Blue-Green operations

24th MEU preps to deploy overseas

By Gidget Fuentes on March 23, 2012 Blue-Green operations, Camp Lejeune, Marines, MEU operations

This weekend, more than 4,000 Marines and sailors on the East Coast are grabbing some last-minute liberty before they leave home for a scheduled deployment overseas. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and its 2,300 Marines will depart Camp Lejeune, N.C. on Monday and head to Norfolk, Va. There, they will board amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima, dock landing ship Gunston Hall and dock transport ship New York, which will be making its maiden operational deployment. Col. Frank Donovan, a veteran infantry and reconnaissance officer, commands the 24th MEU, which includes Battalion Landing Team 1/2 (1st Battalion, 2nd Marines), Combat Logistics Battalion…

Bold Alligator a lesson for Marines in cramped quarters

By Dan Lamothe on February 8, 2012 Blue-Green operations, Embedded journalism, Life at Sea, MEU operations

When it comes to a large-scale amphibious operation like Bold Alligator, it isn’t just the movement to shore that can provide learning lessons. The thousands of personnel who deployed off the coast of North Carolina for the exercise also got a first-hand lesson in life at sea. That may not be new to most of the sailors and some of the Marines on board, but for thousands more, it certainly was. Point in case: the photograph above shows how tight the passageways aboard the amphibious assault ship Wasp are. It takes a mindful eye to avoid collisions, spills and other…

Marines, sailors take in Super Bowl at sea

By Dan Lamothe on February 6, 2012 Blue-Green operations, Life at sea

ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP WASP -– If you’re going to watch your favorite NFL team lose in the Super Bowl, it may as well be somewhere interesting. That’s the scenario I found myself in last night as I continue to cover Bold Alligator 2012, a massive amphibious exercise involving at least 14,000 personnel and 25 ships off the coast of North Carolina and Virginia. Like many of the sailors and Marines aboard this gator ship, I had accepted there was a strong possibility the game wouldn’t be on while underway –- only to find out the exact opposite. Not…

A Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) approaches the well deck of the amphibious assault ship Wasp on Saturday as part of rehearsals for an amphibious landing during Bold Alligator 2012. (Mike Morones / Staff)

Operation Bold Alligator 2012 underway

By Dan Lamothe on February 5, 2012 Battle Rattle, Blue-Green operations, Embedded journalism, Life at sea, Life at Sea, MEU operations, Training

ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP WASP — Greetings from the Atlantic Ocean, where we’re covering the largest amphibious exercise on the East Coast since the beginning of the Iraq war. Bold Alligator 2012 involves at least 14,000 personnel from the U.S., France, Great Britain and other countries, and at least 25 ships. The majority of them are American, but Canada and France have both chipped in with their own hardware, as well. Conceptually, the forces at sea are currently in the early stages of planning an attack on enemy forces from the fictional country of Garnet, a common enemy in…

Three new ships named after Marines — but did the Navy get it right?

By Dan Lamothe on January 6, 2012 Blue-Green operations, History and heritage, Medal of Honor

Above, you see the destroyer Jason Dunham. It’s named after Cpl. Jason Dunham, who covered a grenade with his helmet on April 14, 2004, in an attempt to shield the blast from fellow Marines. He died eight days later, and received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroism on Jan. 11, 2007. No human being in their right mind would question the naming of the ship. It’s a logical, sensible case in which a class of ship frequently used to honor war heroes memorialized one of the greatest heroes of the Iraq war. It’s no secret that the Navy…

At sea, a place of their own

By Gidget Fuentes on November 11, 2011 Blue-Green operations, Food, Life at Sea, Marine Raiders, MEU operations

Marines heading out to sea in any of the Navy’s fleet of amphibious ships get quickly and acutely familiar with a few spaces inside those large gray warfighting hulls: their berthing space, the ship’s gym and the enlisted mess decks. There’s usually nothing spectacular about those spaces, which are often crowded and offer little in the way of physical privacy or familiar comforts of home. But aboard Makin Island, the Navy’s newest big-deck amphibious assault ship and homeported in San Diego, what would have been some storage area off the main mess decks has been remade into a cozier space…

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