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Marines in Georgia relocated, may leave

Marine trainers working in Georgia during the Russian invasion Friday have been relocated from an undisclosed military area to a hotel in the nation’s capital and may be moved out of the war-torn country completely, Marine officials said Tuesday.

Spokesmen at Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans and Marine Corps headquarters in Washington confirmed the move to Tbilisi, a city of about 1.1 million people about 40 miles southeast of South Ossetia province, where fighting was heaviest. They offered no details on when the move was made.

Maj. David Nevers, a Marine spokesman in Washington, said no decision had been made on whether the trainers — primarily reservists from Kentucky and New York — would be moved.

“They’re safe and awaiting orders,” Nevers said.

The nine enlisted reserve trainers and one active-duty captain are with 4th Marine Logistics Group, said Capt. Nathan Braden, a MarForRes spokesman. They are primarily assigned to Brooklyn, N.Y.-based 6th Communications Battalion and a Lexington, Ky.-based detachment with 4th MLG’s Military Police Company. The captain is with II Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

On Friday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said 130 U.S. troops and contractors were in Georgia at the time of the attack, to prepare the Georgian forces for their next deployment to Iraq. All were accounted for and uninjured at the time, Whitman said.

Nevers said the Marine trainers were sent to Georgia in June for a rotation in the Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program, a Marine Forces Europe-led program that trains Georgian troops for deployments to Iraq.

But Georgia pulled all of its 2,000 troops from Iraq on Sunday and Monday, raising questions about the program’s immediate future.

Most recently, the Marine trainers had been focusing on teaching military vehicle maintenance and operations to Georgian troops, Nevers said.

In addition to the trainers, there are seven active-duty Marines stationed in Georgia to guard the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi. Their mission would not be affected by whether the Marine trainers left Georgia, Braden said.

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