thedrifter
12-01-06, 11:00 AM
December 01, 2006
24th MEU returning to Lejeune
By Estes Thompson
The Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. — Helping evacuate Americans from Beirut when fighting erupted between Israel and Hezbollah earlier this year felt like “I was a part of history,” said a North Carolina-based Marine who will be returning home this weekend.
Cpl. Brittany Paxton, 22, of Fredericksburg, Va., is a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is scheduled to return to Camp Lejeune on Sunday from six months at sea. The unit helped nearly 15,000 U.S. citizens flee Beirut over 10 days after the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah sparked a month of brutal fighting in Lebanon.
“It was the best 10 days of my life,” Paxton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press sent from the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima. “I got to go and be a Marine. I got to go out there.” Evacuees appreciated the presence of the Marines, who helped create a sense of control and calm amid the chaos, said Sgt. Jose Boyed, 27, of Chicago. Some even asked for photographs.
“I felt like a celebrity,” Boyed said in an e-mail from the ship, which was sailing in the Atlantic Ocean. “Under those circumstances, though, in a war zone with the heat, people were scared. And it wasn’t just one family. It was thousands of families.” During the unit’s six-month deployment, its 2,200 Marines and sailors also conducted combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The unit lost one Marine — Cpl. Gary A. Koehler, 21, of Ypsilanti, Mich. — who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq’s Anbar province.
Most Marines were scheduled to return to Camp Lejeune by helicopter and landing craft from the Iwo Jima on Sunday to meet family and friends. About 700 Marines will disembark two other ships, the dock landing ship Whidbey Island and amphibious transport dock Nashville, on Monday at the Morehead City port.
“We come away with a tremendous sense of accomplishment,” the unit commander, Col. Ron Johnson of Duxbury, Mass., said in a telephone interview Thursday from the Iwo Jima.
He said most Americans see Marines as ground troops in Iraq nowadays, but the work in Lebanon displayed his unit’s expeditionary training _ a unique characteristic of the Marine Expeditionary Unit’s ability to move quickly over a broad area of the globe.
The unit’s helicopters began evacuations within a few days of being told to stop training in Jordan and head to Lebanon, Johnson said.
“Anything the military has to offer the MEU brings,” he said, adding that the unit can remain aboard ship off the coast of a target country without needing assistance.
Not taking the unit to supplement troops in Iraq, as was done on its last deployment in 2004-2005, could have left panicked Americans in Lebanon in harm’s way, Johnson said.
“Had we gone straight to Iraq, the nation’s most versatile rapid-response force — the very unit created to deal immediately with unforeseen crises — would have been unavailable,” he said.
The unit later sent its AV-8B Harrier jets to Afghanistan to bomb Taliban strongholds for nearly two weeks while NATO troops fought on the ground. Harriers also were sent to Iraq to support British forces and a 50-person detachment was sent to Iraq.
Ellie
24th MEU returning to Lejeune
By Estes Thompson
The Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. — Helping evacuate Americans from Beirut when fighting erupted between Israel and Hezbollah earlier this year felt like “I was a part of history,” said a North Carolina-based Marine who will be returning home this weekend.
Cpl. Brittany Paxton, 22, of Fredericksburg, Va., is a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is scheduled to return to Camp Lejeune on Sunday from six months at sea. The unit helped nearly 15,000 U.S. citizens flee Beirut over 10 days after the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah sparked a month of brutal fighting in Lebanon.
“It was the best 10 days of my life,” Paxton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press sent from the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima. “I got to go and be a Marine. I got to go out there.” Evacuees appreciated the presence of the Marines, who helped create a sense of control and calm amid the chaos, said Sgt. Jose Boyed, 27, of Chicago. Some even asked for photographs.
“I felt like a celebrity,” Boyed said in an e-mail from the ship, which was sailing in the Atlantic Ocean. “Under those circumstances, though, in a war zone with the heat, people were scared. And it wasn’t just one family. It was thousands of families.” During the unit’s six-month deployment, its 2,200 Marines and sailors also conducted combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The unit lost one Marine — Cpl. Gary A. Koehler, 21, of Ypsilanti, Mich. — who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq’s Anbar province.
Most Marines were scheduled to return to Camp Lejeune by helicopter and landing craft from the Iwo Jima on Sunday to meet family and friends. About 700 Marines will disembark two other ships, the dock landing ship Whidbey Island and amphibious transport dock Nashville, on Monday at the Morehead City port.
“We come away with a tremendous sense of accomplishment,” the unit commander, Col. Ron Johnson of Duxbury, Mass., said in a telephone interview Thursday from the Iwo Jima.
He said most Americans see Marines as ground troops in Iraq nowadays, but the work in Lebanon displayed his unit’s expeditionary training _ a unique characteristic of the Marine Expeditionary Unit’s ability to move quickly over a broad area of the globe.
The unit’s helicopters began evacuations within a few days of being told to stop training in Jordan and head to Lebanon, Johnson said.
“Anything the military has to offer the MEU brings,” he said, adding that the unit can remain aboard ship off the coast of a target country without needing assistance.
Not taking the unit to supplement troops in Iraq, as was done on its last deployment in 2004-2005, could have left panicked Americans in Lebanon in harm’s way, Johnson said.
“Had we gone straight to Iraq, the nation’s most versatile rapid-response force — the very unit created to deal immediately with unforeseen crises — would have been unavailable,” he said.
The unit later sent its AV-8B Harrier jets to Afghanistan to bomb Taliban strongholds for nearly two weeks while NATO troops fought on the ground. Harriers also were sent to Iraq to support British forces and a 50-person detachment was sent to Iraq.
Ellie