Evacuation Extremely Complicated Maneuver, Officials Says

American Forces Press Service ^ | Jim Garamone

[SandRat]

WASHINGTON, July 19, 2006 – Evacuating thousands of Americans from Lebanon is an extremely complicated undertaking, but one that servicemembers train to accomplish, Defense Department officials said here today. American servicemembers have been involved in getting U.S. citizens out of danger since the founding of the republic. Before the current non-combatant evacuation order - or NEO - for Lebanon, U.S. servicemembers helped evacuate people from Liberia in 1993, Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, Indonesia after the tsunami in 2005, Liberia again in 2004, Panama in 1989 and Saigon in 1975.

Each of these NEO evacuations had different causes and different players. All have one thing in common, said Marine Capt. Jay Delarosa: uncertainty.

The captain, who is a spokesman for the Corps, said there are always more questions than answers when faced with the evacuation mission. "You don't know how many people you are going to evacuate, or what kind of problems you are going to encounter," he said during an interview. "You are always working with people you have not worked with before. You need to be flexible so you can best fit into the plan."

A NEO evacuation is always in support of the State Department. The U.S. ambassador is the senior authority for the evacuation, and embassy personnel are responsible for the plan and handle contacts with American citizens to be evacuated.

Delarosa once deployed with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He said every MEU does six months of work-ups - what he called "the pre-deployment training to prepare for the unexpected" -- before it deploys. One work-up covers noncombatant evacuations.

The Marines work hand-in-hand with the Navy, and the Marines track developments on developments that might affect them, Delarosa said.

He said that when called on, the sailors and Marines "are extremely excited."

"You always want to do your part, whether it's in combat or for a humanitarian mission," he said.

[SandRat]

interesting.........

[Rodney King]

Most of these "Americans" that they are evacuating are in fact Hezbollah supporting muslims.

[JohnBovenmyer]

What's it with all these dual citizenship sorts? Aren't new citizens supposed to end all prior allegiances? There must be some loophole, right or wrong, as there seem to be a lot of such. If WE are rescuing dual citizenship folks and aren't charging the individuals for the service then we should at least send a bill for half the cost to their other country. And we might consider starting a policy that we won't rescue dual citizens from their other home. If we need to evacuate France treat Franco-Americans like the rest of the domestic French and send London half the bill for saving the Anglo-Americans. As a policy change this needs to be stated clearly well in advance.

We also need to put some $ risk on the travelers to places with State Dept. warnings against travel already in place. Require a deposit, sized for the level of risk, before providing visas for such travel, to be returned if they get back on their own but to be forfeited if we have to rescue them.