Okinawa, Japan –
Creative thinking by Marine instructors on Okinawa, Japan, allowed old government furniture to avoid the landfill and serve on in a live fire training area.
Rocky Chavana, a property disposal specialist and environmentalist at the DLA Disposition Services site at Okinawa, said the III Marine Expeditionary Force’s Expeditionary Operations Training Group requested scrap furniture to furnish their training area to replicate life like situations when breaching houses and occupied rooms. He said the furniture that the Defense Logistics Agency provided included couches, chairs, tables and wardrobes.
Marine Gunnery Sgt. David Beardsley, the group’s logistics chief, said the Marines who instruct for the group like to ensure students get the most realistic training as possible.
“In order to do this our Special Missions Branch has to set up their shoot houses to realistic specifications that could occur during real life situations that Marines have to endure on their call to duty,” Beardsley said. He added that they want their students to be able to take the skills they learned and pass them on to their units.
Beardsley said the use of live ammunition made furniture that would have been scrapped ideal for the training.
“We understand that it will get destroyed in the process, so why not use this furniture as a realistic training tool,” Beardsley said. “We are thankful to have the option to utilize DLA in aiding our training.”
Beardsley said the furniture will play an important role in Close Quarter Tactics Training by making the training environment more realistic in the set up. He explained that showing how the items would appear in a possible real situation enhances the knowledge of the Marines going through the training.