On Base

The Blue Angels, expected to return to Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort’s air show in 2011, will lack one part of its repertoire.

The Blue Angels’ C-130T Hercules, known as Fat Albert, will perform its jet-assisted takeoff for the last time at an airshow Nov. 14 at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla.

Some familiar sights serve as the backdrop for the Marine Corps’ new recruiting commercial, which premiered during national college and professional football broadcasts this weekend.

Titled, “America’s Few,” the commercial debuted Saturday during the Florida-Tennessee college football game on CBS and is “an authentic portrayal of what it really takes for America’s youth to answer the highest calling and earn their place in a line of Marines that stretches back 233 years,” according to a Corps news release.

The former commanding officer of Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island’s 3rd Recruit Battalion will only have a short distance to travel to fill his newest billet.

Col. Paul Timoney will become the commanding officer of the Marine Corps’ 6th Marine Corps District during a ceremony Friday at the Four Winds Club on Parris Island.

Timoney will oversee a recruiting district that includes South Carolina, seven other Southern states, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Cameras were rolling last week on Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island as a New York-based production company filmed the Corps’ newest recruiting commercial, according to the The Boot, the depot’s newspaper.

Titled “America’s Marines,” the commercial features Marines from the Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C., as well as Parris Island drill instructors hand-selected by the commercial’s producers and Marine Corps brass.

The Swamp Foxes of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort’s Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron received a new commanding officer Tuesday.

Lt. Col. John Pylant assumed command of the squadron’s nearly 700 Marines and sailors Tuesday morning during a ceremony at the base. Pylant had served as the executive officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 106, a F-18 Hornet and Super Hornet squadron at Naval Air Station Oceana, Va.

The new commanding officer of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 122 won’t have to travel far to assume his new duty post.

Formerly the executive officer of Marine Aircraft Group 31, Lt. Col. John A. Bolt assumed command of VMFA-122, nicknamed the Werewolves, during a ceremony Friday outside the squadron’s hangar at MCAS Beaufort.

It likely will be seven to nine months before versions of the Marine Corps’ variant of the Joint Strike Fighter will undergo test flights, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway told the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 4.

Conway told Congress that jets being built by defense giant Lockheed Martin are expected to be ready for testing this fall, but claimed the delay would not affect when the jet would enter service. The first of the Corps’ short-takeoff, vertical-landing variants of the jet are scheduled to be delivered in 2012, according to the Corps.

The Marine Corps will launch its own online encyclopedia next month, giving Marines access to information on more than 150 topics, including weapons systems and land navigation, the Marine Corps Times reports.

The project, dubbed “Corpspedia,” was the brain child of Capt. Mike Regner, a project officer at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab in Quantico, Va.

Regner said he created Corpspedia after being tasked with figuring out why Marines were having trouble with land navigation.

The Department of the Navy awarded the final $18.8 million piece of a $78.4 million contract to a Louisiana construction company this week to build a fourth barracks facility at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.

Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast in Jacksonville, Fla., awarded Walton Construction Co. of Harahan, La., the third and final option of the $78.4 million contract to design and build barracks and headquarters for the depot’s 3rd Recruit Battalion. The 3rd Battalion is housed in some of the depot's older facilities, most of which were built in the 1960s.

Beaufort military officials say the area’s military and private-public housing developments are not affected by a new Corps policy that requires registered sex offenders to move out of on-base housing or apply for a waiver to live there.

“It’s not an issue for us,” said Maj. James Jarvis, spokesman for Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. “We don’t have any registered sex offenders living in the housing near the air station or out at (Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island) or in the military housing at the Naval Hospital. We also haven’t received any waiver requests.”