Netherlands Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Frank Boots, commander of Commander Netherlands Forces in the Caribbean, director of the Dutch Caribbean Coastguard and Commander Task Group 4.4, and Royal Netherlands Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Hans Hijman, command master chief of Commander Netherlands Forces in the Caribbean, visited U.S. Marines from 2d Reconnaissance Battalion (2d Recon), 2d Marine Division (2d MARDIV) and Dutch Marines with the 32nd Raiding Squadron from March 16-21, 2021, on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune during Exercise Caribbean Urban Warrior.

Boots and Hijman visited the U.S. and Dutch Marines participating in Exercise Caribbean Urban Warrior, a bilateral exercise between U.S. Marines from 2d Recon and Dutch Marines from the 32nd Raiding Squadron that helps increase familiarity and interoperability between the U.S. and Dutch forces. During the visit, they observed numerous training events that are mainly centered around the skills necessary to accomplish Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT).

Their visit also allowed them to meet and collaborate with key leaders from across the II Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF) enterprise, including Maj. Gen. Frank Donovan, commanding general of 2d MARDIV, Sgt. Maj. Daniel Krause, 2d MARDIV sergeant major, Brig. Gen. David Odom, deputy commanding general of II MEF, Colonel Dennis W. Sampson, commanding officer of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (26th MEU), and Sgt. Maj. Clement C. Pearson, the 26th MEU sergeant major. These meetings helped reinforce the positive relationship between the U.S. and Netherlands Marine Corps’, while also discussing current and future bilateral training opportunities.

Brig. Gen. Boots joined the Netherlands Marine Corps in 1986, when he attended the Royal Navy College. After graduation, he became a platoon commander with the Netherlands’ 1st Amphibious Combat Unit and the 1st Marine Battalion. He has since held numerous billets and deployed multiple times. His deployments include, but are not limited to: NATO’s Implementation Force in Bosnia during 1995; the United Nations’ Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2000; and Afghanistan in 2012, as the deputy commander/chief of staff of Police Training Group 3. In July 2020, Boots was promoted to brigadier general and assumed his current billet.

Master Chief Petty Officer Hijman joined the Netherlands Marine Corps in 1988. In his first four years he was a paratrooper and completed Mountain and Arctic warfare training in Scotland and Norway. He then switched from the Netherlands Marine Corps to the Royal Netherlands Navy, in which he served on several different ships as a NATO-grade air controller and fighter controller. Master Chief Petty Officer Hijman also previously deployed to support NATO missions in the Adriatic Sea during the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Imagery of both the visit and the exercise is available at the links below. For more information about the exercise, please contact 1st Lt. Dan Linfante at daniel.linfante@usmc.mil.  

-USMC-

For imagery and video of the event, please visit  

DVIDS: https://www.dvidshub.net/unit/2MARDIV  

Facebook: www.facebook.com/2dMarDiv  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/2dMarDiv  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/2dmardiv/  

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/2dmarinedivision/ 

Official Website: https://www.2ndmardiv.marines.mil/