Marines deployed to Haiti found themselves under fire and shooting back, several times last year, their commander recently told reporters at a media roundtable.
“There were multiple engagements at the embassy in Haiti, in which we received and returned fire,” Col. Tom “Banshee” Trimble said on Tuesday. Trimble served as commanding officer of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), which recently returned to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, after a 10-month deployment.
During that time, Marines with the unit were dispatched to Haiti from August to December 2025 to protect the U.S. embassy amid growing violence from criminal gangs, which are estimated to control up to 90% of the country’s capital city, Port-au-Prince.
A Marine Corps spokesman confirmed in November that Marines helping to secure the embassy returned fire after being shot at by “suspected gang members.”
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That was one of several incidents in which Marines fired their weapons in self-defense while deployed to Haiti, Trimble said during the roundtable.
“There was a consistent basis in which we were engaged in Haiti, and then we returned fire,” said Trimble, who did not have any information on Tuesday about exactly how many shootings took place over the course of the Marines’ deployment.
Trimble also did not elaborate on who is believed to have fired at Marines during these incidents.
No Marines were injured or killed in the clashes, Trimble said. He added that the Marines assigned to protect the embassy were also equipped with small drones
“The Marines went unscathed because we went in there, we reinforced positions, and we were well trained to understand what the ROE was,” Trimble said, using the acronym for rules of engagement. “When we received these engagements, we had a clear depiction of what the rules of engagement were. We followed the [rules of engagement] to a T and did exactly what the Department of State wanted us to do in order to defend the embassy in Haiti.”
Trimble was unable to say if any Haitians were killed in the exchanges of fire, telling reporters, “I cannot disclose that, but unknown.”
Ultimately, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit left Haiti to take on other missions and was replaced by a Fleet-Anti-terrorism Security Team, or FAST Company, he said.
During the rest of their deployment, Marines in the unit supported U.S. military operations to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and later conducted a military exercise around the U.S. embassy in Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas.
When asked if any Marines who deployed to Haiti are eligible to receive the Combat Action Ribbon and other awards, Trimble said that officials are still reviewing the matter.
“The award process was still being worked out, but anything that was in accordance with the awards pub or the manuals, we did put the brief up for those awards,” Trimble said.
