IRAQ: Ready and confident

When it comes to combat assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan, few military units can match the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit out of Camp Pendleton.

The 15th MEU was part of the push to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. In March 2003, the 15th moved across the Line of Departure into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. In 2005, the 15th went to Babil province south of Baghdad.

And in 2006, the 15th was part of a "surge" of Marines into sprawling Anbar province where it engaged in combat in Rutbah, Barwana, Haditha, Ramadi and Al Asad. The deployment was extended into the early months of 2007.

On Sunday, 2,200 Marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed from San Diego with the six ships (and 3300 sailors) of the Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group headed for the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf.

It was a morning of tearful goodbyes as hundreds of family members came to the 32nd Street Naval Station to say farewell.

The Marines will be a standby force ready to be sent into Iraq or Afghanistan. They could end up in both locations or neither. They could end up spending their six months doing training exercises and, by their very presence in the region, acting as a deterrent.

Only the commander-in-chief and the Defense secretary know what they have in mind for the strike group and neither is talking.

This much is known: the group from Camp Pendleton was ordered to depart 27 days early when a decision was made to send a unit from Camp Lejeune, N.C., into Afghanistan.

"We're not just ready, we're confident," said Col. Brian D. Beaudreault, commanding officer of the 15th MEU.

—Tony Perry, in San Diego

Photo: Marine Cpl. Marcel Ortega embraces wife Melissa just minutes before the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit sailed from San Diego. Their son, Nathaniel, 18 months, slept through the departure. Photo credit: Tony Perry/Los Angeles Times

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