Gidget Fuentes

But will they be running (off) on Dunkin’?

By Gidget Fuentes on April 6, 2012 Camp Pendleton, Food, Pop culture

When officials mark the opening of the new and enlarged Marine Corps Exchange at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in early May, they might want to brace for an unusual crowd: Dunkin’ Donuts lovers. We’re talking coffee and donuts, and muffins and bagels, too. Dunkin’ Donuts, a Massachusetts-based company, has more than 7,000 restaurants across the country, in 36 states plus the District of Columbia, and there’s even seven overseas. But there’s not a single one in California, a huge state where Starbucks and McDonalds are a dime a dozen. But come May, the state’s first Dunkin’ Donuts eatery will open inside the…

One-armed warrior will battle in 2012 Warrior Games

By Gidget Fuentes on April 6, 2012 Battle Rattle, Competitions, Marines, Wounded warriors

As a kid, like many Marines, Mark O’Brien loved to trek through the woods near his home in upstate New York. He often hunted with his father and brother and his preferred choice of weapon: A hunting bow. Then came Nov. 8, 2004, when then-Cpl. O’Brien was deployed in Ramadi with his rifle squad with Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. An insurgent’s rocket-propelled grenade exploded the Humvee he was riding in, sending shrapnel through his body that severed his right arm and right leg and nearly killed him. His story was featured in the 2005 TV documentary, “Coming Home.”…

One last meal before you go

By Gidget Fuentes on April 2, 2012 Food, Life at sea, MEU operations

Last week, some 4,000 Marines and sailors on the East Coast furiously worked to get themselves and their units and ships ready for a scheduled deployment overseas. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and its 2,300 Marines and sailors headed out March 30 from Camp Lejeune, N.C., aboard amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima, dock landing ship Gunston Hall and dock transport ship New York. It will be an eight-month deployment to the Mediterranean and the Middle East for the U.S. European and Central Command regions. You can bet during that last weekend home, just about every Marine and sailor made the…

24th MEU preps to deploy overseas

By Gidget Fuentes on March 23, 2012 Blue-Green operations, Camp Lejeune, Marines, MEU operations

This weekend, more than 4,000 Marines and sailors on the East Coast are grabbing some last-minute liberty before they leave home for a scheduled deployment overseas. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and its 2,300 Marines will depart Camp Lejeune, N.C. on Monday and head to Norfolk, Va. There, they will board amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima, dock landing ship Gunston Hall and dock transport ship New York, which will be making its maiden operational deployment. Col. Frank Donovan, a veteran infantry and reconnaissance officer, commands the 24th MEU, which includes Battalion Landing Team 1/2 (1st Battalion, 2nd Marines), Combat Logistics Battalion…

Are you (really) ready for some football?

By Gidget Fuentes on November 25, 2011 Marines, Off-duty, Safety, Sports

‘Tis the season for turkey, tailgating and that classic game on the gridiron, football. But all that rough play with your best buddies can sometimes turn into a trip to the Doc or, worse, the emergency room. Over Thanksgiving 2010, the Naval Safety Center got 54 reports of injuries, including Marines and sailors who “attempted to work off their turkey tryptophan with a pick-up game.” Some of them suffered poked eyes and sprained ankles from playing on the football field. No word about any resulting lost work days. The fall season typically sees double the number of football injuries than any…

At sea, a place of their own

By Gidget Fuentes on November 11, 2011 Blue-Green operations, Food, Life at Sea, Marine Raiders, MEU operations

Marines heading out to sea in any of the Navy’s fleet of amphibious ships get quickly and acutely familiar with a few spaces inside those large gray warfighting hulls: their berthing space, the ship’s gym and the enlisted mess decks. There’s usually nothing spectacular about those spaces, which are often crowded and offer little in the way of physical privacy or familiar comforts of home. But aboard Makin Island, the Navy’s newest big-deck amphibious assault ship and homeported in San Diego, what would have been some storage area off the main mess decks has been remade into a cozier space…

Marine veteran raps birthday tribute to Cpl. Jason Dunham

By Gidget Fuentes on November 11, 2011 Awards, Iraq, Medal of Honor, Pop culture

In his four years stationed at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego, former Cpl. Joe Potter had never met Cpl. Jason Dunham. Potter joined the Marine Corps the year that Dunham died. But Dunham’s legacy as a combat warrior and Medal of Honor recipient who gave his life to save his fellow Marines from an insurgent’s grenade in Iraq in April 2004 had been well ingrained in Potter’s memory during the four years he spent working as an expeditionary airfield specialist with Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron. Since hanging up his uniform, Potter has worked in his father’s painting business,…

Give me liberty – but where?

By Gidget Fuentes on September 2, 2011 Life at sea, MEU operations, Off-duty, The Pacific

Will it be Hong Kong? Or Australia? For some 4,000 Marines and sailors aboard three amphibious ships on the homestretch of an overseas deployment, liberty this holiday weekend means they will get to spend their days, nights and dollars in Hong Kong and Australia. The crew of amphibious transport dock Green Bay is making its maiden operational deployment, and embarked Marines with 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit get to stretch their legs in Darwin, Australia. Darwin sits in the continent’s north-central coast. It’s a tropical city on the Timor Sea and the capital of the Northern Territory, a sparse region most known for…

Get some…air (with a dash of sea salt)

By Gidget Fuentes on August 16, 2011 Anti-piracy, Life at sea, MEU operations, Training

There’s nothing like that spray of salty air, open seas and several hundred horsepower to make one think: And they pay me to do this?? Just a thought looking at some images released this month as the California-based 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Navy’s Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group boarded a pair of ships and got underway for their first at-sea integration exercises ahead of a scheduled overseas deployment later this year. The boat crews supporting the training mission against mock pirates on a vessel near San Clemente Island operated off the transport dock ship New Orleans, which will deploy…

The ties that bind (and survive boot camp)

By Gidget Fuentes on June 3, 2011 Boot camp

It’s a memory just about any Marine would rather soon forget, the moment when niceties from the first moments at recruit training are quietly shoved aside when testosterone-driven drill instructors pick up their fresh prey and aim right for the jugular. On one day in 1997 at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, Colin Burgos was a teenager facing a trio of DIs who roared like a tornado from the duty hut into the squad bay, barking incomprehensible orders at the then-17-year-old Brugos, a fresh-faced kid from Texas about to face leatherneck-style discipline like he expected from countless…

Author Gidget Fuentes