With their deployment coming to a close, Marines in Okinawa squared off in a high-stakes competition to determine who got to take the first flight out of Japan back to the U.S. States ahead of Thanksgiving.
It was an unusual way to determine the order that Marines got to go back home to Camp Pendleton, California — with some Marines taking the competition as seriously as and it might have been one of the most important athletic events in the military of the year, second to the Army-Navy football game.
Events included classic sports like basketball, flag football, softball and volleyball tournaments. The Marines also squared off in a fire team event, a squad event; tug-of-war, and weight-lifting a bench press and a deadlift competitions.
“It was a good event to close out our deployment,” said 1st Lt. Nicholas Goodwin, a security and platoon commander in Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, the unit that held the nine-event competition.
3/5, tThe ground combat element of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, had just wrapped up a fall deployment on the Peleliu Amphibious Ready Group and their commanding officer, Lt. Col. R.C. Rice wanted a fun way to close out their time in Japan. So he tasked the unit’s junior officers with organizing a field event to coincide with the Marine Corps Bbirthday, Goodwin said.
“It brought the best out of the Marines, they like competition,” said 1st[[1st or 2nd? GH]] Lt. Ben Wearing, a platoon commander and the officer in charge of the football events.
Marines compete in a flag football game in Okinawa, Japan. Marines with Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, held a battalion-wide competition pitting the companies against each other in flag football, basketball, softball, tug of war and more.
Photo Credit: Cpl. Henry Antenor/Marine Corps
After a cake-cutting ceremony, the events began. Each of 3/5’s companies fielded a team for the various each events. There warebracket-style basketball, flag football, softball, volleyball tournaments; a fire team event; a squad event; tug-of-war; a bench press and a deadlift competition. Points were awarded based on standings in each event, and the company with the highest overall score won.
Kilo Company got those honors, letting them leave Okinawa on Nov. 17th, four days earlier than those who caught flights on The last flight back was on Nov. 22.
It was the first time that 3/5 had this type of competition, and Wearing and Goodwin said it was the first time they heard of an athletic competition being used to determine the order that Marines went home.
They started planning around three weeks before the Nov. 10 event at Camp Hansen.
“Essentially, it was a task given by the battalion commander,” Goodwin said. “He wanted a good event to celebrate the Marine Corps birthday and then to challenge the Marines and give them a competitive feel and give them camaraderie building.” Goodwin said.
Companies started preparing and building rosters for each event about round a week in advance.
“Some teams were a lot better than others,” Wearing said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if some teams practiced.”
Most officers were either responsible for running a particular event or for officiating. A few got to compete, Wearing said.
He ran the football game and said the tournament was good-natured. They used standard backyard rules and played on a parade field marked off with cones. While it was an informal competition, the Marines y took it seriously, he said.
“The guys would heckle each other during the games, but once it was over they shook hands,” Wearing said.
The winners Eventually, Kilo Company won the day and scored seats on the first flight back to Camp Pendleton. Compared to other companies, they seemed to do the best a better job of picking the right athletes for each event, Wearing said.
“They deployed their Marines kind of like you would for war,” Wearing said. “That’s how they won, they picked the right weapons for war.”
