Time is right to back troops

Assemblyman Tom Harman and City Councilman Gil Coerper have joined

together on an idea that the City Council should waste no time

approving: adoption of a Camp Pendleton Marine battalion.

Like so many others at Camp Pendleton, members of the 3rd

Battalion, 1st Marines -- or the “Thundering Third” -- are among the

first to deploy when the government calls on our armed services. They

have already have served tours of duty in Iraq.

When they are stationed overseas, it is not just the Marines

suffering the obvious hardship of being far from home and in such

dangerous circumstances. Families back at the base are left without

the support of a father or mother, wife or husband.

That is when the adoption will work so well.

The adoption, city leaders say, will work quite simply: It won’t

take any money from the city’s coffers, but just will encourage

members of the community to send letters to Marines of the

“Thundering Third” and, perhaps more importantly, to provide a

support system for them and their families.

That is pretty close to what’s happened in Newport Beach, which

adopted another Camp Pendleton battalion. One event raised about

$90,000 and several times community members have provided much-need,

and much-welcomed, aid to family members of Marines serving overseas.

There’s no reason community leaders in Huntington Beach cannot do

the same. Certainly, the Marines deserve all the support they can

get. It is difficult to imagine how we could repay them what they

have earned.

We hope council members will act quickly on this proposal and do

what they can to get the city’s support rolling.

It will be the right thing to do, just as it was the right thing

for Harman and Coerper to pitch the idea in the first place. Both

deserve our praise.