Camp Pendleton Marines Return from Iraq, Hand Over Command to East Coast Team

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published January 30, 2007 at 12:06 PM PST

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

The leadership of Regimental Combat Team 5 will arrive back at Camp Pendleton late tonight.They have handed over command of the Marines deployed in AlAnbar Province, Iraq.KPBS reporter Alison St John

The leadership of Regimental Combat Team 5 will arrive back at Camp Pendleton late tonight. They have handed over command of the Marines deployed in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more. About 350 Marines are expected back on base tonight. Regimental Combat Team 5 operated out of Fallujah. They have spent the last year training Iraqi Security forces in a region stretching from western Baghdad to Ramadi.

First Lieutenant Etsoban Vickers says thousands of Marines have returned to Camp Pendleton over the past few months, and tonight's return home marks a changing of the guard in Iraq.

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Vickers: That's like the final command piece -- they bring the flag back with them -- so now the west coast units have given the command over to the east coast combat teams.

Vickers says Marines from the Regiment Combat Team 6 from Camp LeJeune in North Carolina will take over command for the next year. Some units from Camp Pendleton will deploy to support them. However about 40,000 Marines are back on base in north San Diego county. Most of them are not expecting to be re-deployed to Iraq before next year.

Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.