Once the order was carried out, Colonel Howard wept and said, "My God, and I had to be the first Marine officer ever to surrender a regiment."

Two companies were sent north to Phu Bai to secure a small airfield just 8 miles south of Huế City.

They participated in company and platoon size patrols and ambushes against the VC in the Thừa Thiên–Huế Province till the end of June 1966.

The most recognizable is a Pulitzer Prize winning photo, taken on Hill 400, showing wounded Gunnery Sergeant Jeremiah Purdie being guided by a Hospital Corpsman Darrell Hinde as he reaches out to Lance Corporal Paul Holland Mitchell [1] who was also seriously wounded and waiting to be treated.

At the end of 1966 the 4th Marine Regiment was pulled out of the DMZ and sent south to participate in Operation Chinook around Huế.

On February 27 L/3/4 and a tank platoon was involved in a battle near Hill 48 to save a recon team that ran into a PAVN Regiment.

For the next couple of months the battalion worked Route 9 guarding lines near Cam Lo, The Rockpile and Camp Carroll, which was the largest concentration of artillery pieces in northern I Corps.

The objective of the operation was to test experimental gear, weapons and other equipment essential to a Marine Rifle Squad.

There they worked back to full battalion strength and prepared for deployment to Camp Schwab, Okinawa in 1999–2000.

The battalion redeployed to Iraq in March 2004 and subsequently took part in Operation Vigilant Resolve while attached to the 1st Marine Regiment.

The Marines were spread out in individual platoon-sized combat outposts along the river side, where fighting was especially intense, particularly in the first half of their extended 9-month deployment.

Around Spring time in the second half of the Marines' deployment, the fighting turned to more small scale ambushes and IED attacks conducted by the enemy, who had become increasingly affected by losses in manpower and equipment in the large scale fighting that took place throughout the Fall and Winter months of 2006 and 2007.

The battalion suffered 12 KIA, and over 100 WIA during the nearly 9-month deployment, which was due to being extended for the Troop Surge in early 2007.

The battalion participated in Operation Cobra’s Anger, the first major offensive of the war after President Obama announced a troop surge to the country.

The battalion was deployed in large swath of area between the Helmand and Farah Provinces which included places such as Now Zad, Deleram, Golestan and Bakwa.

In April of 2011 to October 2011, Lima, Kilo and Weapons companies, along with other supporting units, deployed to the dangerous Upper Gereshk Valley in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

The Marines were ordered to keep Taliban forces pinned down in the 'green zone' around the Helmand River so that work on nearby Route 611 could continue uninterrupted.

Over the next six months, five Marines were killed in action (Staff Sergeant Leon H. Lucas, Corporal Paul W. Zanowick, and Lance Corporals Mark R. Goyet, Jason D. Hill, and Christopher L. Camero) and many more wounded in the face of repeated enemy attacks on patrols.

In October, with work completed on Route 611 and their mission accomplished, the battalion withdrew from the valley and returned to the United States.

The mission of the MAGTF was to build cohesion with the Australian Defence Force and the United States Marine Corps.

This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Marine Corps.