US Marines said they did not lose to British Royal Marines during a joint training exercise held in the Mojave Desert recently, pushing back on reports that they were “dominated” in a mock battle.
The simulated encounter between the two nations was not designed to have “winners,” the US Marine Corps said in an emailed statement to Insider.
“Exercise scenarios are adjusted as needed to assist commanders in meeting training objectives,” the email said.
“This exercise does not provide an opportunity to ‘surrender,’ ‘keep score,’ or ‘reset.’ The objective of the exercise is to heighten unit performance and increase readiness.”
Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Tuesday that US Marines were driven into submission in the five-day exercise.
It said that US forces surrendered and asked to “reset” and that the UK troops had scored highly while US Marines struggled — claims which the official statement disputed.
After the Telegraph report began to circulate, the official US Marine Corps twitter account published a message celebrating the bond between US Marines and Royal Marines, noting that joint training benefitted everyone involved.
The UK Royal Navy — the service branch which incorporates the Royal Marines — had a different story to the US, saying that its forces did win in the training,
A spokesperson yesterday told Insider’s Bill Bostock that the UK had a decisive victory and ended up controlling 65% of the battle area in the exercise.
A Royal Marines twitter account also celebrated what it called the British “triumph.”
Exercise Green Dagger took place over a 3,500-square-kilometer zone at the US Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California.
It involved units from the US facing UK counterparts, who were helped by troops from the Netherlands, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates, the press release said.
Sophia Ankel is a News Reporter based in London.
She also has bylines in the Guardian, The Independent, and VICE.
Sophia has spoken about her work on BBC Three Radio.
