More than 40 Marines with the 1st Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton are returning Monday night from a six month deployment in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Among their missions was to safeguard 3,000 U.S. and coalition troops at Leatherneck and adjoining Bastion military complexes, as Afghan forces trained to take over security of the country.
On the heels of these returning Marines are 4,600 other Camp Pendleton troops — all scheduled to come home by the end of the year.
"We pull out all of our pieces of equipment first and then we start pulling out personnel as we draw down slowly, so people are going to be coming in both as bigger units and in smaller groups," said Matthew Gregory, public affairs officer with 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton.
Gregory said a steady lineup of homecomings is planned.
But in the shadow of the returning Marines is escalating violence in Iraq and talks of more U.S. military options.
"The situation in Iraq is fluid and constantly evolving," Gregory said. "If a decision is made by the president or secretary of defense to put Marines in Iraq, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force is going to be ready to go. But until that happens, we’re training and we’re standing by and we’re doing what we do every day."
President Obama last week rejected arguments in Washington that the situation in Iraq should prompt him to reconsider his plan for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
