U.S. Marines with 3d Battalion, 2d Marines conduct Alert Contingency Marine Air-Ground Task Force Exercise at Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Japan, June 9, 2022. III Marine Expeditionary Force executed these actions as part of a series of integrated no-notice drills to maintain a high state of readiness and demonstrate U.S. resolve to maintain regional security. 3/2 is forward-deployed under 4th Marines, 3d Marine Division as a part of the Unit Deployment Program.
Remember a while back when some POS Marine Officer penned a letter asking "who are we"?
In retrospect it was the opening salvo in the FD2030 fiasco. A preliminary strike using the buzzword (that came out of nowhere except from Marine Corps critics) that the USMC was a second land army.
Cool. You won the fight. Congrats.
But who the fuck are you now? You've thrown away your legacy and basically declared every action from Belleau Woods to the Chosin Reservoir to Khe Sanh and Fallujah as nothing but aberrations. Actions that have nothing to do with what the Marine Corps actually is about.
So my question to all those bubbas is this.
Who are you now?
A coastal defense force that has no application outside the Pacific? Instead of a Medium Weight Scalable Force that is applicable across the spectrum of combat, you're now a one trick pony that can easily be replaced once the Navy convinces Congress to fully fund it?
You beg for more amphibs when sea denial really needs more Corvettes, Frigates and Destroyers...manned and unmanned aircraft?
You demand to be known as an enabling force...acting as the eyes and ears of the joint force when that can be better accomplished with unmanned systems - whether air, sea or underwater?
Who are you now?
A force that has in essence doomed itself because you fell in line with a zealot that came up with an idea and has convinced his sycophants that he's right and any critique is heresy?
I saw a series of military fiction that pushed the idea that FD2030 would save the Marine Corps from irrelevancy. It will do anything but. The Krulak Center along with Combat Development produced a steaming pile of dogshit and the masses (especially the Think Tanks/Transformationalist) are eating it up.
