Unheralded deployments lasted longer than OIF
Marine Corps News
Release Date: 8/01/2003
Story by Lance Cpl. Jenn Steimer
MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.(July 31, 2003) -- It wasn't the Christmas present the deployed squadron's Marines were hoping for: Instead of learning they'd be home in mid-January as scheduled, they found their stay in Okinawa had no end in sight.
"Our men were told on Christmas Eve they were being extended indefinitely," said Capt. Bert W. Carrier, the adjutant for Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367, one of three unsung Camp Pendleton-based units whose regularly scheduled deployments were extended by five months or more.
HMLA-367, along with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment and B Company, 3rd Assault Amphibian Bn., all left Camp Pendleton in July 2002, expecting a six-month deployment to Okinawa.
Until Operation Iraqi Freedom intervened - sending other Pendleton-based units into the fray while these three faced double duty in the Pacific.
"For a lot of us, the morale went down. We were upset about the extension and only told it would be three more months to a year," said Cpl. Adam A. Couch, an intelligence analyst with 2/4, which returned home June 19, followed by HMLA-367, which was welcomed home by family and friends on Friday - more than a year after leaving Camp Pendleton as part of the Unit Deployment Program. B Co., 3rd AABn. remains overseas and is slated to return in September. Months ago, the unit was already preparing to return home when its replacement, C Co., received orders for war - thereby extending B Co.'s deployment.
Similarly, "(HMLA-367's) return was delayed because the squadron relieving us was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom," Carrier said.
Although some friends and families of the Marines were glad their loved ones were out of harms way, members of the deployed units weren't so upbeat.
"We knew we had an important job, but we still felt left out," Carrier said.
"It was like being on a team and training for a sport, then never having the chance to play a game," Couch said.
"We trained with units who were fighting and we weren't. The people who were supposed to relieve us were fighting and we weren't," he said. "They were out there doing the real thing, the reason why we train; they got the ribbons and the honor, while for us if felt very ungratifying. We were the forgotten ones."
The units trained in various countries while deployed, including the Philippines, mainland Japan, South Korea, Guam, Australia and East Timor.
Recently, their spirits lifted when they received word they'd be heading home. "You could feel the energy," Couch said.
"The morale in the battalion went up, even though they kept changing the dates on us. We still knew we were going home," he added. "I wish we had received a hard and fast date and not been told dates that weren't followed through," Carrier said.
But on July 22, they received word they'd be home on Friday, Carrier said.
This time, they made it - but some felt upstaged by those who saw the combat action they longed for.
"It was nice to be welcomed home," Carrier said. "When we were coming in, we saw all the posters and banners for the OIF Marines. That was nice, but it still made us feel left out."
But Carrier's joy at seeing his wife overshadowed his disappointment at being unheralded.
"It was great to see my wife again after being away for a year," said Carrier, who deployed one month after getting married.
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