Guam contractors work on a portion of one of Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz's bachelor enlisted quarters on Dec. 10, 2024. (Alex Wilson/Stars and Stripes)
Marines are expected to arrive at their new quarters on Camp Blaz, still a work in progress on Guam, as early as June, a base spokeswoman said Friday.
Blaz anticipates about 75 junior Marines and sailors to begin moving into bachelor enlisted quarters, Maj. Diann Rosenfeld told Stars and Stripes by email.
“Current planning efforts support the commander’s priority to begin moving Marines and Sailors into the barracks aboard the Main Cantonment as early as June,” she wrote. “The barracks are designed to support the ranks of sergeant and below.”
The base has eight enlisted barracks under construction with a capacity for about 600 troops each, for a total of around 4,800 Marines, Rosenfeld added.
Blaz — the first new Marine Corps installation in 72 years — is still largely under construction, but the base has completed numerous projects as it prepares for an influx of Marines from Okinawa.
Marines eat during the grand-opening of the first Camp Blaz-owned chow hall at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, April 24, 2025. (Afton Smiley/U.S. Marine Corps)
The Marines opened their first chow hall on the island on April 18 at nearby Andersen Air Force Base’s North Ramp, where the Marines plan to locate their aviation element.
The chow hall is open to all active-duty service members on Guam, according to a Marine news release that day.
“Our program’s mission is to ensure the fighting force is eating healthy and sustaining themselves,” Master Sgt. Kelvin Tapia, the camp’s acting food service officer, said in the release. “[This is] not just for Camp Blaz but for all the rotating forces in the Pacific.”
Two bachelor officers quarters, each capable of housing an additional 388 Marines, are also under construction, Rosenfeld said.
“Ongoing construction completion dates for these living quarters is phased over the next one to three years,” she wrote.
About 4,000 Marines are expected to move from Okinawa to Guam, part of a 2012 agreement between the U.S. and Japan to reduce the American military footprint on Okinawa, where nearly 30,000 of the 55,000 U.S. service members in Japan are stationed.
About 1,300 members of III Marine Expeditionary Force may be permanently stationed on Guam, while another 3,700 Marines may rotate through the island on temporary deployments.
The Defense Policy Review Initiative relocates some Marine assets from Okinawa to Guam, and elsewhere, including Hawaii. Japan is providing approximately $3 billion of the estimated $8.6 billion to build Blaz and other infrastructure.
Completed projects on Guam include numerous infrastructure upgrades, an aviation maintenance hangar, a waterfront headquarters building at Naval Base Guam, family housing units at Andersen, a fire station and an administration building, according to a Dec. 18 email from Rosenfeld.
