Two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
I traveled to the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune to follow the training and deployment of members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. A few weeks earlier, the young Marines had been training to fight an abstract enemy but the reality of the
Sept. 11 attacks on the United States focused their energies.
I followed the 26th MEU to their deployment on the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea. These images follow a day like most days on station at sea - flight operations, maintenance, training, boredom.