Marine Reserve unit mobilized for Iraq duty
A Marine Corps Reserve unit here has been mobilized for service in Iraq.
BY PETER BACQUE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Dec 23, 2005
Hotel Battery of the 1st Battalion, 14th Marines, will leave for pre-deployment training in California on Jan. 2.
Because the 142-member unit is going to Iraq, "the training's been very intensive," Capt. Michael Kamin, the battery's executive officer, said yesterday.
"We'll actually be in the country about seven months," he said. In total, "it'll be approximately a 12-month mobilization" for Hotel Battery's Marines and sailors.
Normally organized as a 155mm self-propelled howitzer unit, the battery will be serving as military police in Iraq, Kamin said. The reservists have not been told where in the Middle Eastern country they will be stationed.
The Marines from the Chesterfield County-based outfit have spent the last year preparing for their new mission, said Kamin, who lives in Fredericksburg.
They will go first to Camp Pendleton, Calif., and then to the Marine Corps combat training center at Twentynine Palms, Calif., he said, before heading overseas.
In 1990, Hotel Battery was ordered to active duty in Operation Desert Shield after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
During the first Persian Gulf war, the battery's Marines battled two Iraqi multiple-rocket launchers with howitzers and automatic weapons, destroying both.
A member of the unit, Lance Cpl. Troy Lorenzo Gregory, was the first Richmond-area casualty of the Gulf War.
Contact staff writer Peter Bacqué at pbacque@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6813.