Value of 31st MEU's training is noted

Next stop, Camp Pendleton, Calif., according to the boxes of medical records stacked up at Camp Hansen, Okinawa, on Wednesday.


Value of 31st MEU's training is noted
By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, January 18, 2008

CAMP HANSEN, Okinawa — Looking back on the last year, Lt. Col. Francis Donovan believes having his 7-month deployment with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit extended to a year had some advantages.

Donovan, commander of Battalion Landing Team 2/1, is preparing to leave Okinawa soon, along with some 1,200 other Marines and sailors returning to their home units in the U.S. Their deployment was extended last March in a move that gave other Marine units time needed in the United States to train for duty in Iraq.

“It was all part of the surge,” Donovan said in his Camp Hansen office Wednesday as he packed. “But by keeping us out here, other Marines got more time at home with their families before shipping out to Iraq.”

The amazing thing about his men, Donovan said, is they took the news in stride.

“These young Marines joined after 9/11 and came in to fight, so you can bet they were disappointed to know they weren’t going to Iraq,” Donovan said. “But I’m proud of the way these young Marines and sailors picked up and moved on, realizing how important this deployment was. They did this job for another five months extremely well.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51712