Latest news with #MarineExpeditionaryUnits
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
200 Marines head to downtown LA, in the Corps' most politically fraught mission
200 Marines headed to a downtown LA federal building Thursday night. California Gov. Gavin Newsom objected to the deployment ordered by the defense secretary. Marines' training includes embassy protection, but civilian unrest response training is rare. A portion of the 700 Marines deployed to Los Angeles to support federal law enforcement were routed downtown Thursday night to guard a federal building. The development marks the first time Marines will be working in the city, just days after the secretary of defense tasked the Marines to deploy despite objections from California Gov. Gavin Newsom. "Starting today, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines will focus on the protection of federal property and personnel," said Task Force-51 mission commander Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman on Friday during a media roundtable with reporters. The California National Guard soldiers who have been guarding the Wilshire Federal Building in downtown LA will transfer that responsibility to 200 Marines, allowing the Guard to provide "protection to federal law enforcement officers as they conduct their law enforcement functions," elsewhere in the area, Sherman said. Sherman declined to speculate if the remaining 500 Marines might soon be sent to other parts of LA. While Marines are known to "improve, adapt, and overcome" in the face of adversity, some say these combat troops are ill-prepared for a politically fraught mission: Countering those protesting the Trump administration's immigration crackdown after only a few days of non-lethal and crowd control training. Sherman pointed to another mission the Marines fill, guarding embassies overseas, as evidence of preparedness for the LA mission. "They are certainly trained on how to defend a federal building. And that's the missions that we're really focused on them to do, and that's what they will be doing here. They've already started with the Wilshire building today, and we will progress from there," he said. But this discounts the amount of special training that goes into both responding to unrest and protecting an embassy. Embassy protection is not part of widespread training for Marines — rather, it's a three-year special duty assignment to be filled by Marines who've attended schooling for the assignment, said Joe Plenzer, a retired Marine infantry officer and veteran of 2/7. An infantry unit such as 2/7 is trained in the job's most essential task— locating, closing with, and destroying the enemy by fire and maneuver, Plenzer said, adding that he was perplexed by how the unit's mission in LA, and proximity to American civilians, squares with this. Law enforcement practices, by contrast, emphasize de-escalation and using minimal force if necessary. Such units often deploy on Marine Expeditionary Units, groups of ships that float around the world acting as a deterrent to bad actors and a crisis response force, requiring months of predeployment training, Plenzer said. And "Seventh Marines is kind of like the Marine Corps' break-glass-in-case-of-war unit," Plenzer said. The unit's home base, Twentynine Palms, California, is desolate and remote, affording Marines ample opportunity to train with weapons and master their craft. "We never got crowd control training," Plenzer said. "We were always on the range shooting targets, calling in artillery, mortars, and aviation fires, and hiking with heavy packs through the desert over mountain ranges." Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Top Marine's deployment plans face familiar wrinkle: Inert Navy ships
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The top Marine has a key objective for the Corps: getting Marine Expeditionary Units back on full deployment schedules. But he's going to need some help. 'My top priority ... is restoring a 3.0 MEU presence worldwide,' Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said April 7 at the Navy League's annual Sea-Air-Space Exposition. More specifically, that means a three-ship MEU with an Amphibious Ready Group, or ARG-MEU, deployed out of the East Coast, one out of the West Coast and a third on periodic deployments out of Okinawa, Japan. The primary impediment? Amphibious ships. The Corps needs 31 amphibious ships under law at a readiness level of 80% or greater to consistently meet that need, Smith said. But the readiness of that fleet is hovering at about 50% at any given time. Marines hindered by Navy's amphibious ship maintenance delays An Amphibious Ready Group includes an assault ship, a landing ship with helicopter platform and a dock landing ship. The MEU consists of a battalion landing team, aviation combat element and combat logistics element to form a Marine Air Ground Task Force. Bringing the amphib fleet back up to speed will cost maintenance and procurement dollars over multiple years, Smith said. It will take the Marine Corps, the Navy, Congress and shipbuilders. Smith didn't shirk the Corps' role in the state of the fleet. After two decades of land-based wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Corps had largely left its fleet behind. Money for maintenance and building new ships went to those wars instead. And the way the four-star sees it, a 3.0 presence is the bare minimum. That's because combatant commanders are requesting the combat power of more than five MEUs throughout the years, he said. Marine Corps Times reported in December that the Government Accountability Office had audited Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, and Naval Base San Diego, California, regarding amphibious ship maintenance status. From 2011 to 2020 amphibs were only available for operations 46% of the time. Also, in 2024 the Boxer and America amphibious readiness groups missed exercises and experienced delayed deployments due to the unavailability of vessels. One ship had not deployed in 12 years due to maintenance issues. At the time, Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Joshua Benson told Marine Corps Times, 'The current state of readiness impacts the Marine Corps' capacity to support Combatant Commander's needs, to maintain a 3.0 presence with Marine Expeditionary Units performing heel-to-toe deployments, and ultimately limits our ability to respond to crisis around the globe.' Beyond regular maintenance and catch-up work, the lifespan of much of the fleet is in doubt. Out of 32 amphibious-warfare ships, 16 are not expected to reach their 40-year service life. But the entire fleet must serve beyond that time limit to maintain at least a 31-amphibious warfare ship requirement, according to the report. Also at the expo Monday, America's largest naval shipbuilder, HII, reached an agreement to partner with South Korea's HD Hyundai Heavy Industries to boost shipbuilding across numerous vessel classes. 'By working with our shipbuilding allies and sharing best practices, we believe this [agreement] offers real potential to help accelerate delivery of quality ships,' Brian Blanchette, HII executive vice president and president of Ingalls Shipbuilding, said in a release announcing the partnership.
