AUGUST 18, 2025 — At the close of Exercise Talisman Sabre 25, the Indo-Pacific’s largest combined military exercise with over 40,000 service members, U.S. Marines with the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) 25.3 Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) began the mass retrograde from training areas across northern Australia. Aircraft, vehicles, and personnel returned to Darwin for recovery and consolidation—a familiar rhythm for the end of a months-long exercise.
With the force disaggregated across the battlespace, MRF-D received urgent notification: the Philippine government had requested U.S. military support through available forces in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) to ongoing disaster relief operations following back-to-back tropical storms and an intensified southwest monsoon. The weather system inundated parts of Central and Northern Luzon, triggering landslides, flooding, and widespread damage to infrastructure. One isolated province — Batanes, a chain of islands in the northernmost reaches of the Philippines — was cut off from critical supplies.
In the operational blink of an eye, MRF-D transitioned from consolidating thousands of dispersed forces to real-world crisis response across the vastness of the Indo-Pacific.
The shift began with MRF-D’s Command Element (CE) surging personnel forward to establish command and control capabilities for the response. While forward, MRF-D’s Combat Operations Center (COC) in Darwin provided the brains to the command and control nervous system extending to the Philippines. Passage of command and control between the two nodes enabled the flexibility necessary for the rapid transition of MAGTF operations from training to crisis response. Augmented with liaison officers, communications Marines, and planners, the CE rapidly established a scalable, distributed command and control node capable of integrating with joint, combined, and interagency partners in Manila.
Following that, four MV-22B Ospreys assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 363, after just completing nearly 200 flights hours for Talisman Sabre, departed without delay to Clark Air Base, Luzon, Philippines. This trans-Pacific flight demonstrated the MAGTF’s unprecedented ability to regroup, refit, and redeploy in support of allied and partner needs anywhere in the world. In a few days following the Osprey flights, KC-130J Super Hercules aircraft assigned to Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron (VMGR) 153 ferried additional MAGTF CE enablers to Clark Air Base to bolster the MAGTF’s intelligence, communications, planning, and air coordination capabilities and enable effective coordination with Philippine planners.
“The first challenge started from first notification of preparing to deploy,” said Lt. Col. Geoffrey “Finkle” Blumenfeld, the commanding officer of VMM-363, MRF-D 25.3. “Just coming off Talisman Sabre, several weeks of a lot of flights, maintenance, and then preparing to fly nearly 2,000 miles from Darwin up here to Clark Air Base requires a lot of perseverance.”
The humanitarian relief effort centered on leveraging critical airlift capabilities provided by U.S. Marine Corps MV-22B and CV-22s assigned to the U.S. Air Force’s 353rd Special Operations Wing (SOW), and Philippine Air Force (PAF) MC-130 cargo aircraft to deliver life-sustaining aid. Both the MV-22 and CV-22 airframes, capable of vertical takeoff and landing yet able to cruise at airplane speeds, can lift significant payloads over long distances, ideal for landing directly on Batanes’ short, rugged runways.
The mission: move more than 6,300 family food packs from mainland Luzon to the Batanes Islands — each pack providing enough rice, canned goods, and essential items to feed a family for several days. This combined air effort would provide the most efficient means of prepositioning large quantities of aid to the region quickly.
To sustain continuous relief supply flights, the combined U.S.-Philippine response force leveraged Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) infrastructure — specifically, Lal-lo Airport in the Cagayan province. Recently developed as a cooperative site between the U.S. and the Philippines, Lal-lo provided a forward refueling and staging point for Ospreys, U.S. special operations aircraft, and PAF transports.
“The utilization of Lal-lo Airport served as a critical force multiplier,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Shahid Jordan, an expeditionary fuels officer with the MRF-D 25.3 MAGTF. “It provided an additional forward refueling point for air assets, extended our operational reach and sustained the uninterrupted aerial delivery of vital supplies within the region.”
Despite the combined capability, the military did not act alone. The disaster response across Luzon and Batanes represented a whole-of-government approach between the Philippines and the United States. U.S. Department of State’s response team, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the U.S. military worked seamlessly under the leadership of the Philippines’ Office of Civil Defense (OCD), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and the World Food Programme (WFP) to support the Philippines’ disaster relief efforts and aid those in need.
“The United States stands shoulder to shoulder with our Filipino allies, especially in responding to disasters,” said U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson. “We are grateful to the combined relief and rescue teams who have been working tirelessly on the ground to deliver emergency assistance to affected residents.”
From its forward-deployed command and control node, MRF-D’s leadership integrated air tasking requests, coordinated with Philippine military and civilian authorities, and synchronized joint and combined logistics. The operation validated MRF-D’s ability to conduct distributed operations from Australia to the Philippines in a real-world scenario — precisely the conditions necessary to validate stand-in force concepts alongside a joint and allied force.
Over the course of the operation, the U.S.-Philippine response force successfully delivered all 6,300 family food packs to Batanes, ensuring every community in the province had access to food and basic necessities. This effort contributed to the larger combined response to provide nearly 48,000 family food packs to over 200,000 personnel across the Philippines and deliver emergency shelter assistance and hygiene kits to more than 3,000 affected families.
Behind the disaster relief flights were the aircraft maintainers, refuelers, and pilots that fought through friction, long hours, and even tighter timelines.
“Our overall goal for the mission was to deliver this cargo as fast, efficiently, and safely as we possibly could,” said Cpl. Zachary Griffin, an MV-22B Osprey crew chief with VMM-363, MRF-D 25.3. “For my crew, amongst my maintainers within my own shop and the entire maintenance department, there’s a constant flow of communication to ensure that these aircraft remained in an up status and we were able to take off when we needed them to.”
Just as swiftly as they responded to disaster relief, the MRF-D MAGTF switched gears to Exercise Alon in the Philippines.
Alon (meaning “wave” in Tagalog) is an Australian-Philippine led exercise designed to demonstrate combined high-end amphibious warfighting skills together with supporting participation from the United States and Canada. With its pieces already in position, the MRF-D MAGTF moved seamlessly from aid to action, integrating into the exercise continuum and delivering the full capabilities of the MAGTF to the combined force.
“The recent collaboration between the United States Marine Corps, United States Air Force, and the Philippine Air Force showcased the power of integrated operations in conducting relief efforts,” added Lt. Col. Randell R. Medina, Philippine Air Force. “The recent HADR [Humanitarian Aid Disaster Relief] operations not only ensured seamless coordination across forces but also laid a strong foundation for future missions.”
The sequence — from distributed combined training to disaster relief operations and back — reaffirmed the operational agility of U.S. and allied forces in the Indo-Pacific. It manifested a real-world proof of concept: a force that can scale from training to operations and back again without losing momentum.
For MRF-D, it was also an affirmation of why the rotation exists. Forward-deployed forces in Darwin are within reach of crises across the theater, capable of rapidly reinforcing allies and partners when called upon. The operation also demonstrated the strategic value of partnerships, infrastructure agreements, continuous joint and combined training. The same relationships forged during exercises like Balikatan, KAMANDAG, Archipelagic Coastal Defense, and many others enabled the speed and effectiveness of the relief mission.
As the MRF-D MAGTF’s rotation continues, the lessons from this rapid transition will feed future training and planning. The ability to switch from large scale operations across thousands of kilometers of continent to real-world disaster relief is no longer hypothetical. It has been tested, proven, and refined.
“This rotation is built for exactly this kind of challenge,” said Col. Jason Armas, the commanding officer of the MRF-D 25.3 MAGTF. “Our Marines and Sailors proved that no matter the mission, we can adapt in an instant — shifting from training to real-world operations with a kind of purpose, precision, and unity of effort that define our Corps. Whether it’s building readiness, strengthening partnerships, or answering the call to help those in need, we stand ready anywhere in the world.”
Story by Capt. John Fischer
Marine Rotational Force – Darwin