Cpl. Chue Lee, a radio operator with the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment, is promoted during the Resolute Dragon exercise at Camp Ishigaki, Okinawa, Aug. 1, 2024. He is the first Marine to be promoted to corporal on Ishigaki. (Alyssa Chuluda/US Marine Corps)

Two members of the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment are the first in the Marine Corps to be promoted at a Japanese army base in Ishigaki, 240 kilometers west of Taiwan.

The promotion ceremonies for Privates Chue Lee and Tyler Clinard were held on August 1 at the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces Camp Ishigaki.

“I feel it is important that my promotion took place here because Marines do not typically have the opportunity to be promoted overseas, let alone in a place they have only been to once before,” Clinard said in an Aug. 5 Marine Corps press release.

The Marines visited Camp Ishigaki for the first time last year as part of Resolute Dragon, the annual training exercise between the III Marine Expeditionary Force and the Japanese Western Army.

III MEF did not respond to emailed requests from Stars and Stripes for further information about the promotions.

The two corporals were promoted during the final week of this year’s Resolute Dragon, the fourth iteration of the exercise. About 3,000 Marines and 5,700 Japanese soldiers took part in this year’s exercise, which ended on August 7.

“I am so proud to have been promoted here,” Lee said in the press release. “Now that I am a corporal, I have to be a role model to my younger Marines and learn how to lead and mentor them.”

The promotion of the two Marines at the Japanese base in Okinawa Prefecture underscores the focus on the integration of American and Japanese military efforts, the press release said.

The US and Japan are strengthening their cooperation, while China is expanding its military strength and making territorial claims in the East and South China Seas.

The promotions also met with strong reactions from the Marines’ families.

“There is no greater honor than being the father of a Marine,” Clinard’s father, Jackie Clinard, said in the press release. “I gave a boy to the Corps and they brought me back as America’s finest Marine.”

Cpl. Tyler Clinard, an intelligence analyst with the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment, is promoted during the Resolute Dragon exercise at Camp Ishigaki, Okinawa, Aug. 1, 2024. He is the second Marine ever promoted to the rank of corporal on Ishigaki. (Alyssa Chuluda/US Marine Corps)

This year’s Resolute Dragon program included the deployment of radar systems on Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost inhabited island, training with American MV-22 and Japanese V-22 Ospreys, medical and logistical training, and force-on-force and gunnery exercises, the press release said.

The US Air Force had planned to deploy two CV-22 Ospreys to participate in Resolute Dragon, but cancelled their deployment before the exercise began because they had to focus on training requirements.

The US and Japanese militaries had previously grounded their tiltrotor fleets after an Osprey from Yokota Air Base crashed off the southern coast of Japan, killing all eight pilots on board. The US lifted its flight ban on March 8 and Japan resumed operations with its Ospreys on March 21.