Marines wrap rotational deployment in Norway

April 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Marines have completed a rotational deployment to Norway and have returned to the United States, the Marine Corps announced Tuesday.

The deployment began with months of cold weather and arctic combat training and culminated with Arctic Littoral Strike in March, a bilateral training exercise conducted with the Norwegian military and meant to test new operational concepts.

That exercise, conducted in March, focused on joint naval integration with Norwegian submarines and reinforced live-fire attacks.

"Our deployment to Norway provided an opportunity to increase our readiness in several different ways," Lt. Col. Ryan Gordinier, the MRF-E battalion commander, said in the Marine Corps' press release. "Specifically, we applied our combined arms lethality in the winter arctic environment ensuring that we can fight in any clime or place, we reinforced our relationship with our NATO allies demonstrating our commitment to collective defense, and we tested out different Marine Corps Force Design initiatives and opportunities here to support the fleet in the European theater."

Marine Rotational Force-Europe also worked with the Norwegian military and public health officials to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission, the release said.

MRF-E will redeploy to North Carolina's Camp Lejeune, after which smaller numbers of Marines will travel to Norway to conduct more specialized field training and planning alongside Norwegian forces and plan for larger training events in 2022.

"Working closely together increases our understanding of each other's culture and our ability to operate together. It has been a good period of winter basic training for the U.S. Marines supported by the Norwegian Army," Maj. Gen. Lars Lervik, chief of the Norwegian Army, said in the release. We look forward to continuing the training together with the U.S. Marines, both here in Norway and in the United States."

In August 2020 the Marine Corps announced that the branch would end six-month rotations in Norway, but would continue to conduct periodic training and exercises with the Norwegian military.