A letter from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton : Pardon our noise

It certainly has been noisy aboard Camp Pendleton lately. Many have called expressing concerns, some even asking that we curtail training. Our apologies for being a noisy neighbor these last several days.

A Marine Corps Reserve artillery battalion from Seal Beach is currently conducting its major annual combat readiness training at Camp Pendleton. Our country is blessed with highly capable Reserve and National Guard forces and their superb capabilities are on display daily in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. While noisy, the kind of concentrated, 24-hour field training these Marines are currently conducting with their 18 howitzers is critical to maintaining their artillery skills.

We’ve grown unaccustomed to large-scale artillery exercises at Camp Pendleton since Marines entered Iraq, though it formerly was quite common on base. In fact, such training enabled Pendleton-based units to operate round-the-clock, delivering timely, accurate, devastating artillery fires during the spring 2003 march to Baghdad. Many American lives were undoubtedly saved because of the skill of these young Marine artillerymen – skills honed here at Camp Pendleton.

Today over 8,300 Camp Pendleton Marines and Sailors are deployed overseas. Counterinsurgency was their primary predeployment training focus. In many instances, artillerymen traded in their howitzers to perform other missions such as route security or to train Iraqi soldiers. Though artillery training has continued to routinely occur on this Base, its frequency and intensity has diminished over the past five years. This, in turn, has resulted in generating a lesser degree of normal training noise, leaving some in surrounding communities to grow accustomed to this lessened noise level as the “norm.”

But Marines must train to operate in “every clime and place.” The Reserve artillery battalion must conduct this training.

Local weather conditions also contribute to the distance that Camp Pendleton training noise travels. Atmospheric conditions this past week in some cases caused noise to travel further and sound louder in communities at greater distances from the base than in those towns adjacent to Camp Pendleton.

During my two years as Camp Pendleton’s Base Commander I have seen many examples of outstanding community and individual support for our Marines, Sailors and families. We are most grateful for that support and are proud to be a part of the fabric of San Diego and Orange counties. You are wonderful neighbors to come home to when our Marines and Sailors return from overseas.

Every year one base from each military service is recognized for providing exemplary service. This year Camp Pendleton received that award for only the second time in the award’s 25-year history. Our neighbors in San Diego and Orange counties can certainly take some credit for the base receiving this prestigious award, for their strong support helped provide a high quality working, training and living environment to facilitate our Marines’ and Sailors’ combat successes overseas. We thank you.

We are proud to be your neighbor and regret when our training activities impact surrounding communities. Please pardon our noise.