Gina Cavallaro

Gunnery Sgt. R. Lee Ermey blasts ship captain… in Italian?

By Gina Cavallaro on January 20, 2012 Marines, Pop culture

A Facebook page dedicated to the tar and feathering of ship’s captain Francesco Schettino, who appears to have fled the $45 million cruise ship Costa Concordia and its passengers and crew after grounding it off the coast of Italy’s Tuscany region, has turned to a famous Marine Corps icon to express its disdain for the man some Italians have named “chicken of the sea.” Among dozens of satirical illustrations created using well known images from movies, music albums and other pop culture, is the famous shot of retired Gunnery Sgt. R. Lee Ermey shouting — in Italian — at a…

Marine paints his way into history

By Gina Cavallaro on January 3, 2012 History and heritage, The CMC, Washington

The Home of the Commandants at Marine Barracks Washington is a living museum where all who enter or are fortunate enough to live there are surrounded by artists’ renditions of some of the most famous faces, places and battles in the Marine Corps’ history. Completed in 1806, the historic landmark is the oldest continuously occupied home in Washington and the names of many of the artists whose works adorn the walls have long since faded into the past. So, when Staff Sgt. Kristopher Battles was chosen to create the home’s newest painting, he knew it would be one for the…

A Christmas message from the Commandant and Mrs. Amos

By Gina Cavallaro on December 14, 2011 General officers, Leadership, The CMC

[HTML1] Marines, Marine families, Marine supporters and anyone who’s ever worn the Marine Corps uniform get a Christmas salute from Gen. and Mrs. Bonnie Amos in this 4:43 minute video shot at The Home of the Commandants in Washington, D.C. With “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” playing softly in the background, the commandant sends a “special shout out” to the “more than 30,000 Marines and sailors forward deployed and forward engaged in the defense of our nation in Helmand province, aboard ships at sea, at embassies and in detachments around the globe.” Taking turns addressing viewers, Bonnie Amos points…

Behind the Cover: A Marine Corps workout to rival CrossFit

By Gina Cavallaro on December 12, 2011 Behind the Cover, Fitness, Marines

The certified trainers at Semper Fit — the Corps’ in-house health and fitness promotion group you see at the base gyms — have designed a kick-ass workout program that they think will satisfy even the most demanding physical fitness disciple in the Corps. The program is called High Intensity Tactical Training, or HITT, and it will be ready to go in about three weeks. It’s got a library of more than 600 exercises that have been combined into 60-minute workouts meant to be done three times a week. Marines who took part in the beta test done this past fall…

Are Marines of 24th MEU in for a longer deployment?

By Gina Cavallaro on December 2, 2011 Camp Lejeune, MEU operations

When the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit comes home to Camp Lejeune, N.C., in February, it will have been gone more than 10 months, a longer-than-usual deployment for a MEU, but not so rare anymore. Deployments have gotten longer. And now, as the 24th MEU conducts its own pre-deployment work-up and prepares to replace the 22nd MEU at sea, it’s still kind of a toss up as to whether its own deployment will exceed the traditional seven-month pump. As of now, the deployment is scheduled to be seven months, according to MEU spokesman Capt. Robert Shuford. Some 2,100 Marines with the…

Video documentary: 1/5 Marines cover Sangin in 17 minutes

By Gina Cavallaro on December 1, 2011 Afghanistan, Infantry, Marines, Sangin

[HTML1] This video is a keeper. Using the unit’s motto “Make Peace or Die” as a title, Combat Camera from 1st Battalion, 5th Marines has produced and posted this high quality video documentary of the unit’s seven treacherous months in Sangin, a bomb-infested district in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. During the 2011 deployment from April through October, 1/5 fought hard and got dirty. The unit lost 17 Marines and had close to 200 wounded and still never stopped charging forward. The video is edited with arresting still images of Marines on patrol, talking with Afghans, watching explosions, crossing rivers and caring…

Behind the Cover: 15,000 Marines must go

By Gina Cavallaro on November 29, 2011 Behind the Cover, Marines

You’ve read some of the details about the coming 15,000-Marine drawdown of the Corps in previous issues of Marine Corps Times. But this report takes it even further. In this issue, you will learn specifics: which units are being deactivated, how many will be reorganized or realigned and where the Corps will actually be adding people and assets. For example, along with the stand down of a historic regimental headquarters and three battalions, several tank companies, field artillery batteries and recon companies will go away. At the same time, the logistics community will undergo sweeping changes, and Marines will be…

Behind the Cover: MARSOC for non-grunts

By Gina Cavallaro on November 8, 2011 Behind the Cover, MARSOC

MARSOC just keeps growing and changing. This week’s cover story is a good example of that… a course meant to train combat support and combat service support Marines in the tactics, techniques and procedures they’ll be expected to know when they deploy with MARSOC teams, is also an opportunity for non-grunts to learn some pretty high-speed stuff. During the six-week course at Stone Bay aboard Camp Lejeune, N.C., all students learn to fire a host of weapons, including foreign weapons, and get to do speed reloading and weapons transition drills with an M4 assault rifle and 9 mm pistol. After…

Radio series puts spotlight on 3/5 Marines’ time in Sangin

By Gina Cavallaro on October 31, 2011 Afghanistan, Marines, Sangin

In the first of a seven-part series on 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, NPR correspondent Tom Bowman revisits the seven-month deployment with an interview with Lt. Col. Jason Morris, who commanded the battalion during the deployment from September 2010 to March 2011. The 3/5 had 25 Marines and corpsmen killed in action, the highest casualty rate for any single unit in Afghanistan in 10 years of war. “It was just over a year ago that Morris took nearly 1,000 Marines to a place in Helmand called Sangin. It was a haven for Taliban fighters and drug traffickers, a place where the…

Former Marine’s skull cracked at ‘Occupy Oakland’ clash

By Gina Cavallaro on October 26, 2011 Events, Marines

[HTML1] In the video, the crack of a crowd-control projectile is followed by heavy smoke. People scream and run toward the smoke, converging near the ground over the body of a young man. Another crack is heard and more smoke billows. Out of that plume, a crowd emerges carrying the man who appears bleeding and unresponsive. The injured man has been identified as former Marine Cpl. Scott Olsen, who deployed twice to Iraq with Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines based out of Twentynine Palms, Calif. Olsen, who was a tactical communications Marine, got out of the Corps…

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