LOWRYleaks: Greetings from aboard the USS Bataan 4/27/11

Two hundred and six years ago today, on April 27, 1805, a small band of United States Marines led the first American action on foreign soil when they attacked the harbor fortress at Derna, Libya, in America’s first undeclared war; a fight against the Barbary Pirates.

The United States Marine Corps has a longstanding relationship with their brothers in the Navy. The Marines were carried on the very same journey in 1804 as we are undertaking today. Lieutenant Presley N. O’Bannon, USMC, sailed the Atlantic and Mediterranean with his small band of Marines ‘to the shores of Tripoli.’