USNI News:

When the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group returns from deployment this week, it will mark the beginning of a shift in how amphibious forces deploy globally – shifting naval resources away from the Middle East to the Western Pacific.

The three ships in the Makin Island ARG and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit joined in exercise after exercise in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, demonstrating a high op-tempo in the Defense Department’s priority theater since the withdrawal of Afghanistan.

“We are the first ARG/MEU [from the U.S.] that has stayed in INDOPACOM in over 20 years,” Col. Samuel Meyer, the commanding officer of the 13th MEU, told USNI News in a recent phone interview.

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