Learning about Marines

Marines from Marine Air Group 49 located at Stuart Air National Guard Base in Newburg, N.Y., welcomed civic leaders to take a challenge so the military and ci vilian community can better educate themselves and understand how to help each other.
“We are not on a Marine Corps base, so our support structure is the community,” said Lt. Col. Hugh Atkinson, the commanding officer of MAG-49. “They are the ones helping our Marine families. They’ve got our back.”
Twenty-five community leaders, including chambers of commerce presidents, law enforcement officials, business owners and others, came to Quantico on Oct. 30 aboard a C-130 with Marines from MAG-49 stationed in Newburg. They came to Quantico because it was the closest Marine base that could tell the Marines’ story. Together they came to learn about the Marine Corps and more about each other.
Even though the Marines have been embedded in the Hudson River Valley community since 1986, there are still civilians who didn’t know either that the Marines were there or they knew very little about the Marine Corps.
“Many of these people didn’t even know there were Marines on the base,” Atkinson said. “I invited them to see how the Marine Corps affects their community. We do many community relation events such as providing color guards. By getting together we can find out how we can support them and we find out how they can help us.”
For the civilians, this collaboration is a welcome one.
“We love our military and we understand that we have to work with the military,” said John D’Ambrosio, president of the Orange County, N.Y., Chamber of Commerce. “There are more than 2,000 service members who spend money and serve in our local community — we can’t ignore that. We have service members who serve on our community boards and help with community events. This trip is another step to see what is available to us through the military and share what we can offer.”
The other reason for coming to Quantico is more sentimental.
“Since 9/11, there has been a great deal of appreciation and respect in our community for people in uniforms,” said Charles North, president of the Duchess County, N.Y., Chamber of Commerce. “We do what we can to show them we’re grateful for what they do by thanking them and doing events such as this to find out more about Marines. We appreciate all the humanitarian work they do in our community.”
“Marines are not all guns, but also butter,” said D’Ambrosio. “When we are working with them it’s not just business, but also respect for what they do.”
Each person who came learned something new about Marines.
“The dog training was great,” said D’Ambrosio. “I never thought about the dogs being in combat and what all they can do.”