Cincinnati State will host returning Marines, families

February 19, 2010

A U.S. Marine reserve unit that left last summer for service in Iraq will return to Cincinnati this weekend and reunite with their families at the Evendale campus of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.

The Marines are from Communications Company, Headquarters Battalion, 4th Marine Division, which is based in Cincinnati and Indianapolis. They represent some of the last Marines to withdraw from Iraq.

The Marines are scheduled to arrive by plane in Cincinnati and Louisville and arrive by bus in two separate groups at Cincinnati State’s Workforce Development Center, 10100 Reading Road in Evendale. A brief welcoming reception is planned in the auditorium at the Workforce Development Center.

Members of the news media are invited to attend, and will have an opportunity to conduct interviews if Marines and family members consent.

Family members are expected to begin gathering at the Evendale campus around noon Saturday (Feb. 20). The first group of Marines is tentatively scheduled to arrive at approximately 2 p.m. and The second group of family members are scheduled to gather after 8 p.m. Saturday. The second contingent of Marines is scheduled to arrive about 1 a.m. Sunday (Feb. 21).

The Communications Company, Headquarters Battalion, 4th Marine Division specializes in providing field communications networks for division headquarters. All or part of the Cincinnati/Indianapolis unit has been mobilized on four separate occasions over the last six years.

In the most recent deployment, members of the Communications Company left Cincinnati June 9, 2009 for Camp Pendleton, California, and went from there to Iraq in September. There they augmented 3rd Battalion, 24th Marines to form a Provisional MP Company at forward locations to help provide security, train and professionalize Iraqi security forces and help supervise the transition of the provincial government of Iraq.