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Budget cuts may slash additional Marine units

Massive budget cuts announced by the Pentagon last week will likely force the Marine Corps to slash an additional infantry battalion and some light armored reconnaissance elements while scaling back planned expansion of its special operations command, a Marine general said Tuesday.

With orders to reduce its active-duty end strength by 20,000 over the next five years, the service stands to lose 4,700 more Marines than it had proposed following an extensive force structure review. Commandant Gen. Jim Amos’ plan called for an active-duty force of 186,800 Marines, down from about 202,100 today. Instead, by 2017 the service will have about 182,100 Marines.

Lt. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, commander of Marine Corps Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., told reporters in Washington that the service continues to research how those additional cuts will be made. However, he acknowledged that units not identified in the force structure review could be eliminated.

“When you look at where the rest of these Marines will come from — this is not a done deal, if you will — but we are looking at one more infantry battalion,” he said. “We’re looking at the possibility of reducing a little bit of the light armored reconnaissance capability. We’re looking at various things. It’s just not a horizontal cut, if you will, across the Marine Corps. We’re not doing that.”

Marine Corps Force Special Operations Command also may see its planned growth slowed as a result of the budget cuts. The two-star command has been growing steadily with a goal of reaching 3,800 personnel by 2014, but Hejlik, MARSOC’s former commanding general, called that number into question.

“MARSOC will not have the exact plus-up that we wanted to give them,” he said. “The commandant is a huge supporter of MARSOC and where they’ve been and where they’re going, but they will not get the plus-up in total that they were expecting.”

Published late last year, the force structure review called for the reduction of about 15,000 Marines, including some 7,000 from East Coast units. The rest would be spread across the service. II Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will take the biggest hit, with the MEF’s three-star headquarters downgraded to a two-star command, and the 9th Marine Regiment deactivated along with its three infantry battalions.

The Corps also will deactivate the 8th Marine Regiment headquarters, redistributing its three infantry battalions under II MEF’s surviving regimental headquarters, 2nd Marines and 6th Marines.

Hejlik said it’s unclear which additional infantry battalion may be cut or whether it will be based on the East Coast or the West Coast. Infantry battalions also are based permanently at Camp Pendleton and Twentynine Palms in California and at Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

Currently, there are active-duty LAR units based at Camp Pendleton and Twentynine Palms on the West Coast and Camp Lejeune on the East Coast. Hejlik did not elaborate on which of those battalions may face cuts.

A spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said the congressman, a former Marine captain, does not anticipate any further significant reductions involving West Coast Marine units.

“A shift in East Coast resources, that’s what everybody is expecting right now,” said Joe Kasper, Hunter’s spokesman. “He would be surprised if there were any significant changes on the West Coast.”

Staff writer Gina Cavallaro contributed to this report.