Features

Marines of the Pacific

On February 23, 1945, Joe Rosenthal captured this photograph of five Marines and a corpsman raising the flag atop Mt. Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

Come on you guys, we got to get these guns off the beach,” were the last words of Gunnery Sgt. John Basilone, according to his niece, Diane Hawkins. Moments later, he was struck by enemy fire and fell on the beach of Iwo Jima, Japan. Still, he made an effort to pick himself up and continue his attack before he succumbed to his wounds seconds later. More

Navy, Marine Corps Answer Call to Aid Haiti

A Haitian boy watched as Navy Seabees assigned to Amphibious Construction Battalion 2 offload pallets of Meals, Ready-to-Eat from Landing Craft Utility 1663 in Bonel, Haiti, Jan. 26.

Just before 5 p.m. Jan. 12 a magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The quake’s epicenter hit 10 miles west of the nation’s capital, leaving an estimated three million people in need of emergency assistance.
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Fallujah – Looking Back at the Fury

Marines assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, walk back to a collection point after finding weapons and ammunition in houses used by insurgents during a patrol in the city of Fallujah, Iraq, Nov. 17, 2004.

MARINES Magazine is proud to acknowledge the passing of five years since the Battle of Fallujah, arguably the fiercest combat Marines have seen since the Vietnam War. As time passes, more and more Marines only read or hear about this event as history. We are fortunate enough to still have active duty Marines who served in Iraq’s Al Anbar Province in 2004, and were able to share what they have to say about those fateful days. More

Marine Corps Body Bearers

Lance Cpl. Bradley Young, a Marine Corps body bearer, finishes folding a funeral flag during a practice funeral Nov. 25. Body bearers carry the remains of fallen Marines to their final resting place in Arlington and surrounding cemeteries in the National Capital Region.

WASHINGTON – It’s an iconic scene: Six men stand together halfway around the world from home and raise a flag on top of Mount Suribachi. When the men returned home, their story of valor on Iwo Jima lifted a nation to its feet in the midst of the turning point of World War II. More

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

The Marine Corps aviation family is all smiles.

The Corps landed on a new aircraft — a single-engine, single-passenger, multi-role, stealth-capable, fifth generation supersonic strike fighter — the F-35 Lightning II, commonly known as the Joint Strike Fighter.

The F-35 Lightning II, commonly known as the Joint Strike Fighter.

The world’s first supersonic and radar-evading stealth aircraft with short take-off and vertical landing capabilities.

The JSF was developed by Lockheed Martin as part of their Joint Strike Fighter Program. Lockheed Martin produced three variants of the aircraft and the Marine Corps is getting the F-35B, the short take-off vertical landing variant.
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Marines in Chicago

Marines from Recruiting Substation Schaumburg, Marine Corps Recruiting Station Chicago, present the colors at the Chicago Slaughter-Wisconsin Wolfpack Continental Indoor Football league game Saturday, at Hoffman Estates, Ill.

The week-long event was an opportunity for Chicagoans to meet the individuals who make up the Marine Corps, said Brig. Gen. Melvin G. Spiese, commanding general, Training and Education Command, in Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va.

The idea of Marine Week is to get the major cities in America exposed to the Marine Corps, said Spiese, a Chicago native. We couldn’t find a better place to kick this thing off. We are America’s Marine Corps.
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Hard Times

Recruiting during economic hardship

Historically during times of recession, military recruitment picks up and it’s easy to understand why. The military guarantees a steady paycheck, housing and medical benefits that in a stressed economy may be hard to find.

While economic recession and a slow job market are understandable reasons for looking to the military, this is still a time of war and service demands more of a Marine than just three meals a day and collecting a paycheck. More

202K

NEW YORK – Recruiters Sgt. Jonathan Gomez and Staff Sgt. Charles Bernal stand outside of a recruiting station in Jamaica, N.Y., looking for potential devil dogs to join the Corps’ ranks. – Photo by Sgt. Randall A. Clinton

In 2007 the Marine Corps announced it would “Grow the Force” to an end strength of 202,000 by 2011. It’s 2009, and the corps has reached its goal – TWO years early.

ARLINGTON, Va. – Since the onset of the Global War on Terrorism, many Marines have spent more time overseas in combat operations than at home in the span of one enlistment. More

Women & Marines

In today’s corps, women play a vital role in the operating forces at home and abroad

Female Marines execute their daily tasks just as their male counterparts do from recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., to deployments into combat zones overseas. These Marines partake in training and missions that were unheard of for the women Marines of the early 20th century. More

Hail to the Chief

America welcomes President Barack Obama

The Marine Corps and its sister services welcomed its 44th commander-in-chief Jan. 20 during the nation’s most prestigious change-of-command ceremony, the Presidential Inauguration.

U.S. Marine Col. Michael J. Colburn conducts the “The President’s Own,” U.S. Marine Band, at the 56th presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20.

Marines have been supporting presidential inaugurations since April 30, 1789, when George Washington was sworn in as president. More