Protesters crowded the embassy gates.
Marines attempted to de-escalate tensions while screening and admitting people to the embassy grounds.
Things went wrong. The sailors and Marines of Cherokee Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines (1/5) fly into action, treating the wounded and evacuating the embassy staff.
Except, this wasn't really an embassy and the protesters were actors.
It's just one of the ways commanders try to put troops in real-world situations to prepare them for what they could be asked to do while overseas.
"What we're going for is creating hard, realistic training for the Marines," said 1st Lt. Caleb Korhorn, a weapons platoon commander with 1/5.
Korhorn's platoon participated in the annual Steel Knight exercise at Camp Pendleton. This year, Marines and sailors from California to Arizona played some part of the war games.
Korhorn's battalion is preparing for a rotational deployment to Darwin, Australia in 2026.
"Thinking back to what happened in the evacuation of Kabul in 2021 (and) the chaos that ensued there, there is an attempt to replicate the same sort of stressors that Marines saw four years ago," Korhorn said.
The mock embassy is part of what the Marines call K-2 Combat Town — a small plot of roads and buildings used to train Marines to operate in urban areas.
Navy corpsmen serve with Marine platoons as medics and do everything Marines do, according to Navy Capt. Garfield Cross, the 1st Marine Division surgeon.
They're also among the best at what they do, he said.
"They are an extension of their physician," Garfield said. "They go where we can't go and they do the things that we can't — or are not able to — do."
The embassy evacuation is just part of what the platoon did during the exercise, during which they remained in the field at the base as they might during real operations.
"We're prepared to move to a defensive position later this week," Korhorn said. "Living conditions will change. We will be living and fighting out of a hole in the ground that we dug."
The infantry is just one part of a Marine Air-Ground Task force, or MAGTAF.
Other elements of the Camp Pendleton-based I Marine Expeditionary Force make deployments possible.
The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, supplies the aircraft, while the 1st Marine Logistics Group handles supplies. These elements, plus amphibious ships from the Navy and support aircraft from the Air Force, round out those participating in the exercise.
At nearby Red Beach, Marines secured another fabricated town in preparation for an amphibious landing.
Marine Amphibious Combat Vehicles, or ACVs, splashed into the Pacific Ocean from the Dock Landing Ship USS Pearl Harbor, visible just off shore.
Navy Landing Craft Air Cushion boats, or LCACs, were also part of the landing. The large ships are able to ferry the armored ACVs from ship to shore and vice versa if necessary.
It took the Marines a couple decades to field a replacement for its beleaguered fleet of Vietnam War-era Assault Amphibious Vehicles, or AAVs. The need for a replacement became more urgent in 2020 when eight Marines and a sailor were killed when their AAV sank off the San Diego coast.
The first ACV deployment was delayed almost two years after two rolled-over in the surf at Camp Pendleton.
In 2024, ACVs deployed with a Marine Expeditionary Unit for the first time.
Lt. Col Fred Monday said ACV operations are getting where the Corps needs them to be.
"The battalion right now has five elements that are training for deployments where in the past we were just training for one," Monday said.
Monday is the commanding officer of the 3rd Amphibian Battalion which supplies ACVs to West Coast units.
"So all the things we learned from — you could argue some missteps years ago where we just didn't know — those have been applied," Monday said.
Still, military operations — training included — are dangerous.
Pfc. Tanner Rubio, a rifleman with 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was killed in a "tactical vehicle mishap" during training at Camp Pendleton Dec. 3.
The Marines said Rubio wasn't involved in Steel Knight, but did not say what type of tactical vehicle was involved in his death. Citing an ongoing investigation, the Marines declined to respond to further questions about the incident.
Tactical vehicle accidents have plagued the Marines for years. The armored vehicles have high centers of gravity and poor driver visibility. When off-road it can be difficult to see hazards — factors that investigators said led to the rollover death of 1st Lt. Conor McDowell at the base in 2019.
In 2023, Marine Sgt. Matthew Bylski was killed at Camp Pendleton in an ACV rollover.
Safety and risk mitigation factor into the planning for these exercises, said Monday.
"We approach it through two lenses," he said. "One — the safety structure that is in place ... think of all the things to make sure that the Marines know what right looks like and what right does not look like."
Monday said there's no way around the fact that military operations can be dangerous, which is why troops must adhere to the regulations in place.
"We do speak safety, but we speak risk mitigation because that's really what we do as warfighters," Monday said. "When we focus primarily on safety alone we may lose sight of the fact that we are preparing to go to war. But I will stand behind the fact that if you do it to the tactical standard, you are inherently safe."
For example, even something apparently as routine as a short transit from ship to shore takes a team effort, Monday said. Weeks of planning went into the 30-minute ACV transit from the USS Pearl Harbor to Red Beach — just one part of the 14-day exercise.
