Indeed.
Practice is practice, and the Marines have to practice somewhere. The Air Force has airspace in Navada for practice A/A and A/G air campaigns and no one seems to think the Air Force is practicing for an attack against the US.
And this whole amphibious landing thing. . .the Marines have to practice somewhere and we have many places along the US coast that are open and able to handle this activity. I took part in such a rehearsal back in the late 80’s in North Carolina.
Oh, and this Iranian thing. . .no serious military planner considers an amphibious assault under fire as we don’t need to do that for an assault against Iran. We have other ways to secure landing zones (i.e., ports). We don’t have to do the whole yee-haw storm the beaches kind of thing. And by the way, times two, we did practice amphibious assault landing in Saudi during the build-up for Desert Storm. The media reported and people got all excited saying things like, “Wow, just look at the Marines getting ready to take the beaches in Kuwait.”
The media reported, Saddam listened and the American people got all excited. . .but there NEVER was a plan to do an amphibious assault! However, the psy-op was successful in that Saddam tied down many divisions on the Kuwait beaches to defend against an invasion that was never going to happen.
But wait. . .I saw the Navy off the coast of southern California and they were practicing fleet maneuvers. . .must be getting ready to shell the US. . .Sheesh. . .people need to get a grip.
I worked a number of similar exercises both in Virginia and Hawaii. Yep, not uncommon at all.