BREAKING: 2,500 Marines head to Middle East

The United States Marine Corps is dispatching more than 2,000 men currently stationed in Japan to the Middle East, where the joint U.S.-Israeli Operation Epic Fury grows ever more intense.

The Wall Street Journal and ABC News first reported this shift in deployment, with Fox News later confirming it through a conversation with a federal official. Fox’s Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin posted on X: “US defense official confirms to Fox News that the Pentagon is sending the USS Tripoli, a Marine Amphibious Ready Group, and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) to Mideast. The Tripoli is stationed out of Japan and would take about 2 weeks to get to the Mideast. Accompanying the ARG and the MEU are approx. 2500 US Marines.”

Before the inevitable chorus of alarm over boots on the ground begins, it should be noted that this movement is tied chiefly to air and naval assets, the very instruments upon which Operation Epic Fury has relied from the outset, as ABC News made clear. The 31st MEU, permanently based in Japan and operating within the INDO-PACOM theater, has now received orders to proceed to the Middle East.

This redeployment does not signal an intention to employ the unit as a conventional ground force inside Iran. Rather, it furnishes commanders with a suite of land, amphibious, and aviation capabilities should they prove necessary. The MEU in question includes a squadron of F-35 fighter jets and a squadron of MV-22 tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft.

For half a century the terrorist regime in Iran has killed Americans directly or through its proxies, constructed a vast international network of murder, and at intervals butchered its own citizens who have the temerity to rise against the rigors of sharia law (more than 40,000 in January alone). As Donald Trump remarked on Thursday: “They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!”

Trump clearly believes the campaign is advancing with such success that its conclusion draws near. He declared: “We are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise, yet, if you read the Failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think that we are not winning. Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth.”

This is the language of resolution, not hesitation; of a determination long deferred but now fully engaged. The spectacle of a regime that has sown terror across decades finding itself dismantled with precision and speed ought to concentrate the mind wonderfully on the consequences of sustained ideological malice.

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My old squadron is now famous

I joined up with the Green Knights, VMA 121 in Chu Lai, South Vietnam during the war after being stationed at Beaufort, South Carolina. We called it "beautiful Beaufort by the sea." 

I was reading a story from Fox News about an Idaho pilot who is the first woman to fly the F-35 supersonic stealth fighter for the Marine Corps, Captain Anneliese Satz.

Capt. Satz is a 29-year-old helicopter pilot from Boise and she completed her training at my old Air Station Beaufort, just down the way from Parris Island, S.C. The training for the F-35 lasted 4 years.

Satz graduated the F-35B Lighting II Pilot Training Program June and will be assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 in Iwakuni, Japan. Yes, my old squadron.

“The first flight in an F-35 is by yourself,” Satz said. "The syllabus thoroughly prepares you for that first time you take off and for every flight after that, it’s an exhilarating experience."

Now, with over 300 flight hours under her belt, she is prepared to pilot the F-35B Lightning II as part of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121, the Green Knights, in Iwakuni, Japan. The aircraft is designed to operate from short-field bases and near front-line combat zones, the Corps said.

Women have only been allowed to fly in the Marines since 1993, when pilot positions were first made available to women, Military.com reported.

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Syrian Report: Explosions at Iranian base near Aleppo

There are conflicting reports about the dramatic explosion that rocked an Iranian base near Aleppo. Hezbollah media denied the reports and claimed the explosions were detonations in the warehouse.

The reports coming out of Syria were contradictory. Initially, the media said the base was hit by an unidentified aircraft, which some attributing the attack to Israel. The next reports claimed the explosion was due to an accident at the facility.

The Iranian base is located in the Jabal Azzan region south of Aleppo--it's the largest in the country.

Hezbollah media sources denied the report: "A powerful explosion went off late Saturday in an area of southern Aleppo province," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) group said.

SOHR's head, Rami Abdel Rahman, reported the region was known to host Iranian scum wafers deployed in Syria. They are there to support Bashal al Assad's regime and allied Afghan fighters from the Fatemiyoun Brigade.

Last week seven Iranian military personnel were killed in an air strike on a Syrian airbase. Hezbollah blamed the attack on Israel.

Jerusalem didn't confirm nor deny carrying out the raid, but said the Tiyas, (T-4) air base was being used by Iranian troops and Israel would not accept Iran's presence in Syria, knowing how dedicated Iran is to destroy the Jewish State.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed Iran's use of Syria as a base of operations and said that "President Assad must understand the Middle East more than any other is Iran, and that President Assad must understand that when he allows Iran and its proxies to establish its military presence in Syria, he is endangering Syria and the stability of the entire region."

Israeli authorities said in February that it intercepted an Iranian drone launched from Syria and carried out strikes against air defenses and that Iranian targets in the country. Iran, of course, denied the downing of its drone in Israel.

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