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Photo Gallery: Marines Remember
Eight years of continuous war in Iraq and Afghanistan are over for the 3rd Marine Regiment’s 3,000 Marines at Kaneohe Bay.
A ceremony was held Thursday to rededicate the regiment’s battle colors with awards earned in war and peace over the past 96 years, and to officially mark the regiment’s final combat deployment to Afghanistan — a tour by the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, who just returned to Hawaii.
More than 3,000 Marines and sailors of the 3rd Marine Regiment stood in formation for a ceremony that included presentation of the regiment’s 17 award streamers, which were attached to the regimental battle colors.
The ceremony marked the close of a chapter in the 3rd Marine Regiment’s history as it ends its deployments in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
About 1,000 Marines with the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, returned home last week from Afghanistan as the last Hawaii-based Marine infantry battalion scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan, officials said.
The regiment’s three battalions will continue to train and deploy overseas to Japan and other locations as part of a resumption of what’s known as the Unit Deployment Program, which was cut back during the height of the wars.
In July 2004 the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, out of Hawaii left for Okinawa on a UDP rotation to be part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, but was rerouted to Kuwait and then Iraq to take part in the Battle of Fallujah in November of that year — becoming the first Kaneohe Bay infantry battalion to fight in either of the wars.
During the deployment, eight of the Marines were killed in a suicide car-bomb attack; 11 more Marines perished in ground fighting — most of them in Fallujah; and 26 Hawaii Marines and a Navy corpsman were killed in the crash of a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter in a sandstorm on Jan. 26, 2005.
Hawaii-based Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 362, the "Ugly Angels," are on the last deployment to Afghanistan with the CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters that were based at Kaneohe Bay, officials said. The Vietnam-era helicopters are being retired.
» Hawaii News Now video: Marines ceremony ends combat
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DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM