CAMP PENDLETON – In a change of command ceremony steeped in Marine Corps pageantry and with his 101-year-old grandmother looking on, Col. Nicholas F. Marano took charge of this sprawling Marine base this afternoon.
Col. James B. Seaton III relinquished command after more three years during which the base has gone on an unprecedented construction boom and saw major wildfires.
“The level of activity that’s going on today is approximately 15 times what has been in past historical norms,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert, the commander of Marine Corps Installations West, in his comments to about 450 in the audience and 270 Marines and sailors. “There has not been anything seen here (like this) in Camp Pendleton since we first arrived here during the war years, World War II.”
“It’s absolutely incredible … And the stuff being done here today is absolutely world class,” he added.
Thousands of troops have deployed from Camp Pendleton to Iraq. Meanwhile, nearly $3 billion will be awarded for construction on base through 2010 in congressionally approved military construction funding.
Marano, who has served in Kuwait and Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, will now oversee the continuing construction. In brief remarks in the more than hour-long ceremony, he quickly set out a few of his priorities, pledging to work to meet the needs of warriors with a transparent process and to ensure that families of those who deploy receive proper support and resources.
This was his fourth tour at Pendleton, he said, adding his family was happy to be back here.
“For all the places that we have been over the past 20 plus years, Camp Pendleton is clearly the only place that has truly felt like home to us,” Marano said.
In July 2008, the commandant of the Marine Corps convened a board of generals who screened the records of more than 200 colonels for possible assignments at 65 operating and supporting establishments, including Camp Pendleton, said 1st Lt. Riley Whaling of the base public affairs office.
Among the qualities for a base commander that the generals look for are an ability to provide operational training and to make certain that the Marines and their families are taken care of, Whaling said.
Marano was selected to lead Camp Pendleton, the largest Marine Corps base on the West Coast in terms of assigned personnel — among them 40,000 Marines, 3,000 naval personnel and 15,000 military dependants living on base.
Pete Hammer, who served in the Marine Corps from 1967-71 and is president of the Dana Point 5th Marine Regiment Support Group, said the task of the commanding officer, while more complex, is not that different from that of all Marines: taking care of their own and their families.
“The mission of the base commander is somewhat similar in that regard,” Hammer said in a telephone interview today, “making sure that the needs of our combatants and their families aboard the base are taken care of.”
Dana Point adopted the 5th Marine Regiment at Pendleton in 2004 to support the Marines and families in that unit.
In his comments, Maj. Gen Lehnert said there’s little specific training to be a commanding officer.
“When you’re fortunate enough to be selected for a regiment, you are selected because you did well in battalion command. When you get selected for a Marine air group, you generally did well as a squadron commander,” he said. “But there really is no way that we grow installation commanders very effectively, and for each of us that comes to this job, in general we come here without any past experience in the business … and it is a business to a great extent of running these installations.”
The flags of all 50 states fluttered on the sidelines of a windswept grassy field at the base as Seaton handed the gold and scarlet Marine Corps flag to Marano, symbolizing a change of command at the military base.
The men then crisply saluted each other, shook hands and promptly switched places.
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/6936102001?isVid=1&publisherID=987209017
Contact the writer: 949-465-5424 or vjolly@ocregister.com
