Marines and Airmen Train Joint Terminal Attack Controllers in Exercise Garnet Rattler
U.S. Marines from the 11th Marine Regiment coordinated close air support with Air Force personnel during Exercise Garnet Rattler at Orchard Combat Training Center in Idaho on May 7 2026. The joint training increases efficiency lethality and interoperability for joint terminal attack controllers in realistic environments.
manilatimes.netU.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Hugo Dubon, command senior enlisted leader of 11th Marine Regiment 1st Marine Division, and Col. Benjamin Harrison, commanding officer of 11th Marines 1st MARDIV, reviewed an unmanned aerial system live feed while overseeing close air support coordination on May 7 2026 at Orchard Combat Training Center in Idaho.
The exercise involved Marines and Airmen training joint terminal attack controllers. It targets operators who direct strikes from aircraft onto ground targets while embedded with ground forces. The 11th Marine Regiment forms the artillery regiment of the 1st Marine Division which maintains approximately 20,000 active duty Marines across infantry artillery reconnaissance and support units.
The training shifts from prior individual service drills to integrated joint sessions that combine Marine ground coordination with Air Force close air support platforms. Exercise Garnet Rattler ran in early May 2026 at the Idaho facility which supports large scale live fire and combined arms maneuvers on more than 1,000 square miles of range space.
The updated joint terminal attack controller proficiency requires participating units to certify interoperability standards before full deployment rotations. This triggers follow-on validation for 1st Marine Division elements scheduled for Pacific theater exercises later in 2026 and compels the Air Force to align its controller training calendars with Marine Corps pre-deployment cycles.
Subsequent exercises will incorporate lessons into standardized joint doctrine publications maintained by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
This marks the latest iteration of recurring Marine-Air Force combined arms drills at Orchard Combat Training Center. The CENTCOM daily release shows the May 2026 session focused on unmanned aerial system feeds to support controller targeting. Harrison and Dubon both hail from California and hold leadership roles within the 1st Marine Division structure that has conducted similar interoperability training annually since the establishment of formalized joint terminal attack controller programs in the early 2000s.
Primary sources: U.S. Department of Defense · CENTCOM
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