Roughly 235 members of the 7th Transportation Brigade Expeditionary from Joint Base Langley-Fort Eustis have already returned home. Another 209 sailors from Naval Air Station North Island, who were also part of the pier project, have returned to San Diego, according to Pentagon Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh.
“Approximately 100 will be returning in the coming days. We expect all personnel and equipment to be coming home by mid September,” she said. “As soon as that aid is distributed. And as you know, we are committed to making sure that aid does get distributed to the people of Gaza.”
The last 6 million pounds of aid is still on board one of the U.S. ships in the area. The rest of the sailors and soldiers are expected to turn by the end of September. Roughly 500 soldiers set sail from Virginia in March, after the president announced the mission in his last State of the Union Address.
The pier-building operation, officially called Joint Logistics Over the Shore, was continually plagued by high seas and bad weather. Several times the pier had to be removed from the shore and towed to the nearby Israeli port of Ashdod, which drastically limited the amount of humanitarian assistance the pier could provide the starving people of Gaza. In July, the U.S. decided to end the effort earlier than expected.
Four Army boats from Army 7th Transportation remain in the Mediterranean. The cargo ship MV Roy Benavidez, which is homeported in Virginia, was reported heading through the Straits of Gibraltar Monday morning, on its way into the Atlantic. The ship is operated by private mariners under the Navy Sealift Command. It carried much of the equipment for the operation.
