The U.S. Marine Corps has completed a training exercise with an elite military unit from the United Arab Emirates at Camp Pendleton, California.
The four-week event saw USMC’s 1st Marine Division work with the UAE Presidential Guard soldiers to build rapport between the participating forces.
The troops performed land navigation and infiltration maneuvers, activities that were designed to bolster the participants’ combat skills.
The training honed the soldiers’ skills and taught them to work as a team. It ended in an exercise that covered all stages of urban reconnaissance and surveillance operation.
The US-UAE cooperation started when a foreign military sales case authorized the integration of Marine trainers into the Presidential Guard in 2011, further developing the military unit’s capabilities.
According to Maj. Daniel McCoy, the reconnaissance brigade team deputy with the Marine Corps Training Mission at UAE Presidential Guard, the UAE is a regional power in the Middle East committed to peace and stability in the region.
The collaborative effort provides U.S. soldiers with invaluable experience and enables the partner forces to share advanced military tactics, USMC said.
The bilateral exercise’s conclusion follows the Department of State approval of a proposed $144 million FMS deal in early May that would deliver High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile control section modification upgrades and support equipment to the UAE.