Compass Points - Slender Thread

22nd MEU and 15th SPMAGTF

Compass Points - Slender Thread

22nd MEU and 15th SPMAGTF

August 17, 2025

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Sunday is a good day for reflection.

This Sunday is a good day to say a prayer for the Marines and sailors of the 22nd MEU.

This week, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (SOC) deployed from Camp Lejeune. No doubt they will accomplish great things for Corps and Country. Still, it has been too long since a MEU has deployeed from the United States. The previous ARG/MEU embarking from the US was the now notorious Boxer Amphibious Ready Group which experienced so many problems with the three amphibious ships that the three ships were rarely together during the deployment. Two serious command investigations caused the USS Boxer (LHD-4) to leave for deployment late and then, once it finally deployed, it turned around after less than two weeks and returned home for more maintenance!

It is always a struggle for the Marine Corps to make sure there are enough amphibious ships available. But the problem has become worse over recent years as the Marine Corps has focused more on regional missile forces and less on the worldwide, combined arms, Marine Air Ground Task Force.

When the Marine Corps does not have enough amphibious ships, it takes strong, creative Marine leaders to get Marines out on the oceans, defending the Nation.

One Compass Points reader recalls another time when lack of assets required strong Marine leadership.

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The 15th SPMAGTF

LtGen G.S. Newbold, USMC (Ret)

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When Marine forces do not get the support they need, what is the solution? The solution is strong leadership.

In the summer of 1992, the Navy explained to the Marine Corps that Pacific Fleet forces would not be able to provide sufficient amphibious ships to embark and deploy the 15th MEU, so that unit would go out with fewer ships. [Yogi Berra -- "It's like deja vu all over again."] The Marine Corps-Navy challenge of that year provides an example of how strong service leadership can act to reject unacceptable support for a global response force.

When objections by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Carl Mundy, and the Commanding General of I MEF, LtGen Robert Johnston, failed to gain a reversal of the Navy's plans to slice the capability of 15th MEU, General Mundy redesignated that unit. In his explanation, General Mundy announced, without equivocation, that the force cuts (roughly 25% of the standard MEU) meant that the unit could no longer be considered a MEU, and it became the 15th Special Purpose MAGTF. General Mundy simply wouldn't allow the shortfall to become a precedent.

Still not satisfied that the Navy had done enough to provide afloat capability, General Mundy and LtGen Johnston fought to get a MPS ship (the MV LUMMUS) to sail in support of the Amphibious Ready Group. With the capability of the LUMMUS added, the 15th SPMAGTF regained much needed engineering, sustainability, and equipment power if they were ever committed. The addition of the LUMMUS went beyond supporting the SPMAGTF, though, because General Mundy and LtGen Johnston knew that the MEF's Air Alert Contingency unit always on standby and other forces in I MEF could quickly fall on the equipment from the MPS ship and greatly expand the understrength Marine forces afloat.

15th SPMAGTF deployed on schedule, and the actions by Generals Mundy and Johnston proved prescient. Less than two months into the deployment, President George H.W. Bush ordered the SPMAGTF to provide the spearhead for U.S. actions to stabilize a desperate humanitarian emergency in Somalia. After the SPMAGTF secured the port and airfield in Mogadishu, the MV Lummus began offloading equipment and supplies that allowed follow-on forces to arrive and be sustained. The 1800 Marines of the SPMAGTF quickly were absorbed into a CJTF and the thousands of Marines who became Marine Forces Somalia. Bottom line -- the MPS augmentation and the Air Contingency unit deployment made the mission of the Marines a success. Without them, the Marine Corps would have had to tell the President that, advertisements aside, Marines would not be able to fulfill a global response mission. How do I know? I was the 15th SPMAGTF commander.

On the return sail to Camp Pendleton, the SPMAGTF and ARG stopped in Hawaii to provide the Commander of the Pacific Fleet a briefing on the deployment. The strong, clear message that the Commodore of the ARG and I made was that the mission succeeded by only the most slender of threads, and failure, if it had happened, would have been measured not only in loss of national and service prestige, but in lives lost of young Americans. The fleet commander blandly replied that if the mission had required more afloat forces, he would have assembled and deployed them when they were available. The obvious vacuity of the remark is that crises do not wait for forces to be ready. You get one shot. Marines must go out ready. Marines must arrive ready. Marines must be ready.

Could we do it today? It would probably be prudent to compare the availability of the MPF around the globe, and whether the Marine Corps has the same capability to provide 24/7, organized, trained, equipped, and ready air alert forces. One thing is clear –"It's like deja vu all over again."

-- LtGen G.S. Newbold, USMC (Ret)

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Compass Points salutes LtGen Newbold for taking time to relate the lessons of the 15th SPMAGT.

Over the last week, Compass Points readers have generated online and off a cornucopia of comments, insights, and analysis. Compass Points appreciates all readers who in their own ways are continuing to build the discussion about a stronger Marine Corps, and particularly thanks all our readers who served as seminar leaders this week by providing topics, articles, and comments. Many thanks!