A flap grows Down Under over new USMC rotations
April 23rd, 2012 | Allies and training Australia III MEF Marines Pacific issues | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
Marines with Fox Co., 2/3 get a "Top End" welcome earlier this month in Darwin, Australia.//USMC photo by Lance Cpl. Ian McMahon
The recent arrival of a company of Hawaii-based Marines in Darwin, Australia, stirred up some unfavorable sentiments on the continent and around the region. Now comes former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who apparently is quite unhappy about seeing any more Marines Down Under.
Fraser, who led the nation-continent for eight years until 1983, complained that “over 20 years now we have given the impression of doing that which America wants. We seem to believe that our security can be best assured if we do what we can to win brownie points with the U.S. This is a mistaken assumption.”
He reportedly outlined his frustrations in a letter to his government blasting the new Aussie-U.S. arrangement for unit rotations, the Sydney Morning Herald reported April 24. Those rotations and recent news that the United States wants to operate military drones from Cocos Island, a group of atolls west of Australia, will fuel more unsettlement about U.S. intentions, particularly as it concerns threats from China, and further risk Australia’s own security, he argued in a letter submitted to the government’s “White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century.” Such level of U.S. involvement “sends the wrong message, not only to China, but to countries like Indonesia.”
The rotations, which will send 2,500 leathernecks in six-month rotations to Darwin by 2016, are part of the broader U.S.“pivot” refocusing on all things in the Asia-Pacific region. Top U.S.military officials have said no new permanent bases are planned in the Pacific region, where they already are looking at a reposturing of military forces. But Fraser doesn’t buy it. “For America to say that 2,500 troops do not constitute a base is nonsense, indeed a fabrication,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, the men of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, landed in the Northern Territory or the “Top End” as it’s known locally earlier this month to start training with their Australian counterparts at military ranges in the area as military commanders with III Marine Expeditionary Force met with local leaders. Top-level visits to the region include Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, and members of Australia’s parliament met with Marines and sailors aboard dock landing ship Pearl Harbor, currently deployed with 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group.
Marine baby creates commotion with President Obama
December 27th, 2011 | Leadership Pacific issues | Posted by Dan Lamothe
President Obama laughs as 8-month-old Cooper Wagner puts his hand in the president's mouth on Christmas. (Associated Press photo)
Once again, a reminder: Children are unpredictable.
Marine Capt. Greg Wagner and his wife, Meredith, saw that firsthand on Christmas as President Obama visited Marine Corps Base Hawaii. While the couple took a photograph with the president, their 8-month-old son, Cooper, put his hand in Obama’s mouth.
Meredith said this morning on Good Morning America that she was “mortified” at the time, even though it appears that Obama laughed it all off.
“I was mortified,” she said. “I was embarrassed.”
Capt. Wagner gave the president credit for keeping things light.
“He kind of laughed and said that Cooper looked up and saw his big nose and just wanted to get a hold of it,” the Marine told GMA. “He played it off really well and got a good chuckle.”
Here’s video of the moment:
Picking up the pieces in Japan
April 5th, 2011 | Battle Rattle Japan MEU operations Pacific issues | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
- Marines with Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, join the massive clean-up of remote Oshima island in Japan, April 4.//31st MEU photo
It’s a field day – on a much bigger scale. With dozers, dump trucks and supplies in hand, hundreds of Marines with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit descended on a small remote island near the epicenter of the March 11 earthquake that devastated northeastern Japan.
On April 1, they began Operation Field Day, with the mission of helping clear mounds of debris on the island of Oshima, population 3,000. The Marines found some 600 residents holed up in shelters as they try to make sense of what’s left of their homes, community and livelihood.
Relief efforts began March 27 as Marines and sailors with Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 262 (Reinforced) and Amphibious Squadron 11 delivered food, water and supplies and set up much-needed electrical generators.
Working with Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces, Marines also are clearing nearby Uranohama port choked with debris, from remnants of homes and warehouses to wrecked cars, children’s toys, furniture and even sets of porcelain dishes they helped salvage for locals. “We’ve found a lot of personal belonging in the rubble and it makes you wonder how it would feel if it happened to you or your family, and it can sometimes touch pretty close to home,” Lance Cpl. Colton Carlson, a squad automatic weapon gunner with Company G, said in a news release. “We’re glad to help because we know how much we would appreciate it if the roles were reversed.”
- The March 11 earthquake shook the ground, and the tsunami tore into the coastal communities on Oshima island, Japan.//31st MEU photos
The tsunami damaged ferries that islanders relied on to reach the mainland and destroyed waterfront businesses. “Our one key piece of the mission is to help clean out the harbor here,” said Capt. Ben Middendorf, Company G’s commander. “The harbor is the island’s one lifeline to mainland Japan and once they are able to have ships come in and out of the port they will be self-sustainable.”
Marines help after typhoon ravages the Philippines
October 27th, 2010 | MEU operations Pacific issues | Posted by Dan Lamothe
Philippine children run to greet a Marine CH-46E helicopter with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 262 on Friday, as Marines delivered canvas tents and bottled water to an airfield in the Philippines. The country asked for humanitarian assistance after its eastern coast was ravaged by a typhoon. (Photo by MC3 Casey H. Kyhl/Navy)
If it had hit the U.S., it would have been front-page news for several days.
Super-Typhoon Juan roared ashore in the Philippines last week with heavy rains and sustained 140 mph winds, and has received only limited media coverage in American media. Media reports out of Manila say at least 31 people were killed by the storm, which was named Megi in the country. More than 1.9 million people were affected by the storm, and nearly 31,000 homes were completely destroyed, the reports said.
In classic Marine expeditionary unit fashion, the 31st MEU, out of Okinawa, Japan, spent several days delivering supplies and humanitarian aid. To highlight the work, here are a few of the best images released by the U.S. military.
Marines with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and Filipinos unload bags of rice and tents Friday from CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters. The humanitarian assistance was delivered after the Philippines were ravaged last week by Super-Typhoon Juan. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Tyler C. Vernaza/Marine Corps)
Blog wisecracks get public affairs contractor ousted from RIMPAC
July 20th, 2010 | Pacific issues The blogosphere | Posted by Dan Lamothe
A landing craft air-cushioned, or LCAC, enters the well deck of the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard on July 6 during the joint Rim of the Pacific military exercises off the coast of Hawaii. (Lance Cpl. Orlando Perez/Marine Corps)
Earlier this month, military blogger Gina DiNicolo poked fun at the annual Rim of the Pacific exercise, in which thousands of sailors and Marines participate in 38 days of nation building and joint operations off the coast of Hawaii.
As Military Times colleague Phil Ewing pointed out on ScoopDeck, it was a “broadside,” one in which she mocked RIMPAC as “SNOOZEPAC” and called the action “anything but exciting.”
A key section of her post, up on the Military Officers Association of America blog, Inside the Headquarters:
Despite the size, locale and agenda, these games seem anything but exciting. Take away the French, and really, what’s left? SNOOZEPAC is 38 days of too many visitors gorging themselves on foreign and U.S. naval delicacies. Air assets become personal taxis transporting their fares from vessel to vessel. (Maybe that’s how it got its rep as the world’s largest floating cocktail party.)
Her analysis may or may not have merit, but there’s another key detail: DiNicolo, a medically retired Marine captain, was in Hawaii for RIMPAC. Working for the Marine Corps. As a civilian public affairs representative.
Exactly.
The blog post subsequently got her dumped from her job doing public affairs work for the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, DiNicolo said last week in a phone interview. She returned home to Virginia, and will no longer be at the lab, based at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. She had worked 40 hours per week for them as a contractor.
DiNicolo, a former Marine Corps public affairs officer, said she believes her work for the Corps and MOAA should be considered separately. She did her job for the lab well, and wrote factually accurate, pointed criticism on the blog, outside of her work with the Corps, she said.
“It’s unfortunate. I think we have a difference in philosophy,” she said. “I think you have a good story, you tell the story. And if you have a marginal story, you tell the story and the good points come out.”
The Corps wouldn’t say much about the incident. In a prepared statement, Marine officials released the following statement:
The contractor was hired to provide public affairs support to the Quantico-based Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory and its Enhanced Company Operations Limited Objective 4 experiment conducted during RIMPAC 2010. An employment action sending the individual home was initiated, because of the contractor’s inability to stay on task and resulting conflict of interest.
That’s a bit cryptic, but if “inability to stay on task” means “openly ridiculing the same event for which you’re facilitating media coverage,” I suppose it counts.
Reached for additional comment, DiNicolo says it simply isn’t true that she couldn’t do her job with the Corps. Her e-mailed response, in part:
I left because Third Fleet was uncomfortable with a member of media or blogging community working in with his PAOs. Fair enough. There is your conflict, as they may see it. Though I thought it an ideal opportunity to get into the field and write some stories, it was pretty clear the lab personnel wanted me gone.
… The hard part in their minds, I think, is reconciling my performance as reasonably talented lab PAO 12 hours a day with this blog pariah for Inside the Headquarters by night… As we discussed, I write what I think readers will find interesting. RIMPAC is not interesting in its natural form. At least I don’t find it interesting, and I rarely write straight news in the blog. I think the RIMPAC blog entry was a solid, accurate piece. It informed, entertained, pointed out a possible shortcoming but highlighted RIMPAC’s strengths. Gee, I’d be happy with that coverage.
Call me crazy, but I’m just not seeing that. At this point, there is nearly a decade of examples that illustrate that running your mouth about your employer on a blog can get you fired. Take this 2005 USA Today piece, which covers the termination of employees at Wells Fargo, Google and other corporations. Or this blog post, which covers the 2008 firing of a Washington Post reporter who posted drunk photographs of himself online and called the Post a “dying medium” on the football blog Kissing Suzy Kolber.
There’s even a word for it: “Dooced.”
Yep: DiNicolo just got dooced.
UPDATE, 10:20 A.M.: ScoopDeck ninja Phil Ewing of Navy Times — the journalist who first drew attention to DiNicolo’s post — weighs in on the mini-scandal here.
Journalism blogs Media Matters and Romensko also provide their two cents.