Brig. Gen. Robert Brodie, commander of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, speaks during a headquarters company stand-up ceremony at Camp Courtney, Okinawa, Jan. 13, 2025. (Ryan M. Breeden/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP COURTNEY, Okinawa — The Marine Corps’ only permanently deployed expeditionary brigade stood up a new headquarters company on Tuesday, aligning it with a Japanese amphibious brigade to streamline joint humanitarian and warfighting missions in the Indo-Pacific.
Maj. Codi Anne Mullen took command of the newly minted Headquarters Company, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, during a small, intermittently rainy ceremony on Camp Courtney.
As company commander, Mullen provides command and control, administrative and logistical support for the brigade commander and his 14,500 Marines.
The brigade itself is a middleweight air-ground task force under the III Marine Expeditionary Force and is larger than the approximately 2,200 Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.
“This formation behind you serves as a leadership element that can aggregate and command and control multiple [expeditionary units] in a high intensity conflict,” brigade commander Brig. Gen. Robert Brodie said in his ceremony remarks. “That’s what the job is.”
Maj. Codi Anne Mullen, foreground, headquarters company commander for the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, receives the command guidon during a stand-up ceremony at Camp Courtney, Okinawa, Jan. 13, 2025. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes)
The brigade is expected to respond rapidly to crises across the Indo-Pacific, including humanitarian and disaster relief. In November, its Marines provided relief in the Philippines following Typhoon Kalmaegi and Super Typhoon Fung-Wong.
Mullen, a native of Riverhead, N.Y., and a 2016 Naval Academy graduate, has been with the brigade since July, according to her LinkedIn profile. She previously served three years as an aide-de-camp and logistics analyst at Marine Corps Logistics Command in Albany, Ga.
She earned a master’s in operational analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2022.
The company’s mission is to “make sure that the Marines across the brigade are prepared to go when they’re called on,” Mullen told Stars and Stripes after the ceremony.
“It provides ability against any adversary in this region for us to be more responsive and adaptable and able to move forward more rapidly to respond when something occurs,” she said.
III MEF commander Lt. Gen. Roger Turner and 3rd Marine Division assistant commander Brig. Gen. Mattew Good were among the approximately 80 Marines and sailors at the ceremony.
Maj. Gen. Toshikatsu Musha, commander of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, represented the Japanese side.
Maj. Codi Anne. Mullen, headquarters company commander of 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, speaks to Stars and Stripes following a stand-up ceremony on Camp Courtney, Okinawa, Jan. 13, 2025. (Ryan M. Breeden/Stars and Stripes)
Brodie said he reorganized the brigade to include a headquarters company to maintain parity with the Japanese marines.
“Our relationship and the things that we may be asked to do in a time of conflict or crisis, there will not be time to build leadership within,” he said. “There will not be time for us to have worked out the challenges ahead of time that could pose us threats to our Marines and our mission success.”
The headquarters company’s centralized command and synchronization will “enhance the brigade’s ability to fight and win in a contested battlespace,” according to a Dec. 23 email announcing the standup.
The move comes as U.S. Forces Japan restructures into a joint force command. The first phase of restructuring USFJ from a liaison-focused organization to an operationally integrated command was announced March 30 by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a visit to Tokyo.
While not necessarily aligned with those changes, the headquarters command “is there, though, for both, to make sure that the units that are here are best postured for why we’re here,” brigade spokesman Maj. Edward Pingel told Stars and Stripes after the ceremony.
AloJapan.com