Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune[1] (/ləˈʒɜːrn/ luh-ZHERN or /ləˈʒuːn/ luh-ZHOON)[2][3] is a 246-square-mile (640-square-kilometer)[4] United States military training facility in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Its 14 miles (23 kilometers) of beaches make the base a major area for amphibious assault training, and its location between two deep-water ports (Wilmington and Morehead City) allows for fast deployments. The main base is supplemented by six satellite facilities: Marine Corps Air Station New River, Camp Geiger, Stone Bay, Courthouse Bay, Camp Johnson, and the Greater Sandy Run Training Area. The Marine Corps port facility is in Beaufort, at the southern tip of Radio Island (between the NC State Port in Morehead City, and the marine science laboratories on Pivers Island in Beaufort). It is occupied only during military port operations.
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune
Marine Corps base
Operational
1941
1941–present
- Water contamination (1953–1987)
- Camp Lejeune incident (1969)
- Murder of Maria Lauterbach (2007)
- Hurricane Florence (2018)
Brigadier General Adolfo Garcia, Jr.
Marine motor detachment, New River Barracks, 1942
American Indian Women Reservists at Camp Lejeune during 1943
Royal Bermuda Regiment shoot at Stonebay Rifle Range on 12 May 2021
Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune, 2008
Barack Obama at Camp Lejeune, 2009
In April 1941, construction was approved on an 11,000-acre (45 km2) tract in Onslow County, North Carolina. On May 1 of that year, Lieutenant Colonel William P. T. Hill began construction on Marine Barracks New River. The first base headquarters was in a summer cottage on Montford Point and then moved to Hadnot Point in 1942. Later that year it was renamed in honor of the 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps, John A. Lejeune, upon his death.
One of the satellite facilities of Camp Lejeune served for a while as a third boot camp for the Marines, in addition to Parris Island and San Diego. That facility, Montford Point, was established after Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802. Between 1942 and 1949, a brief era of segregated training for black Marines, the camp at Montford Point trained 20,000 African Americans. After the military was ordered to fully integrate, Montford Point was renamed Camp Gilbert H. Johnson and became the home of the Marine Corps Combat Service Support Schools.
On May 10, 1996, two helicopters performing a joint United States/British training exercise collided and crashed into a swampy wooded area, killing fourteen and injuring two.
In mid-September 2018, Hurricane Florence damaged IT systems and over 900 buildings in the camp, leading to a $3.6 billion repair cost. 70 percent of base housing was damaged and 84,000 gallons of sewage were released.[7][8]
Residents are zoned to schools of the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).[64] Different housing areas are zoned to the following:[65]
All residents of Camp Lejeune and of Marine Corps Air Station New River (which has Delalio Elementary) are zoned to Brewster Middle School and Lejeune High School.