The commander of 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, at Camp Pendleton in California was relieved of command final week, in response to an announcement from the Marine Corps.
Lt. Col. Christopher O’Melia was fired from his position as battalion commander on March 26 “because of a lack of belief and confidence in his potential to proceed to serve in that place,” Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Lucas Burke informed Army.com in an e mail.
“There isn’t any extra sacred place on this division than that of a commanding officer,” Maj. Gen. Benjamin Watson, the commanding common of 1st Marine Division who relieved O’Melia, stated in an emailed assertion. “Our Marines and sailors deserve the very best management the Marine Corps can supply, and I’m dedicated to offering them the management they deserve.”
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Lt. Col. Jonathan Wagner, a prior-enlisted Marine who served because the operations officer for the eleventh Marine Expeditionary Unit, deploying as a part of Marine Rotational Pressure-Southeast Asia, has since taken command.
The first Battalion, 4th Marines, web site had already been up to date to mirror the change, with O’Melia’s biography changed with Wagner’s earlier than information publicly broke concerning the dismissal. Whereas O’Melia’s biography is presently unavailable, a web site for the twelfth Marine Corps District confirmed that he served as commander of Recruiting Station Los Angeles till 2021. He took command of 1st Battalion in July 2023.
A submit on a preferred military-focused social media account, NotInRegz, garnered mass consideration late final 12 months after O’Melia allegedly made feedback throughout a battalion-wide uniform inspection evaluating it to the bombing at Abbey Gate through the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In keeping with the submit, which had feedback from Marines claiming to have been members of the unit confirming the incident, O’Melia allegedly likened the failed uniform inspection to the “complacency” of Marines from 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, that he stated finally led to the deaths of 13 service members.
“2/1 was on the brink of redeploy after they acquired the decision. Do you assume they had been prepared, about to redeploy?” O’Melia allegedly stated, in response to the submit. “They had been complacent, when all the things went down. To not communicate unwell of the lifeless, however they weren’t ready.”
The Marine Corps didn’t reply to a Army.com inquiry as as to if the incident was associated to O’Melia’s firing.
O’Melia is the second battalion commander to be relieved of command on the 1/4 in recent times. Lt. Col. Michael Regner was fired in October 2020 after eight Marines and one sailor had been killed when their amphibious assault car, or AAV, sank off the coast of Camp Pendleton throughout coaching.
An investigation later discovered that mass upkeep oversights in addition to coaching and readiness evaluations of Marines and AAVs alike had been at fault. Marine Corps officers acknowledged that Regner’s aid was because of a lack of confidence in his potential to command on account of the incident.
Army.com couldn’t attain O’Melia for remark.
— Rachel Nostrant is a Marine Corps veteran and freelance journalist, with work revealed in Reuters, New York Journal, Army Occasions and extra.
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