Locate, close with, and destroy
You have to love this line of the Camp Lejeune-based 3/6 Marines in a slow-walk live-fire line while underway in the Caribbean.
Official caption:
Sighted In! U.S. Marines with Battalion Landing Team 3/6, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), conduct live-fire drills aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7), while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Sep. 17, 2025, during Deployment 25-26. U.S. military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of the U.S. Southern Command mission, Department of War-directed operations, and the President’s priorities.
USMC Photo by Sgt. Tanner Bernat.
Rifles all seem to be the M27 IAR (HK 416 piston gun assembled in Georgia), almost all are seen with PEQ-15 target pointers, the Squad Common Optic (Trijicon VCOG 1-8×28), and KAC QDSS NT4 suppressors. Also note the near-universal use of a single belt-mounted mag carrier off-hand (in addition to the six on the plate carrier) as well as a left-rear SSE bag/dump pouch.
Formed 14 August 1917, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines deployed to France just two months later and earned its “Teufelhunden” (Devil Dogs) nickname against the Germans, fighting eyeball-to-eyeball at Aisne-Marne, Saint-Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne with the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division– keeping an Indian Head on its patch to mark this time. They also earned a French Croix de Guerre and Fourragère for their war “Over There.”
Reactivated for WWII, the unit initially garrisoned Iceland, then was folded into the 2nd MarDiv for Guadalcanal, the Southern Solomons, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa. Cold War operations included Lebanon, the DR for Power Pack in 1962, Panama for Just Cause, Desert Sheild/Storm, Mogadishu in 94, the Haitan Vacation (also in 94), and numerous trips to the sandbox during GWOT.
As with every Marine unit, their stated mission is to
Locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver or repel the enemy’s assault with fire and close combat