MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. -- Marines from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 365 came home from a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan, in the late hours of Aug. 1.
After patiently waiting over half of a year, the Marines met with their friends and families at a homecoming celebration at the squadron’s flight line.
“I’m just so happy to finally see my husband,” said Brittany E. Dunlap, wife of Sgt. Mathew S. Dunlap, an airframes collateral duty quality assurance representative with VMM-365. “It’s been so long.”
More than 200 Marines returned to their loved ones from overseas.
The squadron started their deployment in the first week of January. While they were deployed, the Blue Knights operated primarily out of Camp Bastion Air Field, located in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
From there, they conducted many operations in support of ground troops.
“We were busy conducting flights throughout the entire deployment,” said Capt. Nicholas S. Arnold, VMM-365 current operations officer. “We were too busy to even think about being away from home.”
Arnold said most of the operations the squadron conducted were assault support operations. During these missions, the Marines from VMM-365 would transport ground units to their destinations and equipment to forward operating bases.
“During a lot of these flights you got a feeling of accomplishment when you did them,” said Arnold. “The Marines we inserted weren’t just doing patrols or training, they were accomplishing the mission on the ground.”
Arnold said some of the Marines they inserted conducted raids, eliminated the enemy and destroyed drug labs.
“Many of our operations were aimed at taking out operations that helped fund the Taliban,” said Arnold. “A lot of what we did helped to minimize the lethal aid in those regions.”
According to Lance Cpl. James R. Rohrer, no matter how successful the operations went overseas, the VMM-365 Marines were excited to be back home.
“We did a lot of great missions when we were there, but when I came back to see my family, it took all I had not to cry with them,” said Rohrer.