The Marauders End A Long-Term Pacific Mission

The Sailors of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 82 and their families are putting the finishing touches on homecoming celebration plans for March 1.

VFA-82 will be returning to Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Beaufort, SC, after being embarked with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2 aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) for five months.

During their five-month Western Pacific surge deployment, the "Marauders" of VFA-82 flew training missions in the skies around Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, Okinawa, Japan, and many other Western Pacific islands.

After a Christmas port call in Hong Kong, the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (ALCSG) steamed south in response to the tsunami that devastated many islands and coastal cities around the Indian Ocean. By New Year's Eve, VFA-82, along with rest of the strike group, found themselves at ground zero off the coast of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, poised to begin Operation Unified Assistance.

For more than a month, VFA-82 Sailors and officers volunteered to go ashore and work alongside their shipmates from the ALCSG. Working in the mud and tropical rainstorms, the Marauders were instrumental in helping deliver more than 5 million pounds of disaster relief supplies.

VFA-82's 10 F/A-18 Hornets and two cargo aircraft will return the Marauders to MCAS Beaufort. Friends and families of the squadron are planning a small reception in their hangar aboard MCAS Beaufort.

(ANN salutes Lt. Perry Solomon, Strike Fighter Squadron 82 Public Affairs)

FMI: www.news.navy.mil/local/vfa82