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thedrifter
02-13-09, 07:16 AM
Updated February 12, 2009 10:36:33 PM
Local Marines called up

By Marianne Steffey
Press Staff Writer
msteffey@johnsoncitypress.com

The Marines of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 24th Regiment of the Marine Corps Reserve, will be activated this spring and begin preparing for the company’s third deployment to the Middle East.

According to Capt. Nathan Braden, spokesman for the Marine Forces Reserve, the unit has been officially notified that it will be activated about May and then deployed in the fall.

“Reserve Marines have civilian lives and careers and we have to give them sufficient notification that allows them to prepare their families and employers for their absence,” Braden said.

“They’ll basically be gone for a year and this gives them the opportunity to prepare for that.”

Lima Company, whose headquarters are at the Gray Armory, will be on active duty for about 13 months. This includes pre-deployment training here or at a base elsewhere in the United States, deployment and return.

“Before the Marines deploy in the fall, they will go through extensive and intensive training to prepare them for their deployment,” Braden said. “This training ranges from weapons training to physical fitness.”

Included in that 13 months is a 30-day leave period, which the Marines may use as the last month of their tour. Upon returning to the U.S., the Marines will go through a demobilization period.

Braden did not specify if the Marines will be going to Iraq or Afghanistan. He said they will be deployed to the Central Command Area of Operations in the Middle East.

The unit was deployed to Iraq in 2004 and again in 2007. During the 2007 deployment, Lance Cpl. Jonathan Thornberry of Floyd County, Ky., was killed in the al-Anbar province of Iraq. Thornberry was Lima Company’s only man lost and there were no other serious injuries during the deployment.

Ellie