Expeditionary· West Africa NEO Operations
150 Marines (Battery L 10th Marines) Land as QRF
This record marks the landing of a force of roughly one hundred fifty Marines, drawn from an artillery battery serving as a provisional rifle unit, who came ashore in Liberia during the 2003 crisis to reinforce the security effort around Monrovia.
The Marines deployed from offshore to bolster the protection of the United States embassy and lend a ground presence to the international effort to stabilize the country as the civil war reached its climax and a peacekeeping force took shape. The landing reflected the Marine Corps' practice of adapting its forces to the mission at hand, an artillery battery taking up the role of provisional infantry for a security deployment. The Marines ashore added weight to the diplomatic and humanitarian effort and helped secure the situation as the conflict moved toward resolution. The landing was a security reinforcement rather than a combat assault, one of the components of the Marine response to the Liberian crisis of that year.
Record no. 830