Military

Marines And Sailors Return To Camp Pendleton After Deployment In Australia

By Beth Ford Roth / Home Post Blogger

Published October 20, 2014 at 5:48 AM PDT

This story was published more than 9 years ago.

Marines march single file on to the aircraft as they depart Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin Oct. 17, ending the Marine Rotational Force Darwin’s six-month deployment in the Northwest Territory.

After a six-month deployment in Australia as part of Marine Rotational Force-Darwin, Marines and sailors assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment are slated to arrive home Monday to Camp Pendleton.

The Marine Corps Times reports:

While deployed Down Under, the Marines trained with their Australian counterparts for urban rescue missions, conventional warfare, combined armed, disaster response and humanitarian relief.

They capped their deployment with Exercise Koolendong, a training event in a remote stretch of Australia’s rugged Northern Territory.

The more than 1,100 Marines who deployed were the first battalion from California to participate in Marine Rotational Force-Darwin. The first two rotations involved Marines based in Hawaii.

A little background on Marine Rotational Force-Darwin: President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced in 2011 that U.S. Marines would be deployed to Australia in six month rotations, with the goal of establishing a rotational 2,500-person Marine Air Ground Task Force by 2016-2017.