CHARLESTON, S.C.  —  Two Marine Corps fighter pilots have been rescued from the ocean off South Carolina after their aircraft went down.

A statement from the U.S. Coast Guard said Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort notified the Coast Guard at about 5:17 p.m. Wednesday that two pilots aboard a Marine F/A-18D Hornet went down about 35 miles off the coast.

Authorities said two parachutes were spotted, indicating that the pilots had ejected. A Coast Guard helicopter from Charleston located the missing pilots and rescued them about an hour after the crash.

The Coast Guard statement didn't say if the Marines were injured. Coast Guard officials didn't immediately return messages seeking further comment Wednesday night.

The pilots are attached to Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 224.

The U.S. military transported a dozen World War II Marines to Iwo Jima on Wednesday in time for them to attend the 65th anniversary commemoration of their greatest victory — but not before some tense moments.

The 12 Marines from the Greatest Generation Foundation had asked Pentagon officials to help them get to Iwo Jima after a charter plane company that had volunteered to take them to the battle site canceled unexpectedly two weeks ago, Stars & Stripes reported.

But that request had not been approved or denied as of late Tuesday, less than 24 hours before Wednesday’s memorial ceremony was set to begin, and the group feared the 12 veterans would be stranded on Okinawa.

SLIDESHOW: Return to Iwo Jima, 65 Years Later

SLIDESHOW: Iwo Jima Reunion

Maj. Maureen Schumann, a Pentagon spokeswoman, confirmed to FoxNews.com that a C-130 transport plane was eventually dispatched to take the veterans — ranging in age from 85 to 97 — on the final leg of their journey.

The Greatest Generation Foundation, a Denver-based nonprofit veterans group, reportedly spent $150,000 to get the group to Okinawa, where they were joined by a group of students from the College of the Ozarks who documented the trip.

Military officials had earlier recommended the foundation take a charter flight to Iwo Jima, but Timothy Davis, the foundation’s president, told Stars & Stripes the group did not have $50,000 to cover the trip.

Stars & Stripes reported that one of the veterans was hospitalized with stroke-like symptoms after arriving in Okinawa, but he was released Sunday. Another veteran reportedly suffering from an infection was hospitalized Tuesday.

Iwo Jima was the site of some of the fiercest fighting in the World War II campaign against Japan. U.S. troops captured the island in March 1945 after more than a month of fighting. Roughly 6,900 U.S. Marines and 20,000 Japanese soldiers died in the battle.

Robin Morgan, a College of the Ozarks student traveling with the group, characterized her time with the veterans as a blessing.

"All of the students were blessed with the opportunity to have a round table discussion with the veterans," Morgan wrote on a blog chronicling the trip. "I cannot begin to explain how powerful their stories truly are. The thing that most amazes me is that they do not desire any attention or praise. Instead they want the focus to be on those that gave the ultimate sacrifice."

MARJAH, Afghanistan —  More than 2,000 U.S. Marines and about 1,000 Afghan troops who stormed the Taliban town of Marjah as part of a major NATO offensive against a resurgent Taliban will stay for the next several months to help ensure insurgents don't return, Marine commanders said Sunday.

Two Marine battalions, along with their Afghan counterparts, will be stationed in Marjah and help patrol it as part of NATO's "clear, hold, build" strategy, which calls for troops to secure the area, restore a civilian Afghan administration, and bring in aid and public services to win the support of the local population, commanders said.

On Sunday, the 1,000 Marines with the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines Regiment were fortifying positions to the north and west of the town, taking over compounds and building others from scratch to create a small garrison, known as a Forward Operating Base, as well as combat outposts and a network of temporary patrol bases, said Capt. Joshua Winfrey, head of Lima Company.

To the south of Marjah, another battalion was doing the same, Winfrey said. About 1,000 Afghan troops will accompany the Marines, he added.

Marine spokesman Capt. Abe Sipe said construction of a more permanent military outpost will facilitate a long-term NATO presence in the town.

"We are going to have a presence in Marjah for some time. There's no plans for anyone to pull out," Sipe said. "The idea is to live among the local nationals because we found that's the best way to partner with local security partners to make Afghans feel safe and not under threat."

Afghan residents in Marjah had told government officials that they preferred NATO troops to be based in the town itself, instead of being outside, to provide better security.

Winfrey said he has been told that the entire battalion expects to be stationed in Marjah until the end of its deployment in August.

Establishing a credible local government is a key component of NATO's strategy for the longtime Taliban logistical hub and drug trafficking center. Last week, the government installed a new civilian chief, and several hundred Afghan police have already begun patrolling newly cleared areas of Marjah and the surrounding district of Nad Ali.

The Marjah offensive has been the biggest military operation since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to topple the Taliban's hard-line regime. It's the first major test of NATO's counterinsurgency strategy since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 new American troops to try to reverse Taliban gains.

But the challenges in routing the Taliban are formidable. A team of suicide attackers struck Friday in the heart of the capital, Kabul, killing at least 16 people in assaults on two small hotels. Half of the dead were foreigners. The attack served as a reminder that the insurgents still have the strength to launch attacks — even in the capital.

On Sunday, three top police commanders in Kabul offered to resign from their posts for failing to prevent the insurgents' attack.

"We are the people responsible for the security of Kabul, we failed to provide that security and we don't want to be responsible for others dying," said Gen. Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, the chief of Kabul's criminal investigation unit. The city's police chief and deputy police chief also offered to resign, according to the Interior Ministry.

However, the interior minister told all three to continue in their posts until an investigation is finished. At that point, he will decide whether or not to accept their resignations, said Zemeri Bashary, a spokesman for the ministry.

In other violence, 11 members of one family were killed Sunday in southern Helmand province when their tractor, with a truck-bed hitched to the back, hit a roadside bomb, said provincial government spokesman Daoud Ahmadi. All aboard died, including two women and two children.

Ahmadi said the Sunday attack occurred in Now Zad district, significantly north of the area where international and Afghan forces launched their military push against the Taliban.

Top Afghan officials made a final effort to win over the people of the Taliban-dominated Marjah region ahead of an expected U.S.-led assault. The result: Some tribal elders pledged to cooperate with coalition forces once the shooting starts, but some remained skeptical of the government and its Western backers.

Afghan and allied commanders plan to use the Marjah offensive as a showcase for their shift in focus away from simply killing Taliban and toward protecting civilians and improving local governance, where entrenched corruption has bolstered support for the militants.

"If Marjah is out of government control that is the government's fault because the central government abandoned us," said Abdul Ahad Helmandal, one of the 150 tribal elders who attended the talks, in a telephone interview after the meeting. "Widespread corruption in the government caused people to stopped trusting the central government."

Michael Yon reports from Afghanistan

As the talks took place, Taliban fighters skirmished with troops from the Afghan-U.S.-British task force arrayed on the edge of Marjah, a once sleepy collection of poor villages in southern Afghanistan that is now the focal point in the first phase of the latest U.S. surge.

Marines, who engaged small bands of Taliban, said they thought the militants were trying to draw them into the larger fight before the allied forces were ready, according to the Associated Press. No casualties were reported.

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