History of Camp Talega
On the chaparral and sage-covered hills along the northern boundary of Camp Pendleton rests Camp Talega, a 112-acre cantonment that has served as home and training ground for thousands of Marines, Sailors, and other service members in both war and peace from its inception in the Second World War to the present day. It is a largely untouched museum of the units that have traversed this ground and the events that have transpired since its birth in 1943. A long line of Marines and others have lived, worked or trained in Talega’s Quonset huts, tents and hills, to include:
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Navajo Marines learning to ply their trade as Code Talkers, also at the outset of World War II from about 1943-44, at one point using some of the Quonset huts still at Talega today, after Camp Elliott in San Diego exceeded its capacities – Marines whose code was never broken and whose code figured so importantly into the success of secure communications during the war in the Pacific;
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2nd Raider Battalion and other Marine Raiders in the early days of World War II in 1943 and 1944, training in small boat landings, raids and reconnaissance;
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1st Marine Regiment conducting combat and other training in preparation for deployment to Korea in mid-1950;
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Marines of the combat-tested 1st Pioneer Battalion/1st Engineer Battalion (known as 1st Combat Engineer Battalion today) after returning from service in the Korean War and police duty on the Korean Peninsula in April 1955, through about 1965;
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Thousands of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees seeking safe harbor and new opportunities in America at the end of the Vietnam War from April to October 1975;
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Various units of Reserve Marines, Soldiers and Sailors conducting weekend and summer training from at least the late-1950s until the present day, using Camp Talega as a barracks location or base of operations (to include small units of Reserve Marines training in the summer time from 1958-59 and 24th Marines out of Kansas City conducting individual combat skills training in the 1970s);
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The combat-tried 1st Reconnaissance Battalion and its “Deep Reconnaissance Platoon” (the core unit of what eventually would become 1st Force Reconnaissance Company after its re-activation in 1984), arriving at Camp Talega in 1976 from Las Flores and living and operating here until about 1988-89;
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The Reserve Support Unit (RSU), later known also as Mobilization Support Battalion (MSB), and even later as Deployment Processing Command (DPC) West, serving here from about 1991 to the present, and serving as lead effort on Camp Pendleton for the mobilization of more than 3,600 Marines and Sailors for Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM from 2001 to the present day;
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4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (Headquarters and Service Company and Company “A”) from about 1993 until about 2001;
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Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 4 (VMU-4), the Marine Corps’ only Reserve unmanned aerial systems squadron and which supports I Marine Expeditionary Force units (including Special Operations Training Group), 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion (of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command), and School of Infantry West, here from 2012 to the present;
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Mobile Training Company (now known as “Combat Hunter”), first falling under Mobilization Training Battalion then Advanced Infantry Training Battalion, School of Infantry West, supporting deploying Marine and Army units and others with enhanced observation, combat tracking and other advanced skills, from 2008 to the present; and
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Many hundreds of Marines and other service members training for forward deployment and combat operations or returning from theater in support of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM from 2001 to the present.