Thu, Feb 24, 2005
The Marauders End A Long-Term Pacific Mission
The Sailors of Strike
Fighter Squadron (VFA) 82 and their families are putting the
finishing touches on homecoming celebration plans for March 1.
VFA-82 will be returning to Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS)
Beaufort, SC, after being embarked with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2
aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) for five months.
During their five-month Western Pacific surge deployment, the
"Marauders" of VFA-82 flew training missions in the skies around
Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, Okinawa, Japan, and many other Western
Pacific islands.
After a Christmas port call in Hong Kong, the Abraham Lincoln
Carrier Strike Group (ALCSG) steamed south in response to the
tsunami that devastated many islands and coastal cities around the
Indian Ocean. By New Year's Eve, VFA-82, along with rest of the
strike group, found themselves at ground zero off the coast of
Banda Aceh, Indonesia, poised to begin Operation Unified
Assistance.
For more than a month, VFA-82 Sailors and officers volunteered
to go ashore and work alongside their shipmates from the ALCSG.
Working in the mud and tropical rainstorms, the Marauders were
instrumental in helping deliver more than 5 million pounds of
disaster relief supplies.
VFA-82's 10 F/A-18 Hornets and two cargo aircraft will return
the Marauders to MCAS Beaufort. Friends and families of the
squadron are planning a small reception in their hangar aboard MCAS
Beaufort.
(ANN salutes Lt. Perry Solomon, Strike Fighter Squadron 82
Public Affairs)
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