The Marine Corps has reactivated a historic base on the island of Guam as a part of an ongoing reshuffle and reorganization of troops within the Pacific.
The service held a ceremony to ascertain Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz — the primary new base for the Marines in 70 years — on Thursday at Asan Seashore in Guam, a press launch introduced.
In the end 5,000 Marines shall be stationed there, Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, advised reporters Thursday. Capt. Ryan Bruce, a spokesman for the Marine Corps, mentioned that Marines will start relocating to the island “within the first half of the 2020s.”
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Japanese information shops reported that the switch will begin in 2024.
The bottom, which is on Guam’s northern plateau, remains to be within the means of being constructed. The Marine Corps famous in its press launch that it’s “partially funded by a big financial contribution from the Authorities of Japan.” Japanese information shops, citing the nation’s protection ministry, reported that the contribution is 370 billion yen, or $2.86 billion out of a complete value of $8 billion.
The press launch mentioned that Guam was chosen as a location for a brand new base in 2012 as a part of a broader protection settlement between the U.S. and Japan. That settlement “set the framework for the relocation of Marines from Okinawa to Guam.”
Singh famous that the transfer of Marines from Okinawa to Guam “would not scale back the presence at Okinawa” even supposing the bottom’s opening comes simply two weeks after the Marines introduced that they might be swapping out the models stationed on the Japanese island, changing the twelfth Marine Regiment with the twelfth Marine Littoral Regiment by 2025.
The Marine Corps mentioned that this redesignation will imply the relocation of roughly 9,000 Marines and their households from Okinawa to start in 2024 and careworn that “no new models shall be added” to the island.
That earlier announcement went on to say that, “to take care of the quantity on the agreed upon troop ranges,” models in Okinawa “shall be strategically dispersed all through the Indo-Pacific Theater, with Guam to function an essential logistics hub sooner or later.”
“When it comes to our dedication to Okinawa, we’re nonetheless going to have a presence there as effectively,” Singh advised reporters.
In saying the brand new base, the Marine Corps additionally highlighted its historical past on Guam. The department first arrived on the island in 1899 and arrange a barracks. The island was captured by the Japanese in 1941 following the assault on Pearl Harbor, and it was taken again by U.S. forces — primarily the Marines — in 1944. The Marine barracks on the island was reactivated after World Warfare II and was in operation till 1992.
The bottom’s namesake — Brig. Gen. Vicente Tomas “Ben” Garrido Blaz — was the primary Chamorro Marine, an indigenous group from Guam and different islands within the space, to grow to be a common officer.
Regardless of the outreach to the folks of Guam and the Chamorro individuals who dwell on close by islands, the reactivation of the bottom was met with some protest. Native information shops on the island reported that protesters confirmed as much as the ceremony marking the institution of the brand new base, with the group’s chief claiming that bases like this one “make us an even bigger goal for warfare, and we’re bored with being a colony.”
— Konstantin Toropin might be reached at konstantin.toropin@navy.com. Observe him on Twitter @ktoropin.
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