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Amidst a slew of new equipment coming down the pipeline for U.S. Marines is a new designated marksman rifle. The M38 scoped rifle is designed to give Marine infantry squads the ability to hit individual targets at ranges of up to 600 meters with greater precision than Marines equipped with ordinary M4 carbines. According to Marine Corps Times the rifle will be fully issued by September 2018. After 9/11, the U.S. Army and Marines saw a need for a rifle that could reach out and hit targets at a greater distance than the typical M4 carbine or M16A2/A4 rifle could...

Statement from R. Lee Ermey's long time manager, Bill Rogin: It is with deep sadness that I regret to inform you all that R. Lee Ermey ("The Gunny") passed away this morning from complications of pneumonia. He will be greatly missed by all of us. Semper Fi, Gunny. Godspeed.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- A senior Marine Corps official confirmed today that the service is lockstep with the Army's effort to search for a rifle round more potent than the current 5.56mm round. For months, senior Army officials have been telling Congress that the current 5.56mm Enhanced Performance Round is not potent enough to penetrate enemy body armor plates similar to U.S. military-issue rifle plates such as the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert, or ESAPI. As a solution, the Army is experimenting with a plan to replace its M249 squad automatic weapon and M4 carbine with futuristic weapons that fire...

The Marine Corps plans on adopting the Mk 13 Mod 7 sniper rifle for Marine scout snipers, officials confirmed to Marine Corps Times on April 2, a much-needed and long-overdue replacement for the M40 system that Marines have wielded since the Vietnam War. Since the start of the Global War on Terror in 2001, the M40’s 1000-yard range has proved limiting for U.S. combat troops engaging militants in sprawling fightings in the mountains and desert of Afghanistan and Iraq. But according to Marine Corps Times, the Mk 13 “pushes beyond 1,000 yards” offered with a .300 Winchester Magnum round. That...

Japan on Saturday activated its first marine unit since World War Two trained to counter invaders occupying Japanese islands along the edge of the East China Sea that Tokyo fears are vulnerable to attack by China. In a ceremony held at a military base near Sasebo on the southwest island of Kyushu, about 1,500 members of the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB) wearing camouflage lined up outside amid cold, windy weather. "Given the increasingly difficult defense and security situation surrounding Japan, defense of our islands has become a critical mandate," Tomohiro Yamamoto, vice defense minister, said in a speech....

EL CENTRO, Calif. (KABC) -- A Marine Corps helicopter based in El Centro crashed on a training mission and all four crew members are believed to have died, officials said.

... But when I arrived at Parris Island in June 2014 to command Fourth Battalion — the only training unit for enlisted female recruits in the Marine Corps — I saw something that shocked me. Lined up behind the female formation stood a conspicuous row of chairs. I was told that if any of these women who were about to join the few and the proud felt tired or lightheaded, she was invited to sit. Men had no such luxury. At that moment, I realized new Marines were taught that the corps had lower expectations for women. One of my...

The US Marine Corps is set to replace its M9s with 35,000 Modular Handgun System pistols, budgeting over $6 million for the procurement. Since the US army’s adoption of the XM17/18 in January 2017, there has been much speculation around if and when the other services would follow. It seems the Marine Corps will be the first. The recently published 2019 Fiscal Year Budget Estimates Justification Book for United States Marine Corps procurement gives us some insight into the Corps small arms aims for the next couple of years. The adoption of SIG Sauer’s Modular Handgun System is one of...

This is the continuation of my first story The DarkI posted a couple of days ago. These events took place in April, 1967.

Back in the 1980’s, the Army ran a series of successful commercials, with the slogan, “Be All You Can Be.” The corny ads depicted a US Army that was reborn during the Reagan administration and an Army that actually focused on killing bad guys and breaking things. Imagine that… Flash forward to the Orwellian hell of the Pentagon in 2018, where your military left is right, where men are pregnant, where women are transitioning to men, where lactation stations are now part of the military’s SOP, where the girl next door, at 5 feet nothing and weighing nothing will be...

Some of you asked me to write some more about my experiences all those years ago. This one is about a close call and my memories of it.

Photographer Joe Rosenthal admitted that when he took a shot of five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima’s Mt. Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945, he had no idea that he had captured something extraordinary. He was setting up for a different shot when he spotted the group of men planting the flag and quickly took a snap without even looking through the viewfinder. The chance photo would become iconic overnight and go on to win the Pulitzer Prize.

The U.S. Marine Corps will no longer require prospective officers to pass a punishing combat endurance test to graduate from the service’s Infantry Officer Course. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller quietly made the shift to standards in November, altering the test from a pass/fail requirement to just one of many exercises measured as part of overall IOC evaluation, the Marine Corps Times first reported on Thursday. The course is considered among the military’s toughest training programs, with about a quarter of all students failing to complete it, according to the Washington Post. Most of the 30-plus women who have...

Major who led unit calls for more public apology The United States Marine Corps has finally exonerated a group of special forces Marines accused of war crimes in connection to a 2007 ambush in Afghanistan. Major General Frederick M. Padilla, speaking on behalf of Commandant General Robert B. Neller, sent a letter to Rep. Walter Jones (R., N.C.) acknowledging that seven members of the Marine Corps' first special forces unit acted appropriately when they returned fire following a suicide bombing and ambush from enemy forces. Padilla quoted from a 2008 Marine Corps Court of Inquiry, saying the Marines "acted appropriately"...

CBS Minnesota Local WCCO reports that United States Marine Woody Williams will be representing a group of 15 Medal of Honor recipients at tonight’s Super Bowl LII between the New England Patriots and Philadephia Eagles. Williams, aged 94 years-old, will do the official coin toss to determine who starts the game with the ball.Williams said he hopes that the coin toss and the game will in some way unite the nation to “respect our country” and the flag.“To be honored in this way, it’s just almost like a miracle,” Williams said. “It really is because you don’t ever dream or...

What’s a guy got to do to get ahead around here? That is what the ambitious and hard-working U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton must be asking himself today — especially after U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy’s nationally televised speech Tuesday night. The way Moulton sees it, he does all the work and Kennedy, his rival, gets all the attention. Some feel that on a level-playing field it is Moulton who should have been chosen to give the official Democrat Party response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address — not Kennedy. Moulton, an Iraqi War veteran, has recruited some 19...

In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base. “At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s...

I just got off the phone with my son. He and his brother enlisted together, went through basic training and now are at SOI. They are in week one. He told me about the weapons system upgrades the Marines are getting in the next few years. Both he and his brother were homeschooled and part of their curriculum was shooting. I bought of them AR’s when they were 10 and 11 years old, they are 15 months different in age. He told me they are getting better night vision, suppressed weapon systems, and upgraded rifles in the next few years....

With its official operational date fast approaching, Japan’s first Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade kicked off the bilateral Iron Fist 2018 exercise on Friday with an opening ceremony alongside its Marine Corps hosts. It wasn’t a time for long speeches. Over the next month, 350 soldiers with the Japan Ground Self Defense Force will train closely with Marines to hone skills that will run the gamut from amphibious reconnaissance and fire-and-maneuver assaults to close-air support and staff planning. They will fire mortars and artillery, land on beaches aboard rubber boats and assault craft and attack and defend “friendly” land from foes...

The U.S. Marine Corps has picked the Heckler & Koch M27 as its new infantry rifle. Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert Neller confirmed the selection in an interview with Military.com. The new rifle is part of a wider overhaul of the Marines’ infantry gear. Jarheads are also getting new communications equipment, body armor, suppressors and night-vision optics.