SAN DIEGO
After three years at the helm of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Col. Charles Dockery’s stint as commanding officer came to an end Friday morning at a ceremony on the base.
Since taking charge of the San Diego air station in 2018, Dockery has overseen historic missions on the base, including the integration of F-35C fighters and the quarantine of U.S. evacuees from Wuhan, China, as the pandemic began impacting American life.
On Feb. 5, 2020, weeks before lockdowns, mask mandates and hundreds of thousands of U.S. deaths, 167 Americans landed on Miramar’s flightline to begin a two-week quarantine on the base. Miramar was one of a handful of U.S. military bases picked to host evacuees from China at the time.