Camp Lejeune's Marines start deploying to southern Afghanistan

[thedrifter]

Camp Lejeune's Marines start deploying to southern Afghanistan

Associated Press - March 18, 2008 7:55 AM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Some of the 3,200 North Carolina-based Marines slated for a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan's volatile south have begun arriving.

About 2,200 troops from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit will be based in Kandahar, the Taliban's former power base. The unit is based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force spokesman Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco said Tuesday that the Marines will conduct a "full spectrum of operations" to capitalize on recent gains by NATO and Afghan forces. The troops began arriving this week.

About 1,000 Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment will also be deployed in the south to train Afghan police and soldiers. They are expected to arrive in April or May.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Expectations high as marines pour into Kandahar
Commander of U.S. troops points out history of co-operation with Canadians, says he's ready to share idle equipment

OLIVER MOORE

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

March 18, 2008 at 3:57 AM EDT

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — There was no obvious place to put them on this bursting base, so the arriving U.S. Marines claimed a desolate spot on the far side of the runway and started to build at break-neck pace.

In only weeks, the vacant stretch of rock and dirt has been transformed by the sudden appearance of aircraft hangers, vehicle compounds and seemingly endless rows of communal sleeping tents, so new they haven't yet been coated by the swirls of ever-present dust.

A visit yesterday to North Side, as the unnamed encampment has been dubbed, turned up frantic activity. Helicopters were being assembled and empty steel shipping containers stacked into a long row. Boisterous young men milled about and several, already closely shorn, waited their turn for an even more severe shave.

The speed at which these men work is in keeping with the traditions of the United States Marines Corps, a force known for its ability to respond quickly anywhere in the world, and there is an expectation among many on this base that the thousands of marines pouring in will make as fast an impression in the rugged terrain outside the wire.

Canada has demanded another 1,000 troops in southern Afghanistan as the price for extending its mission to 2011. The U.S. Marines currently arriving, more than 2,000 from North Carolina and another 1,000 from California, are officially scheduled to stay only seven months, but there is a widespread belief in Kandahar that the added troop strength is here to stay.

But even as these soldiers are welcomed as a key step in the fight to stabilize southern Afghanistan, the man commanding most of them resisted suggestions that they are here to do heavy lifting others have been unwilling or unable to do.

"Quantity has a quality all its own and we're bringing some quantity," said Colonel Peter Petronzio, commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which comprises 2,200 men. "This is a huge, huge operating area and you need to be there for your presence to be felt."

The affable marine colonel said that many of his men had learned valuable counterinsurgency skills in Iraq but that every battle is fundamentally different. He added that his commanders would be looking to build on the "painful lessons" learned by a Canadian contingent that this week lost its 81st member.

Col. Petronzio said that the marines - who will field their own helicopters, fighter jets, battle tanks and smaller armoured vehicles - will be operating as an integrated unit but will be happy to offer their allies access to any equipment they're not using.

The equipment most coveted by Canadians are the marines' helicopters, 25 of which would normally be deployed with an MEU. These typically include both attack and utility helicopters, as well as the medium- and heavy-lift choppers so urgently needed by Canadian forces.

"We go as a package," Col. Petronzio said yesterday. "If we're not going as a package, we're not going to have our stuff sitting here idle. It'll be available for the coalition."

Col. Petronzio also pointed to the extensive track record of close co-operation between the Canadian and United States militaries. "I think ... [we] have a long history of doing this together," he noted.

In fact, the Marine battalion settling into this base includes a number of Canadian citizens. Among them is 38-year-old Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Brisebois from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal. A long-serving marine who has been on active duty since his early 20s, he said, he served in both U.S.-Iraq wars and has already done a previous tour in Afghanistan.

Gunnery Sergeant Brisebois seemed more enthusiastic to talk about hockey than fighting - asked whether he was a fan, he looked quizzical and said, "I'm from Montreal," as if that settled it - but added that it would be good to operate alongside the nation he has so often been mocked for identifying with.

"I hear it all the time," he said. "I have hockey games I play on my computer and I get ribbed all the time."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines pouring into Kandahar give Canadians a badly needed lift
'We're one team, NATO. They have our backs, we have theirs,' marine says

James McCarten
The Canadian Press


KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN

They have been quietly infiltrating the coalition ranks at Kandahar Airfield for weeks, their tan camouflage uniforms hard to distinguish from those of their Canadian cousins, save for the distinctive peaked cap.

It's a fitting symmetry for Gunnery Sgt. Kyle Brisebois of the battle-hardened 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The 21-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps originally hails from the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve outside Montreal.

"I've had several friends that were in the Canadian army when I was living in Canada, so it's nice to be rubbing elbow-to-elbow with Canadians,'' Brisebois grinned.

"We're one team, NATO. They have our backs, we have theirs. Anything we can do to help, that's why we're here.''

Roughly 1,100 of the 3,200 U.S. marines due in Afghanistan have already arrived for what's scheduled to be a seven-month tour in the war-ravaged country, where they are expected to buttress badly stretched Canadian resources.

"I think everyone has embraced us, the Canadians in particular,'' Col. Peter Petronzio, the unit's commanding officer, said yesterday.

Petronzio's affable, self-effacing demeanour belies his status as the highest-ranking marine in Afghanistan, and that of his unit as one of the most storied franchises in U.S. military history.

"There has been a lot of excitement, and I think that's good,'' Petronzio said.

"There's been an extended hand from everyone, particularly from the Canadians, and they have done an absolutely phenomenal job integrating us into everything we do.''

Canada has issued an urgent call to countries belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which oversees the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, for an additional 1,000 troops to bolster its efforts in Kandahar province, a hotbed of insurgent activity.

A sharp reminder of the region's challenges came Sunday with the death of Sgt. Jason Boyes of 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Shilo, Man.

Boyes, 32, became the 81st Canadian soldier to die on Afghan soil when he stepped on an explosive device in the perilous Panjwaii district west of Kandahar city.

"One of the very painful things is that there's a lot of Canadians that have paid the ultimate price here,'' Petronzio said.

"The folks we meet are really going out of their way to make sure that that doesn't happen to us, and that we learn the very painful lessons that they have had to learn.''

Petronzio played down the reputation of the 24th MEU, chalking up his unit's value instead simply to the number of boots it was putting on the ground in Afghanistan.

"We're just a bunch more guys that came here to help and came here to work. That's kind of the ethos we bring -- we want to help, we want to get out there, we want to pitch in and do everything we can to make this a better place.''

In an isolated corner of the airfield, the marines have already established a sprawling presence, replete with a massive array of American military machinery, including helicopters, Harrier jets and countless ground vehicles.

They're not necessarily any more compatible with Canadian forces than any other country's soldiers, but the geographical and cultural proximity of the two countries, not to mention their history in fighting side by side, doesn't hurt, Petronzio said.

"We've been working together, the Canadians and the Americans, since just after (the First World War),'' he said.

He cited the example of Bill Stevenson, the former Canadian soldier and spymaster whose covert activities alongside American Bill Donovan, the founder of what would become the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, formed the basis for the famous 1976 book "A Man Called Intrepid.''

"I think the Canadians and the Americans have a long history of doing this together,'' he said.

"I don't know that we're more uniquely suited than anyone else, but I think we'll do a great job together.''

Brisebois said he's not the only marine from north of the border who will be spending the next seven months in Afghanistan, and admitted his Canadian ways often attract the attention of his fellow marines.

"I have hockey games that I play on the computer, and I get ragged a little, yeah,'' he said.

"I have loyalty to both countries.''

Ellie