What training occurs on Vieques?
Three training components are performed on Vieques: (1) Marine amphibious landings, coordinated with supporting naval, air and artillery fire, which take place on Camp Garcia beaches; (2) naval surface fire support (NSFS) from Navy ships stationed off the Vieques coast; and (3) air-to-ground (ATG) bombing from Navy and Marine Corps aircraft launched from carriers onto the Live Impact Area (several miles from Camp Garcia). The ATG strikes trained in Vieques are magazine-to-target, live ordnance bombing, often from a high altitude. These components are sometimes combined in Joint Task Force Exercises (JTFEX), large-scale, multi-dimensional exercises that attempt to play out realistic war scenarios. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Navy trained an average of 180 days a year on Vieques, and dropped or fired an average of 1,464 tons of bombs and high explosive ordnance on Vieques a year.
