The 12th Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) activated its third and final subordinate element, the 12th Littoral Combat Team (LCT) in Okinawa this week.
“The MLR is growing fast, but we got a whole lot stronger today,” said Col. Peter Eltringham, commanding officer of 12th Marine Littoral Regiment.
With the addition of the combat team, the 12th Littoral Regiment now comprises just under 2,000 Marines and continues to grow.
“This formation didn’t just stand up; it surged forward. Today, we became stronger, faster, and more lethal,” said Eltringham. “We bring this combat power to Okinawa to be able to deliver it in the eyes of our adversaries and ensure we can bring it to the decisive point on the battlefield.”
The combat team is centered around a “reinforced infantry battalion with an anti-ship missile battery,” according to a Feb. 21 news release from the 3rd Marine Division. It is designed to “degrade potential adversaries’ decision-making calculus by exploiting critical vulnerabilities, [disrupt] enemy targeting processes, and [be] difficult to observe in littoral warfare,” regiment spokeswoman 1st Lt. Sarah Bobrowski said.
The 12th LCT carries forward the combat heritage of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment (1/4), which was originally activated in 1911. The battalion protected American interests in China from 1927 to 1941 and played a key role in several major campaigns during World War II, including the Battle of Guam in 1944 and the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
During the Vietnam War, 1/4 conducted conventional and counter-insurgency operations. In the 1990s, the battalion participated in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and later deployed to Iraq as part of the initial invasion in 2003, returning for subsequent tours in 2006 and 2009.
