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13th MEU departs San Diego for deployment

SAN DIEGO — As sailors and Marines clung tightly to their loved ones in the Friday morning chill, in the final moments before boarding their ship, Army veteran Robert Ponce Sr. struggled to hold back the tears.

His son, Gunnery Sgt. Robert Ponce, Jr. — one of three sons in the Ponce family, all Marines — spent final personal moments with his large clan gathered on Pier 13, where the amphibious assault ship Boxer waited to push away from its berth.

“It’s hard to see them go,” Ponce Sr. said.

The morning departure marked the start of yet another overseas deployment for the Ponce family, as well as for more than 4,000 sailors and Marines with the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. A few months ago, Ponce Sr. had traveled from his Illinois home to San Diego to welcome home another son, a staff sergeant, who returned with his Camp Pendleton unit. A third son, also a staff sergeant, works in Virginia.

For Ponce Sr., who spent eight years in the Army, including a Vietnam combat tour with the 101st Airborne Division, the goodbyes are never easy.

“When you start seeing the ship pulling away from the pier, oh boy,” he said, his eyes welling. “The first time I didn’t think much of it, but the second time, (I thought) what if I don’t see him again?

“I guess it’s what it takes to keep the society free,” he said.

With the sound of its horn blaring, the Boxer pulled away from the pier as the crowd of families — babies in arms, toddlers in strollers, teary-eyed wives, grandparents and friends — fell silent. One sobbing young girl, perhaps four or five, cried loudly repeatedly, “Goodbye, Daddy.” About 100 stood at the pier’s end, watching Boxer pick up speed through San Diego Bay for the Pacific Ocean, where it met up with its strike group for the trek toward Hawaii.

“Haze gray and underway!” yelled one Boxer sailor who stood on the pier for last farewell waves to close friends who were manning the rails as the ship pulled away.

“It’s kind of sad, because you have friends on her. It’s like family,” said Hospital Corpsman 1st Class (FMF/SW/AW) Hommer Corona, who worked in Boxer’s medical department on its previous two deployments. “It’s kind of weird for me to see it from this side,” he said.

This time, though, Corona, 31, of Fords, N.J., didn’t deploy on Boxer — but he soon will land in the combat zone as an individual augmentee this spring.

“I’ve got IA orders to Iraq,” he said.

Whether sailors or Marines with the Boxer strike group will land in Iraq, or Afghanistan, isn’t certain.

Navy Capt. Peter Dallman, the strike group commander, is leading the naval force to the Western Pacific and to the Persian Gulf on the scheduled seven-month deployment. Some training exercises are on tap, but the force remains the “theater reserve,” meaning it could detour for short-notice operational missions in the U.S. Central Command or Pacific Command regions.

“We have great expectations that we’re going to go do our country’s work,” Dallman said shortly before boarding Boxer, his flagship.

Just what those missions will be are classified at this point, or at least not known. The force leaves just as the nation prepares for a new president and administration in Washington. There are expectations of increased U.S. combat forces moving into Afghanistan and a slight reduction in troops on the ground in Iraq, and the hint of a growing involvement of U.S. naval forces in counter-piracy operations to safeguard ships at sea.

The 13th MEU and the strike group have spent recent months training for missions they might encounter.

“We are prepared to fight for whatever comes up ashore, whether it’s sustained combat operations ashore in Iraq or Afghanistan. We are very prepared across the spectrum of conflict, from raids to humanitarian operations,” said Col. David Coffman, the 13th MEU commander. “We are prepared for anything, any mission, any time.”

The load capacity of the strike group’s three amphibious ships, including transport dock Comstock, rivals that of the older five-ship amphibious ready groups of the early 1990s. The New Orleans provides nearly as much storage space as Boxer, Dallman said.

The San Antonio-class ship begins its maiden operational deployment, and Coffman’s Battalion Landing Team 1/1 has loaded its well deck and vehicle storage decks with M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, mechanized amphibious vehicles, up-armored trucks, dozers and other equipment.

New Orleans’ large flight deck can support a half-dozen helicopters and other equipment, giving the ship the capability to be outfitted for specialized roles such as close-air support that otherwise might be done by the larger Boxer.

“The extra capacity ... has really changed what we can take out with us,” Coffman said. “We’ve built a really capable kind of concept.”

Coffman’s air element includes three new UH-1Y Huey helicopters, whose four-blade rotors bolster the aircraft’s range, speed and load, and mean more capability and flexibility for commanders for missions such as transport, casualty evacuation, raids, command and control and as a gunship.

“It’s doing all those things, and it’s doing it better,” Coffman said.