The Navy’s once-mighty fleet of battleships plied the seas with more than 2,600 sailors, and a few Marines. The leathernecks weren’t just aboard to keep the sailors in line. In true character as riflemen, Marines assigned to battleships’ Marine Detachments manned some the ship’s 10 five-inch guns. Not quite the firepower of the main massive 16-inch gun turrets that gave battleships their famous, and lethal, silhouette, the twin gun mounts were formidable naval guns nonetheless. The Iowa, a 887-foot battleship commissioned in 1943, now sits at Berth 87 in the Los Angeles port of San Pedro, Calif., where in July it…
Author Gidget Fuentes
When the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit sets sail aboard three Navy ships from San Diego, Calif., on Monday, its departure will mark the start of the final stateside MEU deployment for the Marine Corps’ fleet of CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. The tandem rotor helicopter, nicknamed the Battle Phrog for its quirky silhouette, is getting replaced by the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor, and the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based 15th MEU will be the last stateside MEU to deploy with the Phrogs as part of its aviation combat element. The next unit that follows, the 13th MEU, is slated to have an Osprey squadron…
No doubt a Friday afternoon ceremony, especially held outdoors on a beautiful sunny day, gets a crowd relaxed and eager for the weekend to begin. But make mention of “beer,” or any word hinting of a brew, and surely thoughts wander to the bar or six-pack at home. It’s good reason why reporters try to avoid any such mention in Friday interviews with Marines, at least not until the end. In his speech during a Sept. 7 change-of-command ceremony at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Lt. Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser praised the work and sacrifices of the Marines and sailors with Marine…
The Marines of 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, welcomed a new boss in Maj. Christopher J. Bronzi during a Sept. 6 ceremony at Camp Pendleton’s Camp Horno. Bronzi, 39, of Poughquag, N.Y., deployed to Afghanistan and served as operations officer with 1st Marine Regiment and Regimental Combat Team 1. A 1996 U.S. Naval Academy graduate, he received the Silver Star for his actions leading his men in battle over two days of heavy fighting in Iraq’s volatile Sunni Triangle in April 2004. Bronzi, then a captain, was commanding Golf Company, 2/4, through the intense deadly battles with insurgents April 6-7 in…
This year’s deployment of a Marine infantry company, the first in what will become a larger rotation of units to Australia, has garnered lots of attention Down Under and throughout South Asia as officials and analysts lauded or questioned the larger strategic reasons, namely China’s rising influence and expanding military, for the new quasi-permanent U.S. military presence. Gen. Jim Amos, visiting the Australian Army’s Robertson Barracks that’s been the main garrison for the deployed Marines with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, praised the benefits of these renewed U.S-Aussie ties and dismissed any notions the deployments were an attempt to…
Despite rules against it, hazing is one of those perennial problems that just don’t seem to end. The 2011 suicide of a lance corporal, whose death after getting berated and hazed for falling asleep on post in Afghanistan, brought the issue to the halls of Capitol Hill earlier this year as lawmakers (including his aunt, a Hawaii congresswoman) demanded tougher penalties for perpetrators who inflict pain and humiliation on each other. When the commandant, Gen. James Amos, issued a stern warning in February and updated the 1997 order prohibiting any hazing, the message was loud and clear: Such behavior would…
Deployments to Afghanistan may be ramping down, but this year is seeing a flurry of joint exercises with some allies here at home as Marines host Canadian, British and New Zealand troops for some good ol’ combat training in the coastal areas and deserts of the Southwest U.S. “Javelin Thrust,” a large-scale exercise with Marine Forces Reserve and 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade, kicks off in late June with more than 5,000 Marines, many of them reservists from 32 states massing at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif. They will joined by a contingent of Canadian troops who…
You have to wonder how quickly these Marines devoured that ice cream. Amphibious assault ship Makin Island held an ice cream social for Marines and sailors aboard the San Diego-based ship, which has been deployed in the Arabian Sea region with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and a three-ship amphibious ready group. As these junior Marines are learning, sweets like ice cream, cakes and cookies are often readily available aboard many if not all ships at sea, yet they still are familiar, comforting. Besides, you can’t really ruin ice cream, or most any dessert for that matter. Ice cream is…
The recent arrival of a company of Hawaii-based Marines in Darwin, Australia, stirred up some unfavorable sentiments on the continent and around the region. Now comes former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who apparently is quite unhappy about seeing any more Marines Down Under. Fraser, who led the nation-continent for eight years until 1983, complained that “over 20 years now we have given the impression of doing that which America wants. We seem to believe that our security can be best assured if we do what we can to win brownie points with the U.S. This is a mistaken assumption.”…
It’s a big ocean out there. The Marine Corps’ push to return to its maritime roots and get more leathernecks out to sea on Navy ships means a brighter spotlight on some of those missions that haven’t routinely been done by units more attuned to the sandbox of combat. While the public might be more aware of operations to track and capture gun-toting hijackers and pirates or terrorists at sea, such visit-board-search-seize training (above photo) aren’t the only high-speed training Marines are getting to do. Just this month, after some training in San Diego, Calif., members of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit headed north to Ventura…
