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Reorganizing civil affairs in order to provide better support to the warfighting commander.
In June 2005 the Commanding General (CG), Marine Forces Reserve (MarForRes) hosted a civil affairs (CA) conference to capture significant Marine Corps lessons and observations from Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF). The intent was to improve the manner in which MarForRes is organized, trained, equipped, and provided to combatant commanders for civil-military operations (CMO). More than 16 officers attended the conference to include 4 CA group (CAG) commanders, a Marine expeditionary force (MEF) chief of staff, and a MEF augmentation command element chief of staff, as well as representatives from Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC), the Marine Corps Center for Lessons Learned (MCCLL), and Training and Education Command.
In August 2005 CA Marines who had recently returned from OIF II were interviewed in order to capture their collective lessons and observations. Interviewees included current and former CAG commanders as well as division staff officers and one regimental combat team (RCT) commander.
CA Defined
Civil Affairs describes designated personnel and distinct units. It is neither a mission nor an objective, but the name of a particular force that helps the MAGTF [Marine airground task force] commander to plan, coordinate and conduct Civil Military Operations. 1
The Marine Corps defines CMO as:
. . . the activities of a commander that establish, maintain, influence or exploit relations between military forces, governmental and non-governmental civilian organizations and authorities, and the civilian populace in a friendly, neutral, or hostile operational area in order to facilitate military operations, to consolidate and achieve operational U.S. objectives. CMO may include performance by military forces of activities and functions normally the responsibility of the local, regional or national government.2
CMO is a force multiplier.
The Marine Corps has two permanent CA units, both of which are Selected Marine Corps Reserve (SMCR) units-3d CAG at Camp Pendleton and 4th CAG at Anacostia Naval Station, MD. With a consistently high demand for CA in Iraq and Afghanistan, two temporary, provisional CA units were also established-5th CAG (Provisional) (5th CAG(Prov)) and 6th CAG(Prov). The CAG(Prov)s were created by taking preexisting, non-CA Reserve units, augmenting them with CA-qualified Marines, and providing basic predeployment CA training to the members of the...