Hundreds of US Marines and Philippines Marines Deploy to Itbayat Batanes Island, Philippines

Hundreds of U.S. Marines and Philippines Marines Deploy to Itbayat Batanes Island, Philippines
U.S. Marines and Sailors with 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, and Philippine Marines with Marine Battalion Landing Team 10 deploy to Itbayat, Philippines
These Marines will participate in a major maritime theater security operations event during Exercise Balikatan 24 in Itbayat, Philippines
This training event consisted of civil reconnaissance patrols, volunteering within the local community, conducting a medical evacuation drill, and a community dinner.
The deployment to the region during Balikatan was under “a scenario designed to preserve and protect Philippine territorial integrity
Despite being smaller in size compared to last year’s exercise by about 1,000 troops, this year’s iteration has drastically increased the scope and focus of the exercise to cover the Philippines’ outermost territories