– US Naval Institute Proceedings – We started doing it 212 years ago. Now that the Marine Corps is going back to sea after a decade on the ground, it’s time to revive the Maritime Raid Force.

– Wall Street Journal – When a suicide bomber struck a convoy in Afghanistan, a routine Marine patrol turned into a harrowing firefight. Michael M. Phillips with an eyewitness account of bravery and tragedy in the confusion of war.

– San Diego Union Tribune – The Marine Corps will begin assigning women to newly opened combat jobs this year, conduct research on their physical capabilities, and in the most striking move, open the infantry officer training course to them, the commandant said in a message to all Marines Monday.

– Washington Post – The U.S. and Japanese governments said Thursday that they will move about 9,000 Marines off Okinawa to other bases in the Western Pacific, in a bid to remove a persistent irritant in the relationship between the two allies.

– BBC – The first contingent of 200 United States Marines has arrived in Darwin. The troops are there on a six-month rotational basis and will take part in training exercises with the Australian Defence Force.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Even though the threat symmetry may have changed, the Navy-Marine Corps team still needs the capability to insert ground troops from the sea.

– Virginian Pilot – For months, Navy and Marine Corps brass have talked up a massive training exercise with a funny name – Bold Alligator – and a serious objective: revitalizing amphibious warfare.

– San Diego Union Tribune – Camp Pendleton troops will be storming the beaches with Japanese defense forces over the next month, building on long-standing military ties with an important strategic ally in the Asia Pacific amid rising tensions in the region.

– US Naval War College Review – As a grand concept, Sea Basing appears becalmed, if still visible out on the horizon. However, as a practical reality, U.S. forces engage in sea basing today-and every day. The U.S. Marine Corps-along with a sometimes supportive, sometimes reluctant U.S. Navy-is projected to continue to make incremental improvements.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Forget the EFV. Retrofitted off-the-shelf vessels offer a cost-efficient means to align Marine Corps capabilities with national-security needs.

– Washington Post – With the Iraq war ending and an Afghanistan exit in sight, the Marine Corps is beginning a historic shift, returning to its roots as a seafaring force that will get smaller, lighter and, it hopes, less bogged down in land wars.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The tiltrotor MV-22 has come of age. Moving larger payloads—faster and farther—it broadens Marine Corps capabilities and gives commanders more choices.

– Marine Times – An official announcement could come within days of Britain’s sale of its remaining Harrier jump jets to the Marine Corps, but sources are saying privately the purchase will be strictly for spare parts and logistic support, and not a move to increase the operational fleet.

– Daily Telegraph – The US military has agreed to buy Britain’s entire fleet of Harrier jump jets after they were controversially scrapped under the Government’s austerity measures.

– BBC – Australia has agreed to host a full US Marine task force in the coming years, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced at a news conference with US President Barack Obama in Canberra.

More information at the New York Times

– San Diego Union Tribune – After a five-day operation in one of the most combative areas of Afghanistan, international forces have secured the main road from Sangin to the strategic Kajaki Dam in northern Helmand province, Marine commanders announced.

– Associated Press – About 3,000 U.S. and Filipino marines started two weeks of annual military drills in the Philippines on Monday that will include a hostile beach assault exercise near the disputed Spratly Islands.

– Defense Technology International – The F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing Joint Strike Fighter has taken a step forward in its testing program today with the first landing onboard the USS Wasp, a Marine Corps amphibious ship, in preparation for shipboard trials.

– San Diego Union Tribune – As the Marines celebrate a century of shared aviation history with the Navy at the annual air show in San Diego beginning today, they are also looking to the future amid a high-stakes overhaul of their fleet.

– Associated Press – The dominant narrative about war in a foreign land says its practitioners yearn for home, for the families, the comforts, and the luxury of no longer worrying about imminent death or injury. It applies to young American troops in Afghan combat zones, but it’s not the whole truth.

– Defense Technology International – Bill Sweetman on how the Marine propaganda offensive in support of the F-35B pounds relentlessly on the advantages of short take off and vertical landing.

– Wall Street Journal – The service’s top officer plots a post-Afghanistan focus in the Pacific region, where Marines experienced their most devastating losses and most heroic victories.

– Wall Street Journal – Faced with a wave of mental-health problems among returning troops, the Corps is training young Marines—down to corporals and sergeants—to sniff out combat stress among their peers on the front lines and tackle it directly on the field of battle.

– Armed Forces Journal – Losing the EFV doesn’t jeopardize the Marines’ future.

– San Diego Union Tribune – After 10 years of acting as America’s second land army, the U.S. Marine Corps will be slimmed down to “middleweight” fighter status, its leader says.