Photo by Lance Cpl. Skyler Tooker The city of Trondheim the last night the Expeditionary Warfare School explored Norway.

During the weeklong trip, the students visited the cities, that house the Marine Corps equipment.

Marine Corps Prepositioning Program-Norway, formerly known as Norway Air-Landed Marine Expeditionary Brigade, is a Department of Defense directed program for the forward storage and prepositioning of equipment and supplies for a Marine Air-Ground Task Force. The program is the Marine Corps’ only land based prepositioning program.

The program involves the prepositioning of selected Navy and Marine Corps equipment and associated supplies and ammunition, said retired Master Sgt. Neil Hagen, propositioning analyst. Specifically identified for prepositioning are those items that are mission essential, heavy weight, high volume, transportable via strategic sealift, airlift and rail movement, and suited for extended storage.

In 2004, the commandant of the Marine Corps directed a bottom-up review of the program and re-designated the program’s focus from being regionally based for the defense of Norway and North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s northern flank to that of a global base capable of supporting a wide spectrum of operations to include supporting Norway’s defense, Hegen said. With a globally based focus, the primary mission of the program shifted from supporting a Norway Air-Landed Marine Expeditionary Brigade to supporting forces assigned.

The leathernecks also made a journey to the National Joint Headquarters in Stavanger to better understand how it works and why the U.S. and Norway are a part of it.

Jason Bingham, an exchange officer working with the Norwegian Army, works logistics and operational plans in the J5. He prepares host nation support agreements for Marine units training or operating in Norway, on behalf of the Kingdom of Norway facilitating and providing oversight for matters pertaining to the movement of prepositioned equipment in and out of the country, planning, coordinating, and supporting visits of U.S. and Norwegian officials to the MCPP-N facilities, and performing other matters involving coordination between the Marine Corps and Norway to make this trip possible for EWS.

‘‘The EWS Norway tour was extremely successful. The combination of tours first in Oslo and then Stavanger set the stage for getting much more out of the tour in Trondheim,” Hegan said. ‘‘Between briefs, the battlefield studies and museum tours, I believe the students came away with a better grasp of our close relationship with Norway and what they provide militarily. I overheard one student telling Lt. Col. Knut Eirik Ballestad, that unlike before, he now sees a purpose and benefit to the Marine Corps for prepositioning equipment in Norway.”

While in Norway EWS was presented with kindness and hospitality.

‘‘The Norwegians in all three cities pulled out the red carpet for the students. Everyone was amazed at the level of importance the Norwegians associated with the Marine Corps sending these young students to their country,” Hegan said. ‘‘Ballestad out did himself as well, and I think you could ask any student and he would say the highlight was the visit in Trondheim.”

The EWS students followed a mapped out schedule to ensure that they would take in as much knowledge as possible.

Hegan said, ‘‘I highly recommend future EWS tours continue, and stick with this same itinerary.”

The six day trip filled with history and present day knowledge is one of the last group trips EWS takes together before graduating and going off into the fleet to share the knowledge they have learned over the past year.