200 Marines head to downtown LA, in the Corps' most politically fraught mission
A portion of the 700 Marines deployed to Los Angeles to support federal law enforcement were routed downtown Thursday night to guard a federal building. The development marks the first time Marines will be working in the city, just days after the secretary of defense tasked the Marines to deploy despite objections from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
"Starting today, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines will focus on the protection of federal property and personnel," said Task Force-51 mission commander Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman on Friday during a media roundtable with reporters. The California National Guard soldiers who have been guarding the Wilshire Federal Building in downtown LA will transfer that responsibility to 200 Marines, allowing the Guard to provide "protection to federal law enforcement officers as they conduct their law enforcement functions," elsewhere in the area, Sherman said.
Sherman declined to speculate if the remaining 500 Marines might soon be sent to other parts of LA.
While Marines are known to " improve, adapt, and overcome" in the face of adversity, some say these combat troops are ill-prepared for a politically fraught mission: Countering those protesting the Trump administration's immigration crackdown after only a few days of non-lethal and crowd control training.
Sherman pointed to another mission the Marines fill, guarding embassies overseas, as evidence of preparedness for the LA mission. "They are certainly trained on how to defend a federal building. And that's the missions that we're really focused on them to do, and that's what they will be doing here. They've already started with the Wilshire building today, and we will progress from there," he said.
But this discounts the amount of special training that goes into both responding to unrest and protecting an embassy. Embassy protection is not part of widespread training for Marines — rather, it's a three-year special duty assignment to be filled by Marines who've attended schooling for the assignment, said Joe Plenzer, a retired Marine infantry officer and veteran of 2/7.
An infantry unit such as 2/7 is trained in the job's most essential task— locating, closing with, and destroying the enemy by fire and maneuver, Plenzer said, adding that he was perplexed by how the unit's mission in LA, and proximity to American civilians, squares with this. Law enforcement practices, by contrast, emphasize de-escalation and using minimal force if necessary.
Such units often deploy on Marine Expeditionary Units, groups of ships that float around the world acting as a deterrent to bad actors and a crisis response force, requiring months of predeployment training, Plenzer said. And "Seventh Marines is kind of like the Marine Corps' break-glass-in-case-of-war unit," Plenzer said. The unit's home base, Twentynine Palms, California, is desolate and remote, affording Marines ample opportunity to train with weapons and master their craft.
"We never got crowd control training," Plenzer said. "We were always on the range shooting targets, calling in artillery, mortars, and aviation fires, and hiking with heavy packs through the desert over mountain ranges."
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