The Marine Corps’ supply battalion on the East Coast has absorbed other units and gotten a new name as part of a servicewide effort to modernize logistics.
The 2nd Supply Battalion ― the unit responsible for distributing supplies to the North Carolina-based II Marine Expeditionary Force ― has added a maintenance battalion and two logistics companies, according to a Marine Corps news release. On Feb. 5, with approximately 1,000 new Marines and sailors under its umbrella, the unit officially assumed the new name of 2nd Combat Readiness Regiment.
The reorganization brings the different logistics capabilities under one command with a full-bird colonel, Col. Karin Fitzgerald, in charge. The Marine Corps hopes the changes will help II Marine Expeditionary Force’s logistics work more quickly and smoothly, the news release said.
“The redesignation to 2nd Combat Readiness Regiment is more than changing the name of 2nd Supply Battalion,” Sgt. Maj. Enrique Gato, the senior enlisted leader of the regiment, said in the news release. “There is an organizational change to how 2nd CRR will look in terms of personnel and equipment that is vastly different from 2nd Supply Battalion.”
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The changes come as the Marine Corps is preoccupied with contested logistics — how to supply and sustain Marines in zones where an adversary is working to disrupt those processes.
Now-retired Gen. David Berger, in the year before his term as commandant ended in July 2023, took to saying his top focus was “logistics, logistics, logistics.”
One component of the service’s logistics push is modernizing how Marines keep tabs on the supplies in their warehouses. That’s something the regiment has already been working on, according to Brig. Gen. Michael McWilliams, the commanding general of 2nd Marine Logistics Group, of which the regiment is a part.
The 2nd Combat Readiness Regiment will add a new group of experts who will use data to provide recommendations on how the regiment could make better decisions, McWilliams said in a statement Monday to Marine Corps Times.
A similar reorganization will take place before October at the West Coast-based 1st Supply Battalion, which will become 1st Combat Readiness Regiment, according to 1st Lt. T. Trey Judd, a spokesman for 1st Marine Logistics Group.
The Japan-based 3rd Marine Logistics Group is still assessing “the capabilities and capacities of all our organizations to ensure 3d MLG is best postured for response in the western pacific,” said spokesman Capt. Brett Vannier in an email to Marine Corps Times on Wednesday.
“Should the results of those efforts necessitate the renaming or redesignation of units, we would make those decisions in accordance with higher headquarters approvals,” Vannier said.
One aspect of the erstwhile 2nd Supply Battalion that won’t change is the phrase featured in its unit insignia: “Legacy of Montford Point.”
Camp Montford Point, North Carolina, was the segregated post where the first Black Marines received training after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 executive order opening up all the military services to Black men.
Many of the trailblazing Montford Point Marines ended up in combat service support roles in units that formed the backbone of what would later become 2nd Supply Battalion, according to Capt. Nikki McDougall, a spokeswoman for 2nd Marine Logistics Group.
“[We take] pride in our unit lineage and Montford Point legacy,” Fitzgerald said in the news release. “That is how we got here and steels us for the challenges ahead in an unsettled world.”
Editor’s note: This article was updated 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday with comment from a 3rd Marine Logistics Group spokesman.
Irene Loewenson is a staff reporter for Marine Corps Times. She joined Military Times as an editorial fellow in August 2022. She is a graduate of Williams College, where she was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.
