Corps to launch Marine Week event in Chicago

[unhappycamper]

The Marine Corps plans to hold its first Marine Week this spring in Chicago.


Corps to launch Marine Week event in Chicago
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Feb 12, 2009 22:14:43 EST

The Corps will launch an effort this spring similar to the Navy’s popular Fleet Week, with hundreds of Marines descending on Chicago in May for a week of community outreach efforts, concerts and demonstrations by a Marine Air-Ground Task Force.

Marine Week will begin May 11 and extend through the following weekend, said Maj. David Romley, the Corps’ director of community relations. It will conclude with activities at Navy Pier, the 3,300-foot-long tourist attraction on Lake Michigan that is surrounded by restaurants, sculptures and a 150-foot Ferris wheel.

“It’s akin to the Navy Fleet Week, and it kind of has the same purpose,” said Romley, who is based at the Pentagon. “The Marine Corps is looking to share its history, its traditions and what it has to offer.”

Fleet Week, a joint community outreach effort involving the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, has been held since 1935. Fleet Week events are held annually in cities across the U.S., particularly in New York City, where it was romanticized in the television show “Sex in the City.”

The Corps’ event has been in planning stages for months but had been kept quiet until Thursday. No Web site for the event has been launched, and neither the Corps nor Chicago Mayor Richard Daley had acknowledged it previously. Daley’s office was not immediately available for comment.


Rest of article at: http://marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/02/marine_marineweek_021209w/%2e



uhc comment: The Marine Corps is trolling for fresh meat.