Very Well Done, Marines

[Subdeacon Joe]

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2020-09-18/250-camp-pendleton-marines-and-sailors-to-deploy-to-battle-creek-fire-near-fresno

 

CAMP PENDLETON —  

The Marines trained Lance Cpl. Marissa Urias how to drive heavy machinery in battle.

But on Friday, the 19-year-old motor vehicle operator was preparing for a different kind of fight, one she never imagined when she joined the military.

For the record:

8:12 PM, Sep. 18, 2020An earlier version of this story misidentified the Marine unit as the “7th Marine Logistics Group.” The unit is the 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group.

Urias is among 250 Camp Pendleton Marines and sailors who are deploying to the front lines of a wildland fire burning in the Sierra National Forest outside Fresno, according to the U.S. Army North, which is in charge of the military ground response to an active wildfire season in the West. The Creek fire has scorched nearly 250,000 acres since Sept. 4.

The deploying troops, who are comprised mainly of Marines plus about a dozen Navy corpsman, are assigned to the 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group. Most of them volunteered for the duty, a chance to protect people’s homes but also provide much-needed relief to exhausted, thinly stretched professional fire crews, according to the unit’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Melina Mesta.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Semper fi my brothers and sisters.  

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

Also...according to the referenced site, well done Navy, and Army, as well. 

 

Well done U.S. Military. 

[Utah Bob #35998]

Unless you have worked a fire line you can’t imagine how terribly exhausting it is. And when you have to do it day after day you’re like the walking dead before long. They need all help they can get. Bless em all. 
When I was a Park Ranger the powers above me thought that seeing how I was an ex paratrooper it would be a good idea to send me to Smokejumpers School in Montana.

I told them thank you very much but I was 32 years old and that ship had sailed. They relented, thank goodness. Being on the line with a shovel and Pulaski tool was bad enough.