OIF 09-01
The Few, The Proud, The Bloggers
Source: Terminal Lance, 29 January 2010
For the Marine Corps, the Global War on Terror coincided with the rise of social media, also known as Web 2.0. While many senior military leaders saw this as a threat — the rapid spread of the Abu Ghraib pictures, the puppy tossing incident, and the Scout Sniper urination videos, seemed to confirm their worst fears — it also gave Marines a soapbox that they wouldn’t have had even a decade ago. The Marine Corps maintained a formal ban on social media until late 2009, calling it “a larger attack and exploitation window, [which] exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage,” but saw that ban overturned by the DOD in early 2010. Read more
18 – 19 October 2009: Incident in Mumbai, India
Source: The Hindu
A chartered aircraft carrying Marines from Headquarters & Service Company and battalion augments from III Marine Expeditionary Force was forced to land in Mumbai, India, due to bureaucratic issues. The plane was held on the runway for over 24 hours. — Source: Michael Burke, Justin Palmer
22 – 30 July 2009: Recovery of Capt. Scott Speicher
The battalion, operating as part of Task Force Personnel Recovery, located the remains of missing Navy pilot Michael “Scott” Speicher.
16 April 2009: Ray Spencer
Ray Anthony Spencer II
“Lance Cpl. Ray A. Spencer II, 20, of Ridgecrest, Calif., died April 16 as a result of a non-hostile incident in Anbar province, Iraq.” — Source: Department of Defense
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6 April 2009: Departure
3/3 deployed to Iraq in April 2009. — Source: First Marine Division Press Release