The commander of 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, at Camp Pendleton in California was relieved of command last week, according to a statement from the Marine Corps.
Lt. Col. Christopher O'Melia was fired from his role as battalion commander on March 26 “due to a loss of trust and confidence in his ability to continue to serve in that position,” Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Lucas Burke told Military.com in an email.
“There is no more sacred position in this division than that of a commanding officer,” Maj. Gen. Benjamin Watson, the commanding general of 1st Marine Division who relieved O'Melia, said in an emailed statement. “Our Marines and sailors deserve the absolute best leadership the Marine Corps can offer, and I am committed to providing them the leadership they deserve.”
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Lt. Col. Jonathan Wagner, a prior-enlisted Marine who served as the operations officer for the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, deploying as part of Marine Rotational Force-Southeast Asia, has since taken command.
The 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, website had already been updated to reflect the change, with O'Melia's biography replaced with Wagner's before news publicly broke about the dismissal. While O'Melia's biography is currently unavailable, a website for the 12th Marine Corps District showed that he served as commander of Recruiting Station Los Angeles until 2021. He…
