Lance Cpl. Nicholas Cordoba, a field wireman with Headquarters Company, Regimental Combat Team 8, shares a final hug Tuesday with his girlfriend at Camp Lejeune, N.C. (Marine Corps photo)
The Marine Corps will begin its leadership transition in Afghanistan’s northern Helmand province soon, with Regimental Combat Team 8, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., replacing Lejeune’s RCT-2, Marine officials said.
The RCT-8 deployment will begin this weekend with advanced parties of Marines deploying. They’ll eventually replace RCT-2.
For those who lead RCT-8, the assignment won’t be an easy one. It oversees some of the most violent territory that Marines patrol right now, including the contested Taliban stronghold of Sangin.
Infantry battalions under RCT-8’s control will include 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, out of Camp Pendleton, Calif.; elements of 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, out of Brook Park, Ohio; and Lejeune’s 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.
Sangin is patrolled primarily by 3/5. Marines with 1/8 patrol the former insurgent strongholds of Musa Qala and Now Zad, and 3/25 is working with Danish troops to train an Afghan National Army unit.
