Marines, sailors training in Va.

By Peter Bacque

Published: January 11, 2009

-- A Marine expeditionary unit deployed to Fort Pickett is conducting nearly two weeks of training in and around populated areas in Virginia.

Most of the 2,200 Marines and sailors from the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit will train at Pickett, but small groups -- 80 to 100 Marines -- will perform three exercises at other locations, according to the 22nd's spokesman, Capt. Clark Carpenter.

Even a small Virginia town can give the amphibious unit experience dealing with the kinds of urban dynamics that are unavailable in typical rural military training areas, said Col. Gareth F. Brandl, the MEU's commander.

So residents across a wide swath of the state may see Marine vehicles on roads and aircraft from the 22nd MEU flying overhead and practicing setting down in previously cleared landing zones until Jan. 24, the unit said.

Carpenter confirmed that the military helicopters seen in the skies above parts of Henrico County yesterday were operated by the 22nd MEU.

The unit is preparing for a scheduled spring deployment overseas aboard several Navy amphibious ships. The Virginia work-up is part of a 26-week training program designed, the service says, to prepare the Marines for any eventuality.

The amphibious outfit's training exercise at the Virginia Army National Guard's maneuver center near Blackstone comes at a time when the Marine Corps is heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the high pace of deployments to combat is eating up the Marine Corps' equipment and making it more challenging to prepare for other missions.

"They're caught in the midst of a lot of competing demands and operational requirements," said Dakota L. Wood, a former Marine officer with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

"They are increasingly being called upon to do everything," Wood said, "and you can't do everything equally well."

Because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said, "we're using up all our equipment at rates far higher than anticipated."

People are a scarce resource, too.

To protect oft-deployed service members and their families, Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., a Marine combat veteran, has been pushing legislation that would require active-duty troops to spend as much time at home as they do on deployment.

"Despite the superb performance of our Marine Corps, repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past six years have eroded Marine readiness in some areas -- notably naval expeditionary warfare," Webb said last week. "The sustained tempo of combat operations has taken a toll on our service members."

Even in the face of the demands and dangers of wartime service, the Marine Corps is having no trouble filling its ranks. From a force of 199,000 men and women now, the Marines are ahead of schedule in growing to 202,000 men and women by 2011.
Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or .