Team Efforts by The Sailor of The United States

The country has always depended on individuals who are brave enough to go in the call of duty to protect their nation. One unit is the United States Navy, which has existed for years to secure the shorelines and any form of threat to the country or its citizens. Not only is it the most powerful navy worldwide, but its sailors also undergo heavy training that gives them capable skills to perform their duties. For them to be able to accomplish their missions and pursuits, they depend on team effort and cohesion. By working together and pulling together resources and strength, the sailors have demonstrated the capability to perform almost impossible tasks by group work in the 21st century. Regardless of their advanced warfare and latest technological equipment, none of this would have mattered without well-orchestrated teamwork. This can be demonstrated by Navy sailors who have been trained for combat and warfare, such as the Navy SEALS, who work together in small units to achieve unbelievable feats. However, some of the team input has not only been done by the sailors themselves but rather through collaboration with other assistive units. Sailors have carried rescue operations successfully, eliminated threats through fluent combined effort showing the power of team work.

United States Navy sailors have demonstrated the capability of group effort through search and rescue missions. The most renowned area of the prowess of navy sailors is on the sea. They have shown fortitude based on their knowledge and experience in murky waters, enabling them to save individuals who are lost or on the verge of danger. One example is when they saved another sailor who was suspected to have already died after going overboard a ship (Cohen, 2017). The individual was not yet spotted after seven days, and there was suspicion he was already dead. However, the U.S Navy used the combination of its rescue teams, helicopters and ships to look for the individual. Furthermore, they used the combined effort of the Japanese navy to increase the area of search and to reduce the time of the search. The lost sailor was found alive, and it was only due to the power of the Navy to use team effort in its quests. If they had used four or five individuals and a single ship to save on costs, the person would have died. Furthermore, the rescue mission demonstrated that they do not mind spending resources on larger teams so long as the work gets done. The mission covered over 5,500 miles of water search, making it a difficult quest to achieve successfully. The Navy utilized both the air and sea at the same time, searching the area meticulously before finding the individual in a hidden segment of another ship. The success demonstrated their aptitude for keenness, but even better, they showed group work.

The Navy has also performed difficult evacuations during rescue missions due to their team effort. In certain situations, the people who need to be rescued face life-or-death scenarios that require a quick act and a large team. One of these situations is when a Navy aircraft lost control and ended up crashing into the sea in the Philippines (Ellyatt, 2017). Eleven individuals were in the plane and, unfortunately, ended up going down with it during the crash. The situation was a severe one and required an intensive search through the water just to be able to find the aircraft itself. The catastrophe was also an unexpected one, meaning the sailors required for the service did not have any preparation for the occurrence. However, the exemplary team effort was demonstrated when the Navy sailors were not only able to reach in time but scoured the sea and found the crashed plane. They were able to rescue eight individuals from the accident, a feat that was not really expected considering the gravity of the situation. Such a situation requires a group of individuals who not only can work together well but are able to handle the intensity of such an operation. The mission was very sensitive and important, as people’s lives were at stake with every second that passed, but the sailors rose up to the challenge.

Sailors have also shown their fortitude through teamwork during natural calamities. Nature has been known never to hold back when it comes to swinging, which was witnessed when Storm Harvey flooded various cities in Texas (Cohen & et al., 2017). A lot of people became stranded in the waters, and many individuals struggled to stay alive. The Navy sent in its sailors who rescued hundreds of residents from impending death. They planned strategic ways of saving as many individuals as they could in different sections of the towns as fast as they could. Their team effort saved the lives of a lot of families, capitalizing on how well the sailors could work as a group.

The Navy and its sailors’ team effort played a thoroughly crucial role in Operation Enduring Freedom, which occurred after the 9/11 terrorist attack. After the World Trade Center attack, the nation decided to launch an all-out operation upon the Al-Qaeda. The mission was extremely duty-heavy and needed an extreme amount of preparation, surveillance, and combatant transportation. During the operation, 60,000 sailors were part of the process and their group work is what made the mission successful. The sailors ensured the safe reaching of other combatants, operated the naval aircraft and submarines, and were responsible for the entire schedule (Wright, 2010). They launched numerous attacks against Al-Qaeda, landing massive blows against the terrorists. Considering the position of Afghanistan, which is an interior landlocked country, the sailors played another crucial role. They utilized naval aircraft, which went into the battle zone as they coordinated from the sea, launching missiles on the aircraft before they flew off. Furthermore, they used TLAM missiles, which were launched from the ships, clearing away the hostiles in the landlocked region. They could coordinate with their fellow combatants close to the war zone, exchange coordinates and effectively destroy the targets. Their teamwork was excellent and exceptional, as it was the very first time that the United States had attacked such an interior region from the sea successfully. If they had failed to coordinate well together, there would have been an injury of fellow soldiers, considering the distance the missiles were being launched. The mission would also have been a disaster, costing the country millions of dollars in the project, and the enemies would have escaped.

During Operation Enduring Freedom, navy sailors set history through an exceptional case of teamwork. The war effort was one that required a lot of input from combatants and participants due to the high amount of work that needed to be done, such as surveillance, raids and planning. However, due to the desire to surprise the hostiles, some of the operations had to be performed on a whim. Such scenarios require a lot of coordination due to planning, turning the gathered data into something useful in the field. The Navy sailors and officers were known to perform all these actions immediately (Bereiter, 2017). Their ability to be able to work together in high-pressure situations with little to no mistakes was one of the reasons the missions turned out successful. It led to the Navy performing something that went down in history. As a means of surprising the Taliban, they had to attack them from a far distance before they prepared themselves. However, the navy was at a distance that had never been positively covered by a missile from a ship, which required lengthy calculations and preparations by sailors. They could pull all the required resources together and successfully launched the missile from 400 nautical miles until it was the desired target. This feat had never happened before (Bereiter, pg. 10). The achievement demonstrated what the individuals could perform regardless of the situation they faced, little time available or the manpower required.

Navy sailors demonstrated team effort through successful surprise raids courtesy of group synergy. In Operation Enduring Freedom, the Taliban had a tendency to randomly move about and change their stations without any warning. Such an issue caused a major problem because the combatants faced high difficulty in following them up and recognising the pattern of their movement. The sailors could utilize their numbers and find a means of stopping their targets. By working together with their Navy-Marine Corps, they created amphibious raids whereby they worked together to come up with instant strategies for attacking their bases. While land-based combatants went on the ground, they fired missiles from the ships at the Taliban (Bereiter, pg. 9 – 10). The Taliban tried their best to find routes to escape, but the team effort from the Navy outsmarted theirs. Furthermore, the sailors came with a system where they consistently attacked the enemies, firing missiles one after another while their land-based units launched their attacks as well. It led to the enemy lacking time to unite and prepare to attack. It also nullified their ability to find escape routes, giving the Navy an upper hand. Sailors were able to show just how well they could coordinate amongst themselves and create the best of their situation. It was also believed that al-Qaeda were utilizing water vessels to carry their leaders. The sailors had a lot of responsibility, and the area that was to be covered to capture the suspected vessels was a total of 2.4 million square miles (Bereiter, pg. 18). However, the navy crew was able to handle the mission efficiently, and 47 ships were able to be intercepted and boarded.

Time and time again, sailors have shown that their strength lies in their team effort and efficient coordination. They have successfully rescued endangered in unfamiliar territories and found lost individuals in the sea through teamwork. Furthermore, they have shown compatibility in working under immense pressure and situations that are life or death for the people who need help and came out victorious. Their excellence at demonstration synergy through coordination is one that has left them a marvel of other units but citizens at whole.

References

Bereiter, G. (2017). US Navy in Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-2002. History.navy.mil. Retrieved 3 February 2018, from https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/us-navy-operation-enduring-freedom-2001-2002.html

Cohen, Z. (2017). US Navy loses sailor on ship for 7 days. CNN. Retrieved 1 February 2018, from https://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/15/politics/us-navy-sailor-found-uss-shiloh/index.html

Cohen, Z., Starr, B., Browne, R. (2017). US military sends warships, aircraft to Texas. CNN. Retrieved 2 February 2018, from https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/30/politics/texas-harvey-flooding-military-response/index.html

Ellyatt, H. (2017). Eight people rescued after US Navy aircraft crashes into Philippine Sea. CNBC. Retrieved 2 February 2018, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/22/us-navy-aircraft-crashes-into-philippine-sea.html

Wright. D. P. (2010). A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), October 2001–September 2005, Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute Press.