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thedrifter
05-23-07, 04:50 PM
26th MEU to return to Lejeune late June, early July
By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 23, 2007 15:42:18 EDT

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit is winding down its six-month deployment and making plans to return to Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The MEU, which left in early January, will return around the late June, early July timeframe, according to a message on the unit’s Web site.

In a letter posted for families, MEU commander Col. Gregg Sturdevant highlights some of the training the unit’s Marines and sailors completed, including combat medicine, evasive driving, weapons qualifications, techniques to land helicopters in dust and “stone storms,” along with the latest techniques detecting, avoiding and disarming roadside bombs. The MEU’s more than 2,000 leathernecks and sailors spent two weeks training in Camp Buehring in Kuwait.

“Although we did not get into Iraq, we are content that we strengthened alliances with Djibouti, Kenya, Qatar, and Kuwait and that our efforts have contributed directly toward long-term success in the War on Terror,” Sturdevant wrote.

The 26th MEU’s departure from Camp Lejeune earlier this year included the first deployment of a Marine special operations company. Officials with the parent command, Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, have not released details about where the MSOC has been since it was expelled from Afghanistan following a March 4 suicide car bomb attack on one of the company’s platoons.

The attack in Nangarhar province involved six vehicles and 30 Marines with the company’s direct action/special reconnaissance platoon.

Army Maj. Gen. Frank Kearney, the top special operations officer in the Middle East, has said that a preliminary investigation showed there was no evidence the Marines had taken small-arms fire after the car bomb struck their convoy. But lawyers representing those Marines say they have proof the convoy was shot at after the initial attack. The incident remains under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

A month after the ambush, MarSOC leaders relieved the company commander and senior enlisted adviser, who, along with six other Marines in the company, were sent home to Camp Lejeune.

Maj. Cliff Gilmore, a MarSOC spokesman, said that the remainder of the company is returning with the MEU as originally planned.

The MEU has been sailing with the Norfolk, Va.-based Bataan Expeditionary Strike Group.

Ellie