The 5th Battalion (Mechanised) Royal Australian Regiment welcomes the Marines to Darwin on Wednesday.
The first Marines have just pivoted toward the Pacific – as President Obama pledged the U.S. military would do – with their initial six-month deployment to Darwin, Australia. That’s a scant 3,700 miles from Beijing. It’s a big deal in a geostrategic, great-state power game sort of way. But the Northern Territory News took a different angle in Wednesday’s edition:
Darwin pubs are looking to stock up on American beers as 200 US Marines make the Top End home for the next six months. Bogart’s Bar and Grill, at Parap, is ordering in Budweiser, while Shennanigans is considering putting the same popular US beer on tap along with another American brand, Miller…
Jasmine Dysart, of Humpty Doo, 26, said she would be staying at home while the Marines were in Darwin. She did not think women needed to be warned about “randy’ US Marines in town. She said “certain types” of women would be out on the prowl. “Probably, it’s the Marines who need to be warned,” she said.