Pictures from my deployment (24th MEU)

[Ratamacue]

Not trying to take the piss, but how is that a deployment? You go to Morocco, Jordan and Kuwait, for training exercises, right?

Would've thought a deployment meant actually being deployed to, for instance, Afghanistan or Iraq?

Marine Expeditionary Units are basically a self-contained, 2000-man combined arms force. Infantry/armor/artillery/engineers/SOF/helos/fixed-wing etc., and all the logistics to support them. And it's all embarked at sea aboard amphibious vessels. You basically float around waiting for a crisis to happen, with periodic stops in ports for liberty and/or training exercises.

[Fisker]

Ok. I can see how that works as a deployment. Point taken. Just not what I knew as such.

[Sniffit]

Marine Expeditionary Units are basically a self-contained, 2000-man combined arms force. Infantry/armor/artillery/engineers/SOF/helos/fixed-wing etc., and all the logistics to support them. And it's all embarked at sea aboard amphibious vessels. You basically float around waiting for a crisis to happen, with periodic stops in ports for liberty and/or training exercises.

That must suck bigtime.

[Wilco]

Not trying to take the piss, but how is that a deployment? You go to Morocco, Jordan and Kuwait, for training exercises, right?

Would've thought a deployment meant actually being deployed to, for instance, Afghanistan or Iraq?

Trust me I wouldn't call it one either, but the overall idea of the MEU is an eight month floating deployment. We are being forward deployed to different hotzones within the Med/Persian Gulf while conducting training to "enhance" our abilities and create a presence for border nations. All I know is I spent nine months away from my family sitting on a boat.

I'd much rather be with the rest of the guys in Afghan.

[Soldat_Américain]

Sometimes there's a flare up and you get to go hunting for bad dudes. Ala 2001.

[James]

Trust me I wouldn't call it one either, but the overall idea of the MEU is an eight month floating deployment. We are being forward deployed to different hotzones within the Med/Persian Gulf while conducting training to "enhance" our abilities and create a presence for border nations. All I know is I spent nine months away from my family sitting on a boat.

I'd much rather be with the rest of the guys in Afghan.

But...

You were on a boat!

[Wilco]

But...

You were on a boat!

Way to bring a "classic" back, well played sir, well played.

[James]

Sometimes there's a flare up and you get to go hunting for bad dudes. Ala 2001.

MEUs used to be MAUs. During Vietnam we usually kept a few battalions floating off shore because, technically, they were part of the Navy fleet deployment and didn't count towards the manning levels approved by Congress, something like that. They were also in Lebanon in the 80s, Grenada, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, the Balkans, etc.

[James]

Way to bring a "classic" back, well played sir, well played.

Semper Fi young padawan.

[Wilco]

Semper Fi young padawan.

I shall follow in your footsteps one day Obi.

[Ratamacue]

Trust me I wouldn't call it one either, but the overall idea of the MEU is an eight month floating deployment. We are being forward deployed to different hotzones within the Med/Persian Gulf while conducting training to "enhance" our abilities and create a presence for border nations. All I know is I spent nine months away from my family sitting on a boat.

I'd much rather be with the rest of the guys in Afghan.

I only had to sit on a boat with the 26th MEU for 2.5 months, during Odyssey Dawn. Even that relatively brief period sucked. Boredom dominates everything else. I was extremely grateful that I didn't have enough time to stay with my battalion for the 24th MEU, and instead could go to another unit to go back to Afghanistan.