Fourth Fleet Is About Partnerships
- Iraqi Police Primer
- Sons of Iraq Status Update
- Army Apologizes
- We Are Here!
- Yar! There Be Pirates!
- Cobra Gold 2009
- Our Best: Sergeant First Class Helen Gillespie
- Africa Partnership Station Comes to E Africa
- Building the Rule of Law in Afghanistan
- Sons of Iraq and the Iraqi Budget
- Air Force Combat Camera – Focus on the Fight
- Afghan Update for July 22, 2009
- The Army Goal: 1.5 Gigawatts of Renewable Energy
- Withdrawing from Iraq – some perspective
- Iraqi security update April 22 2010
- 2012 Federal Budget for Defense
- Pacific Command and the Pacific
- Air Force high flyers mark 100th anniversary
the attachments to this post:
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This entry was posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 11:00 am and is filed under Military, Marines, Military, Original writing, Military, Our Allies, Original writing, Reporting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
