By Lt. Col. Brian Greene (Battalion Commander)
Marines, Sailors, families and friends,
This past month, your Magnificent Bastards have continued to make positive strides while working and training hard. We have promoted 38 Marines and Sailors to higher rank, including two staff non-commissioned officers, seven non-commissioned officers and 29 junior Marines. We welcomed 36 new Magnificent Bastards to the battalion, assisted six Marines executing orders to other duty stations and assisted 11 transitions into civilian life.
Additionally, the battalion began to implement Primed for Life, a professional education program for all Marines or Sailors 18 to 25 years old, aimed at improving communications, understanding good habits and arming them with better judgement. We also grew our battalion by adding another company-sized element from 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines’ “remain behind” unit. We are excited to bring them into the Bastard Family and integrate them into battalion training. Also, nearly a dozen Marines from the battalion have graduated formal schools and currently there are over 50 Marines in formal schools now. We have reenlisted over 10 Marines this month and they were all awarded reenlistment bonuses.
The battalion training actions this month focused on squad through company levels. The training has consisted of live fire offensive attacks, patrolling exercises and defensive operations. Echo Company returned from Exercise Black Alligator, where they trained with the 42 Commando Group, British Royal Marines at Twentynine Palms. Your battalion continues to be responsible for the San Mateo Area Guard Force as well as the Alert Battalion Task Force.
We spent time planning and conducting a recall drill for the ABTF, successfully integrating administrative and logistical functions to increase the readiness of the battalion. We conducted an actual fly-away of a platoon from Fox Company in order to notionally extract American citizens from an increasingly unstable region. We are also preparing for the following training events: our second battalion-level field exercise in the coming weeks here in Camp Pendleton; Steel Knight 16, a division-level exercise in Twentynine Palms in December; and prep for our readiness inspection in January. We are looking forward to the holiday season, our battalion holiday party, and some well-deserved time off before we transition into company and battalion training events next year.
Thank you for your continued support for your Marines and Sailors. If you would like to see pictures of our training or updates on our battalion, please “like” us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/2dBattalion4thMarines.
comments (0)