The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and the United States Marine Rotational Force-Southeast Asia conducted exercise Valiant Mark in mid-December 2024 to strengthen interoperability and partnerships between the forces.
The five-day exercise in Singapore enhanced cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, reinforced relationships among personnel and prepared units for future training engagements.
“The purpose of Valiant Mark 24 is to increase our interoperability with our SAF counterparts and to strengthen our ties with Singapore as a country,” said U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Jack McAndrews, logistics officer for the Marine Rotational Force.
Experts from the units led exchanges on topics such as medical care, tactical-level logistics, intelligence and leadership, enabling each nation’s personnel to benefit from the other’s knowledge and identify ways to enhance collaboration.
“This exercise, where we’re able to share our ideas behind command and control or, in my case, tactical resupply, or any of the other topics covered during expert exchanges, allows us to partner with the SAF, understand how they think, how they act and what they want,” McAndrews said. “That allows us to be a better partner for them and makes them a better partner for us.”
U.S. Marines from 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, conducted anti-armor training and expert exchanges with 3rd Battalion Singapore Guards. The SAF’s Light Strike platoon trained with U.S. Marines from the Combined Anti-Armor Team (CAAT) platoon.
“The Singaporeans use the Light Strike Vehicle, which is a very capable, highly mobile platform through which they fire their Spike missiles and automatic grenade launcher … This is similar in construct to how we employ our own anti-armor teams,” said U.S. Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Alexander Turner, a training officer. “In a real-world scenario, these two teams, the Light Strike platoon and a CAAT platoon, would likely be working in coordination to take down whatever armor threat is present in the area of operations.”
Ahead of Valiant Mark, unit leaders highlighted the importance of each force understanding the other’s planning process, which is critical for interoperability.
“During the training, we identify what’s similar between our planning processes and where we differ,” said Capt. Dan Donlon, assistant intelligence officer for the Marine Rotational Force. “Once we were finished, both forces had a better understanding of how each other work, which makes future collaboration that much easier.”
“We exchanged our best practices and shared with our counterparts our operations based on our own expertise,” said SAF Capt. Jaron Tan, a logistics officer.
The next iteration of Valiant Mark, scheduled for March 2025, will increase in duration and complexity with the addition of field training and live-fire events.
“The successes we have achieved during Valiant Mark 24 will pay dividends in the future,” said U.S. Marine Corps Col. Stuart Glenn, commanding officer of Marine Rotational Force. “[We] will train alongside our partners in the Singapore Guards to maintain regional stability through our proven interoperability and unwavering partnership.”
