Airborne Combat Engineer

Marines activating IRRs

1,800 Individual Ready Reserve Marines have received notice from the Marine Corps that they are needed in Iraq. This is the largest involuntary recall since the start of OIF.

Marine Corps officials expect 1,200 to re-enter active duty, including 1,067 sergeants and 133 captains. About a third will given delays, deferments, or exemptions due to mitigating circumstances.

[Defense World, 27MAR2007]

Marine pistol training onboard

ABOARD USS BATAAN(March 1, 2007) -- As the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Bataan Strike Group continue to conduct maritime security operations in U.S. Naval Forces Central Command's area of operations, the MEU's elements are working to ensure that personnel who carry the M-9 service pistol are ready to use the close-quarters combat weapon.

Marines from each part of the MEU recently participated in combat pistol ranges on the flight deck and flight elevators here to enhance overall familiarity with the weapon and to introduce troops to firing situations that simulate the unknowns of combat.

[Marines]

Osprey training exercise

ATLANTIC, N.C. — Three minutes. That’s how long it took the gaggle* of MV-22 Ospreys to swoop down onto the airfield, unload its leathernecks and hit the skies again — about as long as it takes to get your order of burgers and fries at a fast-food drive-through.

The first four of six Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C.-based Ospreys participating in Marine Air Ground Task Force integration training Thursday afternoon formed a line before landing. As the Ospreys’ powerful propellers churned wind that thrashed pine trees on either side of an airstrip, leathernecks with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, from Camp Lejeune, N.C., scooted out the rear doors.

The Marines’ mission: seize Outlying Landing Field Atlantic, an airfield about an hour-and-a-half northeast of Lejeune. Within seconds, leathernecks were out of the tilt-rotors, sprinting across the old, cracked runway and diving into thick brush for cover.

Once the MAGTF integration training ends, VMM-263 will officially begin pre-deployment training. The squadron is supposed to deploy later this year, between late summer and early fall, officials said.

[Marine Times]

See the video and 3D images at the bottom of this article.

*Technically speaking, a group of Ospreys are called a "flock." A group of geese are a "gaggle." But, it's not really important.

Marine Spec Ops company deploys

Watch out, bad guys: The Corps’ first company of door-kicking commandos just got underway.

The Camp Lejeune-based 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed Friday, taking with it about 120 leathernecks from the first Marine Special Operations Company, or MSOC.

Members of the MSOC, one of two standing companies under the Lejeune-based 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion, are ready to show what they’re made of in the world of spec ops forces, said Lt. Col. Paul Montanus, battalion commanding officer.

[Marine Times, 1/11/07] [h/t Murdoc Online]

Couple this with this:

"...unconfirmed reports of US Marines deployed along Somalia's border with Kenya (Globe and Mail, January 6, 2007.)"

Happy Birthday, Marines

On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress.
Marines

It celebrated it's 231st birthday Friday.