oif military police coin

directly to your deployment with 2nd Battalion, 10th Marines (2/10) in OIF 05-07 (May 2005–May 2007). 2/10 (from Camp Lejeune) deployed as part of Regimental Combat Team 5 or similar attachments in Al Anbar Province, with heavy presence around Ramadi, Fallujah, Al Asad (main FOB/base), and Al Qaim (western Euphrates valley near Syria border). During that rotation: • The area was hot—insurgents controlled swaths of Ramadi and Fallujah, with IEDs, ambushes, and small-arms fights common. • Artillery battalions like 2/10 often got pulled into non-standard roles: provisional infantry, site security, convoy escort, and yes—provisional MP duties to fill gaps in security forces. • Your provisional MP stint likely involved base/convoy security, detainee handling, or route clearance in those hotspots. Coins like this were passed out for morale/esprit de corps—earned through patrols, ops, or just surviving the suck together. 2/10’s OIF 05-07 deployment saw them in the thick of it: supporting operations in Ramadi (before the surge turnaround), Al Asad as a hub, and Al Qaim near the border (smuggling/foreign fighter routes). It was brutal—high IED threat, constant indirect fire, and the shift from conventional fights to counterinsurgency. You earning that coin as provisional MP means you were right in the mix, pulling double duty outside your cannon crewman roots.