Sure it was decent experience. We use the Modular Causeway System in large-scale exercises pretty frequently, so we know a bit about it's use, it's always a good experience to do joint operations with different partners.
I'm actually happier now than I was at the beginning. It was kind of a shitshow getting the causeway and Landing Craft there and operational, but once we got it up the Navy Seabees and Army Mariners did a good job at moving stuff. That coast is unprotected, and the causeway is sensitive to surf, so they had to take it out and re-install it a couple times, but that's actually within doctrine and planning factors. They did a decent job (after the first big *expletive deleted*ck up) of getting it into and out of safe harbor, and recovered the tugs they broached on the beach.
What I'm hearing is the decision to pull it completely isn't official yet, but the Army isn't putting it back on the beach until the stuff that's already been delivered has been moved to where it needs to go. Which makes sense. There's no need to sit in an operationl condition with several hundred soldiers and sailors twiddling their thumbs when stuff is not moving because of other folks. Pack the stuff up, pull the LMSR and Landing craft back to somewhere like Rota, let the crews touch land and do some maintenance. Remembers, most of those crews have been on those boats since they left the East Coast way back when, and even the LSV ain't that big.
If the UN unfucks themselves we can be back on station in a week or so.
So yeah, after a hairy Atlantic crossing and a shitshow of an initial setup the whole operation was a decent work up for the units involved, and will give us useful information for real world utilization of our Logistics Over The Shore capabilities. This is pretty much the longest duration mission we've run with a Modular Causeway System, so that was useful.
