Posted on 05/20/2010 5:52:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
HBO's 10-part series on the Pacific campaign of World War II just ended. That story of island-hopping was mostly about how the old breed of U.S. Marines fought diehard Japanese infantrymen face-to-face in places like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Guam and Okinawa.
We still argue whether it was smart to storm those entrenched Japanese positions or whether all those islands were strategically necessary. But no one can question the Marine Corps' record of having defeating the most savage infantrymen of the age, thereby shattering the myth of Japanese military invincibility.
Since WWII, the Marines have turned up almost anywhere that America finds itself in a jam against supposedly unconquerable enemies -- in bloody places like Inchon and the Chosin Reservoir in Korea, at Hue and Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War, at the two bloody sieges of Fallujah in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan.
Over the last two centuries, two truths have emerged about the Marine Corps. One, they defeat the toughest of America's adversaries under the worst of conditions. And two, periodically their way of doing things -- and their eccentric culture of self-regard -- so bothers our military planners that some higher-ups try either to curb their independence or end the Corps altogether.
After the Pacific fighting, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson wanted to disband the Marines Corps. What good were amphibious landings in the nuclear age? Johnson asked. His boss, President Harry Truman, agreed and didn't like the cocky Marines either.
Then came Korea -- and suddenly the Pentagon wanted more Marines. The fighting against hard-core North Korean and Communist Chinese veterans was as nasty as anything seen in three millennia of organized warfare. The antiquated idea of landing on beaches proved once again a smart way of outflanking the enemy.
The Marines survived Korea, Louis Johnson and Harry Truman -- and continued to carve out their own logistics, air-support and tactical doctrine. Marine self-sufficiency was due to lingering distrust of the other services dating back to the lack of air and naval support in World War II, and to Marine paranoia that the other services liked their combative spirit but not their independence.
We are once again seeing one of those periodic re-examinations of the Corps. This time, the old stereotype of the lone-ranger, gung-ho Marines supposedly doesn't fit too well with fighting sophisticated urban counterinsurgency under an integrated, international command.
After all, America is fighting wars in which we rarely hear of the number of enemy dead, but a great deal about the need to rebuild cities and infrastructure. In Afghanistan, there have been rumors about a new medal for "courageous restraint" that would honor soldiers who hesitated pulling the trigger against the enemy out of concern about harming civilians.
The Marines are now starting to redeploy to Afghanistan from Iraq and are building a huge base in Delaram. They plan to win over southern Afghanistan's remote, wild Nimruz province that heretofore has been mostly a no-go Taliban stronghold. While NATO forces concentrate on Afghanistan's major cities, the Marines think they can win over local populations their way, take on and defeat the Taliban, and bring all of Nimruz back from the brink -- with their trademark warning "no better friend, no worse enemy."
So once again, the Marines are convinced that their own ingenuity and audacity can succeed where others have failed. And once again, not everyone agrees.
The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, retired three-star Army General Karl W. Eikenberry, reportedly made a comment about there being 41 nations serving in Afghanistan -- and a 42nd composed of the Marine Corps. One unnamed Obama administration official was quoted by the Washington Post as saying, "We have better operational coherence with virtually all of our NATO allies than we have with the U.S. Marine Corps."
Some officials call the new Marine enclave in Nimruz Province "Marinestan" -- as if, out of a Kipling or Conrad novel, the Marines have gone rogue to set up their own independent province of operations.
Yet once again, it would be wise not to tamper with the independence of the Marine Corps., given that its methods of training, deployment, fighting, counterinsurgency and conventional warfare usually pay off in the end.
The technological and political face of war is always changing. But its essence -- organized violence to achieve political ends -- is no different from antiquity. Conflict will remain the same as long as human nature does as well.
The Marines have always best understood that. And from the Marines' initial mission against the Barbary Pirates to the battles in Fallujah, Americans have wanted a maverick Marine Corps -- a sort of insurance policy that kept them safe, just in case.
Johnson was just about the worst SecDef post-WWII. A pure political appointee by Truman, and he was out shortly after the Korean War started.
Hey, the source is an Obama Admin official. What else would we expect from such a weasel?
“One unnamed Obama administration official was quoted by the Washington Post as saying, “We have better operational coherence with virtually all of our NATO allies than we have with the U.S. Marine Corps.”
That’s because the US Marines fight FOR America not against it!
OOOH RAH!
I suspect the USMC may be an embarrassment to the Administration simply because the Corps gets the job done.....in comparison to the Stateless Department.
When a Marine kills the only thing he feels is the recoil of his rifle.
Uh Rah
VDH nails it again.
I wish he would have mentioned that the Corps wrote the first counter-insurgency manual in the 30’s.
Concerning Chosin Reservoir in Korea, the battle there was really, really bloody and the Marines got cut up bad, but they were still there and needed some help withdrawing from the scene ~ plenty of material on the net can give you an idea of what went on there.
Some really bright guy somewhere in Department of Defense decided that the unit to send to "hold the door open" and serve as a "rear guard" for that withdrawal was the 1/15 Infantry ~ Audy Murphy's unit ~ in terms of military awards and battle streamers quite arguably the BEST Army Infantry there's ever been.
Whether they were really up to the task at the Frozen Chosen was beside the point ~ the Marines deserved the best and they got the best and the 1/15 accepted the honor.
BTW, our top supply sergeant at Harvey Barracks had been in the 1/15 Infantry "way back when" that happened.
The current fascist regime doesn’t like the Corps because they can’t control them to the point that they will do their bidding. They take the oath to protect and defend the Constitution seriously and that is something the democrat party cannot abide in their program to set up a socialist dictatorship. Semper Fi!
FUBO
This quote kind of gets to the heart of the issue:
“We have two companies of Marines running rampant all over the northern half of this island, and three Army regiments pinned down in the southwestern corner, doing nothing. What the hell is going on?”
- Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., USA, Chairman of the the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the assault on Grenada, 1983
“With the Old Breed” is a great book. The series seems to take mostly from that book and “Helmet For My Pillow” by Bob Leckie. One of my favorite lines in the movie came in the last episode.
The character of Bob Leckie was sitting at the dinner table with his family. There was the usual chit chat around the table and they were talking about TVs and Leckie seemed to be really knowledgable on the subject and said he was saving up to get one. Other family members were poo poohing the TV and complaining about the strikes going on and the bad economy and asking rhetorically “Is this what our country fought for? To go on strike?”. Leckie says, you know what I fought for? There was this silence as everyone wanted to hear what he had to say, thinking it would be profound. He said, television....
whoops!! I meant to say O.P. Smith. Not Julian Smith, a WWII Marine General.
Exactly
Basic Military Rules
Marine Corps Rules:
01. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
02. Decide to be aggressive enough, quickly enough.
03. Have a plan.
04. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won’t work.
05. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
06. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start
with a ‘4.’
07. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is
expensive.
08. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend (Lateral &
diagonal preferred.)
09. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
10. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or
tactics. They will only remember who lived.
13. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating your intention to
shoot.
Navy SEAL’s Rules:
1. Look very cool in sunglasses.
2. Kill every living thing within view.
3. Adjust Speedo.
4. Check hair in mirror.
US Army Rangers Rules:
1. Walk in 50 miles wearing 75 pound rucksack while starving.
2. Locate individuals requiring killing.
3. Request permission via radio from ‘Higher’ to perform killing.
4. Curse bitterly when mission is aborted.
5. Walk out 50 miles wearing a 75 pound rucksack while starving.
US Army Rules:
1. Curse bitterly when receiving operational order.
2. Make sure there is extra ammo and extra coffee.
3. Curse bitterly.
4. Curse bitterly.
5. Do not listen to 2nd LTs; it can get you killed.
6. Curse bitterly.
US Air Force Rules:
1. Have a cocktail.
2. Adjust temperature on air-conditioner.
3. See what’s on HBO.
4. Ask ‘What is a gunfight?’
5. Request more funding from Congress with a ‘killer’ Power Point
presentation.
6. Wine & dine ‘’key’ Congressmen, invite DOD & defense industry executives.
7. Receive funding, set up new command and assemble assets.
8. Declare the assets ‘strategic’ and never deploy them operationally.
9. Hurry to make 13:45 tee-time.
10. Make sure the base is as far as possible from the conflict but close
enough to have tax exemption.
US Navy Rules:
1. Go to Sea.
2. Drink Coffee.
3. Deploy Marines
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