Marines Give Up on Trying to Train at Presidio, Will Look Elsewhere on West Coast

The U.S. Marine Corps conceded defeat Friday in its battle to stage a large-scale experimental military exercise in the Presidio, the onetime Army fort that is now a national park.

The Marines’ War Fighting Laboratory had planned to land 700 troops on the beach March 15 near the Golden Gate Bridge for four days of exercises meant to test fighting skills and state-of-the-art equipment for urban warfare in the 21st century. Now, military officials are combing the West Coast for an alternative site.

In December, the National Park Service denied permission to land on the beaches it controls, fearing harm to wildlife and delicate sand dunes. The Corps offered to land troops at a Coast Guard station farther down the San Francisco Peninsula and bus them to the Presidio.

Now the Presidio Trust, the board that runs the developed areas of the park, has denied the Marines a permit to stage military exercises anywhere in the park interior.

“We turn down things that are too large and not good for this park, and the Marines fall into that category,” said Jim Meadows, executive director of the trust.

The denial leaves the Marines no choice but to go elsewhere, said a bitter Lt. Col. Gary Schenkel, spokesman for the Virginia-based War Fighting Laboratory.

“We’re the Marines,” he said. “We’re not done yet. The Bay Area is a big place.”

“I don’t see why anybody can be against saving lives,” Schenkel said. The Marines had intended to run a disaster relief exercise with local disaster relief organizations, in addition to the military exercises, he said. The Corps also is canceling planned public tours at San Francisco’s Embarcadero of five warships that would have participated in the exercise.

The Corp still plans to carry out a smaller landing and military exercise in Monterey in March. That operation was intended to be the prelude to the Presidio event.