MARFORPAC commander visits island

Photo By Master Sgt. Rebekka Heite | Lt. Gen. Duane D. Thiessen, commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, speaks to a gym full of Marines on the House of Pain’s basketball court on Camp Hansen Nov. 9. Thiessen spoke to Marines at townhall-style meetings on several Okinawa Marine bases.  

CAMP HANSEN, OKINAWA, JAPAN

11.09.2011

Story by Sgt. Rebekka Heite 

III Marine Expeditionary Force   

CAMP HANSEN, Japan - Lt. Gen. Duane D. Thiessen addressed Marines and answered their questions at four Marine Corps installations on Okinawa Nov. 9.

Thiessen, the commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, began each meeting explaining to the Marines their unique position in Okinawa and the Pacific.

“I cannot begin to stress the importance each of you have – individually and collectively – out here in the Pacific because we’re at that pivot point,” he said. “The nation is planting its foot, and it’s going to change directions [from focusing on the Middle East to] here over the next couple of years. And you all are on the forefront of that new direction, and it’s out here in the Pacific."

“One of the first things our nation’s going to do is reconstitute III MEF,” he added. “You’re going to get much larger. You’re going to be in more places doing more things in III MEF-style, and there’s nobody who does it better than you all.”

He went on to explain how III MEF’s capabilities benefit the Corps with this new direction, including how the 70 annual exercises throughout the Pacific that III MEF participates in demonstrate the MEF’s strategic importance.

“You make a difference every single day,” said Thiessen, who was the commanding general of 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III MEF, in 2004 and 2005.

“You look left and right, and you do the mission and the task of the day, and you think this is normal,” he added. “It isn’t. Let me draw a line of comparison. Let’s say that you’re doing training in [Camp] Pendleton, [Calif.,] or you are doing the same kind of training in Japan or the same kind of training in the Philippines or the same kind of training in Korea. There is no correlation between [these locations] apart from the standards of the training that we try to accomplish. The difference is that every time you do it in Japan or Korea or the Philippines or anywhere else out here in the Pacific, you become the direct window into the United States of America."

“They look at you and say that is America,” he added. “That is a huge difference when they look and they see you train in Pendleton and they look at you on the street and they say ‘Well, that’s a United States Marine.’ There’s a huge difference.”

After his opening remarks, he answered audience members’ questions regardless of rank or time in service.

One sailor asked how the new posture of the Marine Corps was going to affect the number of corpsmen stationed on Okinawa.
The general answered by saying that with more Marines spread further apart, he would need more corpsmen here, not less.

A master sergeant on Camp Hansen asked why the Marine Corps was repositioning itself on the Pacific?

“The reason for the increased presence, the reason for the distribution, is not to preserve the number of Marines. It’s because of the commitment that the United States has made in the Pacific,” answered Thiessen.

“I like the emphasis [the general] put on how we are more important than we thought,” said Lance Cpl. Brian J. Sousa, with Marine Wing Support Squadron 172, Marine Wing Support Group 17, 1st MAW, who attended the brief on Camp Foster.

Sousa said, as he understood it from the general’s remarks, “We’re more important because of the pivot from Afghanistan towards the Pacific Rim.”

Thiessen was also the guest speaker at the III Marine Expeditionary Force/Marine Corps Installations Pacific officers’ Marine Corps birthday ball Nov. 10.

• Date Taken: 11.09.2011
• Date Posted: 11.16.2011 21:44
• Story ID: 80122
• Location: CAMP HANSEN, OKINAWA, JP