The Marine Corps’ elite special operations unit known as the Raiders will get a new commander sometime in August.

Maj. Gen. Daniel Yoo, the commander of Special Operations Command Pacific, or SOCPAC, is slated to replace Maj. Gen. Carl E. Mundy III as the commander of the Marine commando unit, according to Maj. Nicholas Mannweiler, a spokesman for Marine Corps Special Operations Command.

A change of command ceremony has been scheduled for August.

Mundy was recently nominated to pick up a third star and is headed to command Marine Corps Forces Central Command.

Yoo currently heads up SOCPAC and commanded the 1st Marine Division out of Camp Pendleton, California, in 2015.

The SOCPAC commander also oversaw the handover of Camp Bastion-Leatherneck in Helmand province, Afghanistan, when the Marines pulled out of the region in 2014.

The base, which once housed thousands of Marines and British troops during the height of the war in Afghanistan, was handed over to the Afghan Army 215th Corps.

Yoo was the commander Regional Command-South West and Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan during its final deployment to Afghanistan.

The Corps returned to its hallowed fighting grounds in Helmand in spring 2017 with a 300-Marine unit known as Task Force Southwest. That task force is now in its second rotation to the volatile province.

Mundy has commanded the Raiders since August 2016, after he took charge of the commando unit from then-Maj. Gen. Joseph L. Osterman.

Osterman, now a lieutenant general, is currently the deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Command and was recently nominated to head up I Marine Expeditionary Force.

About Shawn Snow

Shawn Snow is the senior reporter for Marine Corps Times and a Marine Corps veteran.

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