The U.S. Marines Corps doesn’t have a big presence in Alaska, but that presence is expanding.
The Corps announced two new initiatives Friday that will bring more Marines north to Alaska, some on a rotating basis to coordinate training exercises and others more permanently in a detachment of reservists to be based at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
“This is something that the Marine Corps, Alaska, we've all been working on for a long, long time, and it's really exciting," said U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a retired Marine.
Sullivan announced the plan in Fairbanks with a Marine lieutenant general at his side. The senator has advocated for expanding military units of all types in Alaska, but he’s especially fond of the Marine Corps, in which he served as a reservist until 2024. Sullivan was an active-duty Marine from 1993 to 1997.
Part of the 6th Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, known as 6th ANGLICO, will comprise the permanent detachment of reservists at JBER. Sullivan used to command the company, whose members deploy in small teams with non-Marine forces to support military strikes .
It’s unclear, so far, how many personnel will be included in the plan.
“The new unit that will be coming, the ANGLICO unit, it's not a big unit, but it's a start," Sullivan said.
Separately, there will also be a "Marine Rotational Force - Alaska" to support Marines in Arctic exercises.
As Marine Capt. Steven Keenan explained it, the new rotational force is something like an advance team that will come to Alaska to help set up and coordinate before and during training exercises.
“Somebody who's dedicated to planning and getting integrated with the joint force is the real value that that provides," he said. "That extra structure behind the exercise planning and exercise involvement we were already doing.”
Some 350 Marines were part of the 2026 Arctic Edge exercise, which brings together thousands of personnel from every branch of the U.S. military for training in Alaska each year.
