The time has come for an Assistant Commandant for Ground Combat Element...

General Dunford was doing a question and answer and a Marine Captain asked (paraphrasing) about the cost of the F-35 and whether it was time for an Assistant Commandant for the Ground Combat Element.

Dunford brushed it aside, and said it was unnecessary.

I cheered at the audacity of the question, the boldness of the Captain to state in public what has been talked about in private...to "beard the lion"!

The Mattis fan club is loud and proud....but no one is asking where he is on the subject.  Other retired Marine Corps generals are painfully silent.

Me and my readers can't be the only people that are alarmed by the cuts in combat power...GROUND COMBAT POWER...that the Marine Corps is undertaking with a kind of glee that makes me wonder if we don't have a fifth column inside our organization.

The Air Wing is well taken care of by the Commandant but not only do they have a voice in the Commandant's chair but they also have an Assistant Commandant to look out for them.

Its obvious that the Ground Combat Element no longer has an advocate.  To expect the Commandant to fill the GCE advocate role in this era of the Marine Corps is to expect too much.

So the real question is this......an Assistant Commandant for Ground Combat makes nothing but sense...but how do you do it?