Happy Thanksgiving to all.
We are goofing off in Spain, having a great time. As Thanksgiving approached we decided to stop by at the Moron Air Base for an American Thanksgiving Dinner.
Great dinner in the chow hall - we were surprised to see that almost everyone there were Marines in their green cammies. Officers and Staff NCO's were serving the food and cleaning up the mess hall.
I enjoyed watching the officers working in the chow hall since I own the record for days of mess duty in the Marine Corps. I had 100 days of mess duty, the last 30 days for punishment. Glad to see officers learning the ropes.
Fun talking to these Marines. They are not talking of course, but they have been put here to deal with things like the unfortunate Libyan killing of the US Ambassador. Marines were always used for that from Embassy Security
We are goofing off in Spain, having a great time. As Thanksgiving approached we decided to stop by at the Moron Air Base for an American Thanksgiving Dinner.
Great dinner in the chow hall - we were surprised to see that almost everyone there were Marines in their green cammies. Officers and Staff NCO's were serving the food and cleaning up the mess hall.
I enjoyed watching the officers working in the chow hall since I own the record for days of mess duty in the Marine Corps. I had 100 days of mess duty, the last 30 days for punishment. Glad to see officers learning the ropes.
Fun talking to these Marines. They are not talking of course, but they have been put here to deal with things like the unfortunate Libyan killing of the US Ambassador. Marines were always used for that from Embassy Security
and a Battalion afloat, but these guys should be able to get there a little faster - C-130's and Ospreys.
They look so young. And they are.
They look so young. And they are.
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We went to the club Thanksgiving evening. These clubs are now all hands - few bases have enough people to have separate clubs for officers, NCO's and troops.
Most of the troops in the bar were young first term troops. We bought the bar a couple of rounds for Thanksgiving. It was fun. I spent a lot of time talking to a Cpl and Lance Corporal swapping stories about boot camp and the Marine Corps.
They make a lot more money than when we were troops. One guy is getting out to go to college. The other guy is going for 20 or 30 years.
Boot camp and infantry training are roughly twice as long as we spent back in the day. We made up the difference in on the job training.
Great young Marines, the age of our grand children, if we were old enough to have them. And of course these young men thought we were older than dirt. And we are. Although I regaled them with some stories about my WWII father who is still going strong.
We went to the club Thanksgiving evening. These clubs are now all hands - few bases have enough people to have separate clubs for officers, NCO's and troops.
Most of the troops in the bar were young first term troops. We bought the bar a couple of rounds for Thanksgiving. It was fun. I spent a lot of time talking to a Cpl and Lance Corporal swapping stories about boot camp and the Marine Corps.
They make a lot more money than when we were troops. One guy is getting out to go to college. The other guy is going for 20 or 30 years.
Boot camp and infantry training are roughly twice as long as we spent back in the day. We made up the difference in on the job training.
Great young Marines, the age of our grand children, if we were old enough to have them. And of course these young men thought we were older than dirt. And we are. Although I regaled them with some stories about my WWII father who is still going strong.
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MORON DE LA FRONTERA, Spain --
Approximately 500 Marines and sailors arrived aboard Moron Air Base, May 5- 13, to serve as Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response, a new expeditionary unit positioned forward to respond to limited crisis within the Mediterranean and African area-of-responsibility.
SP-MAGTF Crisis Response is a rotational force of Marines and sailors sourced from a variety of units from II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C., temporarily positioned on Moron Air Base, Spain, capable of decisive action across a range of military operations.
“The reason we are here is to provide a scalable force to respond to unexpected crisis,” said Major Zane Crawford, the SP-MAGTF Crisis Response operations officer. “We can rapidly deploy to support missions, such as embassy reinforcement, tactical recovery of aircraft, and personnel and non-combatant evacuation operations.”
A Marine Air-Ground Task Force is a balanced, expeditionary force with built-in command, ground, aviation and logistics elements and, while this is nothing new for the Marine Corps, a SP-MAGTF is organized, trained and equipped to accomplish a specific mission, according to Crawford.
The SP-MAGTF CR gives U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Marine Corps Forces Africa a broad range of military capabilities to respond to crises in its area-of-responsibility including conducting non-combatant evacuation, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and support to U.S. embassies, and other operations, missions and activities as directed by national and command leadership.
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You should mention that Spanish Marines who guard the two bases we lease in Spain are the oldest Marine Corps in the world. The Spanish Marine Corps (Infanteria de Marina) was founded on 27 Feb 1537 by King Charles I. They celebrate their birthday every year on this date. Miguel de Cervantes who authored “Don Quixote de la Mancha” was a Spanish Marine and a prisoner of the Barbary pirates.
