Washington Army National Guard soldiers descended on Southwest Washington rivers and lakes for back-to-back weekends earlier this month in a recently announced large-scale training exercise.
The exercises were aimed at preparing soldiers for air assaults and waterborne insertions in the Horn of Africa and around the Indo-Pacific, the Guard said in a release last Friday.
The exercises come amid growing tensions with China over the future of Taiwan and increasing risks of the U.S. getting drawn into at least one of Israel’s U.S.-backed wars across the Middle East.
Soldiers of the 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry Regiment took the guard’s “Combat Water Survival Test” as well as boat operation trainings at Ike Kinswa State Park on Mayfield Lake on Aug. 2 and 3 in Lewis County.
The training culminated with an excursion up the Cowlitz River, performing capsize drills on inflatable boat used after crews jump from helicopters, said Lt. Col. Eric Seeb, commander of the 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry Regiment, in the release.
“This prepared soldiers to assist 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry Regiment the following weekend with a helocast event at Captain William Clark Park on the Columbia River,” he added.
Helocast is a military term for soldiers jumping out of a helicopter into the water.
The second weekend of exercises centered around those boats deployed near Washougal which then picked up about 200 soldiers who had been dropped out of military helicopters into the Columbia near Cottonwood Beach.
Seed said the squadron conducts air assaults.
“Helocasting isn’t a typical air assault operation, but it could become vital for future operations in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said in the notice.
