A Local Marine's Expedition to Peru

Written By: Isaac Weix  |  Posted: Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

For the last ten years, with two major wars taking up all the headlines, other missions of our military go overlooked. Year round there are training and humanitarian missions our military is conducting with other nations.
My unit, the 24th Marine Regiment, was tasked this year to conduct one of these missions in South America.
The operation I participated in is held every year in South America. The name of the operation is called "Partnership of the Americas" and this year the hosting nation was Peru. Other nations participating were the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, Columbia, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
We landed in Lima and were taken by bus to the Marine Base in the city of Ancon. All of the nations sent Marines to the exercise. The Wisconsin Marines and the Canadian Soldiers became fast friends. Not only do we share a language and accent, most of the Canadians were combat vets from the war in Afghanistan. It does not matter where they are from, or what war they fight, there is a brotherhood that exists between combat troops of expeditionary wars.

Many of the other nation's marines also have combat experience, most notably the Peruvians, Columbians, and the Mexicans. The wars these countries are fighting are internal against leftist guerillas and narco-terrorists. In countries rife with violence the police forces are the first to be corrupted and start preying on the population. The national military is the least corrupted and most reliable force that the government has to combat internal crime and violence. This pattern occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now we are seeing the effects of this phenomenon playing out on our southern border. It is for this reason that the future security of these countries lies squarely on the shoulders of their militaries.

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