Carabine is headed to the Far East

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After two tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, East Hampton native Conlon Carabine, a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, next month will join a seasonal amphibious task force that responds to crises and backs humanitarian efforts throughout the Far East.

Mr. Carabine, 34, has been on active duty with the Marine Corps for 12 years and underwent four years of schooling before that to become a commissioned officer. He is the son of longtime East Hampton Veterans of Foreign Wars Commander Brian Carabine, who has taken a one-year hiatus from his job to help his wife, Prudence Carabine, the president of the Peconic Community Council, in her campaign for a Town Board seat.

In August, Mr. Carabine will be deployed to Okinawa, Japan, with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler. It is made up of 2,200 Marines and is one of seven Marine Expeditionary Units in the Marine Corps. It is the only one that is permanently deployed overseas.

“Anything can pop up—a volcano, a tsunami, what happened in East Timor,” he said, referring to a food shortage in the Southeast Asian country in 2007. Mr. Carabine said that his unit also will respond if the situation in North Korea continues to escalate.

Mr. Carabine has been to Okinawa as a visitor but was never on active duty there. He is scheduled to return home early in 2010.

“Okinawa is a nice, very tropical, decent port with a lot of history,” he said.

Mr. Carabine’s last tour of duty, in the city of Hit on the west bank of the Euphrates River in Anbar Province, Iraq, ended in December 2007. Anbar was one of the insurgent hotbeds early on in the war, but during Mr. Carabine’s tour the U.S. strategy shifted to encompass more involvement on the part of Iraqis.

Mr. Carabine, who speaks Arabic, started a program to ship soccer balls from the United States to give to children in Hit.

“I stay in touch with my interpreter and my friends in the Iraqi Army,” he said. “Most of the war in Iraq is pretty much wrapped up, which is great.”

Though U.S. forces left Iraqi cities at the end of June, Mr. Carabine said that most Marines had left the cities well before the deadline, as the war wound down.

Mr. Carabine, who is currently in San Diego waiting for his deployment, plans to spend at least another eight years in the Marine Corps, after which he is eligible for retirement.

“I’m still having fun,” he said. “I’m going to stay in until then.”