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Col. Victor Pastor, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3/5, 4th Marine Division, discusses force design and establishing a crisis response force Dec. 15, 2021, at Marine Corps Support Facility New Orleans. II MEF and MARFORRES are the Marine Corps’ service-retained forces administratively and operationally controlled by the Marine Corps instead of a combatant command, such as most Marines stationed in California and Japan who are aligned to support U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. The importance of these operational planning teams is to establish the process needed to create an effective service-retained crisis response force to respond to global threats outside of USINDOPACOM area of responsibility. MARFORRES and II MEF are the Marine Corps’ service-retained forces, which means they are administratively and operationally controlled by the Marine Corps. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Mitchell Collyer)