After almost ten months in operation with Operation Southern Spear, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) with the amphibious task group around the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima returns to its base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The Marines were deployed in August of last year to combat drug trafficking and to support U.S. operations against Venezuela in the Caribbean. Among other actions, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was brought to the Iwo Jima after his abduction during a special operation in early January.
The MEUs of the U.S. Marine Corps are currently heavily burdened by deployments. In March, first the 31st MEU with the America-battle group from Japan to the Middle East was moved there after Iran, in response to the American-Israeli strikes, blocked the Strait of Hormuz. Subsequently, the 11th MEU with the Boxer-battle group from San Diego, California was also deployed ahead of schedule to the same region. Both MEUs remain there in light of the fragile ceasefire with Iran and have, among other actions, engaged ships attempting to break the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.
Reinforced Marine Infantry Battalion with Air Support
The MEUs each include a Marine infantry battalion reinforced with armored vehicles, artillery, engineers and reconnaissance forces, an air combat element with attack and transport helicopters or vertical take-off and landing aircraft, as well as a command and a logistics element. These are distributed within the amphibious task group across a helicopter carrier (Wasp-class Landing Helicopter Dock, LHD, or America-class Landing Helicopter Assault, LHA) and two Dock Landing Ships (Harper’s Ferry- or Whidbey Island-class Landing Ship Dock, LSD, and San Antonio-class Landing Platform Dock, LPD).
In total, around 1,100 ground troops, 600 in the air combat element, 300 in logistics and 200 in the command element, make up a MEU for a total strength of 2,200 personnel. If a Maritime Special Purpose Force (MSPF) of 350 special operations and reconnaissance personnel is added, partly provided by the USMC Force Reconnaissance, the designation becomes MEU (SOC) with the addition “Special Operations Capable.”
Overall there are seven MEUs, of which within a 15-month cycle at least one is always on station from the West Coast for six months in the Pacific, and one from the East Coast is typically in the Mediterranean.
The 22nd MEU consists of the Battalion Landing Team 3/6, the Combat Logistics Battalion 26 and the reinforced Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263. Besides the Iwo Jima, the dock landing ships USS San Antonio and Fort Lauderdale also belonged to the task group. The San Antonio had already returned in April to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia.
