Sunday, April 22, 2012

Marines are different.

I chose to be a US Marine because I reject the norms of society.  I wanted a different path...and I wanted to be surrounded by people who shared my beliefs.

I found it.

But its in danger.  Read these words from an Army Colonel about the US Marine Corps I want to be associated with....
By Col. Daniel F. Bolger, USA
 (Excerpt from DEATH GROUND: 
TODAY'S AMERICAN INFANTRY IN BATTLE
 "What makes Marine infantry special? Asking the question that way misses the most fundamental point about the United States Marine Corps. In the Marines, everyone--sergeant, mechanic, cannoneer, supply man, clerk, aviator, cook--is a rifleman first. The entire corps, all 170,000 or so on the active rolls, plus the reserves, are all infantry. All speak the language of the rifle and bayonet, of muddy boots and long, hot marches. It's never us and them, only us. That is the secret of the Corps." 
"If Army infantry amounts to a stern monastic order standing apart, on the edge of the wider secular soldier world, Marine infantry more resembles the central totem worshiped by the entire tribe. Marines have specialized, as have all modern military organizations. And despite the all-too-real rigors of boot camp, annual rifle qualification, and high physical standards, a Marine aircraft crew chief or radio repairman wouldn't make a good 0311 on a squad assault. But those Marine technical types know that they serve the humble grunt, the man who will look the enemy in the eye within close to belly-ripping range. Moreover, all Marines think of themselves as grunts at heart, just a bit out of practice at the moment. That connections creates a great strength throughout the Corps."
 "It explains why Marine commanders routinely, even casually, combine widely disparate kinds of capabilities into small units.... Marines send junior officers and NCOs out from their line rifle companies and expect results. They get them, too."
 "Even a single Marine has on call the firepower of the air wing, the Navy, and all of the United States. Or at least he thinks he does. A Marine acts accordingly. He is expected to take charge, to improvise, to adapt, to overcome. A Marine gets by with ancient aircraft (the ratty C-46E Frog, for example), hand-me-down weapons (such as the old M-60 tanks used in the Gulf War), and whatever else he can bum off the Army or cajole out of the Navy. Marines get the job done regardless, because they are Marines. They make a virtue out of necessity. The men, not the gear, make the difference. Now and again, the Marines want to send men, not bullets."
 "This leads to a self-assurance that sometimes comes across as disregard for detailed staff-college quality planning and short shrift for high-level supervision. Senior Army officers in particular sometimes find the Marines amateurish, cavalier, and overly trusting in just wading in and letting the junior leaders sort it out. In the extreme, a few soldiers have looked at the Corps as some weird, inferior, ersatz ground war establishment, a bad knockoff of the real thing. 'A small, bitched-up army talking Navy lingo,' opined Army Brigadier General Frank Armstrong in one of the most brutal interservice assessments. That was going too far. But deep down, many Army professionals tended to wonder about the Marines. Grab a defended beach? Definitely. Seize a hill? Sure, if you don't mind paying a little. But take charge of a really big land operation? Not if we can help it."
 "Anyone who has watched an amphibious landing unfold would be careful with that kind of thinking. The Marines actually have a lot in common with their elite Army infantry brothers, if not with all the various Army headquarters and service echelons. True, Marine orders do tend to be, well...brief. But so do those of the airborne, the air assault, the light-fighters, and the Rangers, for the same good reason: Hard, realistic training teaches soldiers how to fight by doing, over and over, so they need not keep  writing about it, regurgitating basics every time. More enlightened soldiers consider that goodness. A three-inch thick order, a big CP, and lots of meetings do not victory make. The Marines consciously reject all that. And why not? Despite the occasional Tarawa or Beirut, it works."
 "A Corps infused with a rifleman ethos has few barriers to intra-service cooperation. The Army talks a great deal about combined arms and does it down to about battalion level, often with great wailing and gnashing of  teeth. Marines do it all the way down to the individual Marine. Soldiers have defined military occupational specialties and guard their prerogatives like union shop stewards. Finance clerks don't do machine guns. Mechanics skip foot marches to fix trucks. Intell analysts work in air-conditioned trailers; they don't patrol. Marines, though, are just Marines. They all consider themselves trigger pullers. They even like it, as might be expected of an elite body."
Rant on.

I've recieved a number of e-mails telling me that I'm taking it too far when it comes to criticizing the current Commandant.

My response is that I haven't taken it far enough.

Everything that makes the Marine Corps an elite is under assault---from within and without.

Read that passage again and ask yourself one question.  Is our current leadership upholding the values that are cited above?  If you hesitate even one second then the truthful answer is 'no'...no they aren't.

That's what my bitching is about.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Assault Craft Unit 4 in Morocco

120412-N-QM601-065 CAP DRAA, MOROCCO (April 12, 2012) A landing craft air cushion (LCAC) from Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 4 lands on the Moroccan beach of Cap Draa after departing the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7). Iwo Jima is the flagship of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group with the embarked elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU). Iwo Jima is deployed participating in Exercise African Lion 2012, a bi-lateral exercise between U.S. and Moroccan forces in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Scott Youngblood/Released)
120412-N-QM601-076 CAP DRAA, MOROCCO (April 12, 2012) A Landing craft air cushion (LCAC) from Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 4 lands on the Moroccan beach of Cap Draa after departing the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7). Iwo Jima is the flagship of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group with the embarked 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU). Iwo Jima is deployed participating in Exercise African Lion 2012, a bi-lateral exercise between U.S. and Moroccan forces in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Scott Youngblood/Released)

SOCOM vessel collides with fishing boat.

via Navy Times.
Authorities in the southern Philippines are investigating a collision involving a Navy special operations boat that left a local fisherman dead, according to reports.
A Philippine army official told the Mindanao Examiner that a Mark V special operations craft collided with a fisherman’s boat on Wednesday night near a coastal town in Basilan. The Mark V gunboat was operating with the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, based in nearby Zamboanga at the time.
The 82-foot Mark V is operated by Navy special warfare combatant-craft crewmen with naval special warfare units, and often is used in training and operations with Navy SEALs. It can travel more than 55 miles per hour.
Officials at Naval Special Warfare Command headquarters in Coronado had no information on the incident Friday and referred questions to U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii. PACOM officials had no immediate comment.
Another Philippine army official told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the fishing boat had no lights on when it was struck by the Mark V. The son of the fisherman was on the boat at the time but wasn’t seriously hurt, the official said.
The joint U.S.-Filipino spec-ops task force, with about 600 U.S. service members, has been operating in the southern Philippines for more than 10 years, providing counterterrorism training.
The incident comes as more than 4,400 U.S. troops are in the Philippines for the Balikatan joint exercise.
I find a couple of things interesting here.

First.   Notice how Naval Special Warfare ducked behind Pacific Command?

Next.  Notice how everyone defaults to it being operated by Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines instead of identifying the unit involved. 

Last.  This has historically been a Special Forces tasking.  SOCOM is becoming as bureaucratic as the other services.  Not a good sign.  I wonder (because I truly don't know) if they gained anything by taking them out of the lead and making this a joint posting.

Lockheed Martin - Small Tactical Craft

Hat Tip to Lee for the info on this boat.  Thanks.




Friday, April 20, 2012

The Commandant stands alone.

I've been thinking about this initiative to put women into Combat Units in the USMC and realized something.

The Commandant stands alone.

Instead of this news being heralded on MSNBC and other left wing news sites there has been nothing but silence.

When stuff like this is announced you usually will see one or two members of the "Generals" club coming out in support of the initiative.

You don't hear a peep from any retired General on this subject.  Its as if this is too radioactive to touch which brings me to my second realization.

Obama was looking for a Commandant that was "flexible" enough to implement his policies.  In doing so he decided to take a massive SHIT on Marine Corps tradition and selected an aviator for this post.

-----------------------------------Looks like Obama chose well.

But not only here but across the defense establishment.  We have a Chief of Naval Operations that is as useless as the Commandant.  A SecNav that is more interested in green energy than in making sure we have enough ships to do the job.

I have never heard of a Commandant of Marines spoken of with anything but reverence...until now.  Amos is not respected, appears to be in way over his head and is disliked by the troops.

Good thing he's following policies that will make him popular on the lecture circuit and at parties in New York and DC.

Which leads me to my last point.  The Marine Corps has always stood apart from the rest of society.  But now we have something thats new and distinct.

Marine Corps leadership stands apart from the Marines that they're suppose to lead....

Or to put it another way...the general public doesn't understand its Marine Corps and neither does Marine Corps leadership.

I was wrong.  That shouldn't worry you.  That should scare the shit out of you.

Sidenote:
I wonder how this and other actions by the feminist will affect certain laws and legislation.  How can you on one hand state emphatically that women are the very equal of men in every respect and then have say the violence against womens act?  How can you say that women belong on the front lines in combat and then have domestic violence laws geared toward protecting women.

Even more telling will be the psychological effect on men.  We're to look at women as pure warriors.  So what does that do to the male warrior.  Women encountered on the battlefield won't be viewed as individuals needing protection but simply another combatant that is just of a different gender.

The Commandant has drunk the kool-aide and is in the process of destroying the Marine Corps while his benefactor seeks to destroy maleness in society.  Carry your ass sir.  Your services are no longer needed.

UFC 145



Can't wait.  

My bet is Jones stops him in the second.



Submarine Parachute Assistance Group

A member of the Submarine Parachute Assistance Group (SPAG) is pictured on a practices jump into the bay of Gibraltar during an annual training exercise.
The Submarine Parachute Assistance Group (SPAG) was formed using members of staff serving at the Submarine Escape Training Tank (SETT). They are tasked to be able to rapidly deploy a team of people with Escape and Rescue knowledge to provide advice and assistance to the crew of a submarine, survivors on the surface and any other rescue forces involved in the rescue effort.
The SPAG are trained in water descent parachuting using both round and square static-line parachutes. They are on 6 hours notice to take-off, 24 hours a day, all year round.Photographer: Cpl Ralph Merry ABIPP RAF

Cowardice across the blogging world.

The new image of the Marine Corps.  Not a hardcore warrior but a care giver in uniform.


Rant time.

I'm extremely disappointed.

I've been waiting anxiously to see which of the "big boy" blogs would come out and comment on the news yesterday that women would be allowed to go to the Infantry Course.

Not one of them has.

CDR Salamander (which I like alot) is silent.  He'll wax on for days at a time about diversity...but its usually about racial diversity.  This subject he won't touch with a ten foot pole.  Selective outrage anyone?  Yeah.  I'm disappointed and won't read his posts the same ever again.

Information Dissemination.  I don't like Galrahn and his crew.  They're arrogant, condescending and I always had a grudging suspicion that they were under cover ass kissers.  Suspicions confirmed.  He isn't touching on this either.

Black Five.  On this one I am extremely surprised.  They haven't touched on it and they're composed of all these warrior, type A personality types.  They also have writers from the only two SOCOM outfits that I like and respect...Rangers and Special Forces...but they're silent too.  Extremely disappointed.

Last but not least is USNI Blog.  I think simply saying that Colonel Ripley would not be happy is enough.

I've always been told and truly believe that physical courage is much easier than moral courage.  Charging through a hail of gunfire is easier than taking politically unpopular positions.

This subject proves that to be true.

(I apologize in advance Army guys) But remember when US Marines used to laugh at pics like the ones below????  Something tells me that all the guys that were heading to the Marines to standout will be heading toward the Army now.  Airborne, Air Assault and Ranger Units will probably start to overflow with new recruits once the Marine Corps puts this female in the Grunts initiative in place. 


Ironic words.  "Lucky for us, we still have the Marines"...not any fucking more.  GOD!  I wish the leadership would just carry their sorry asses out the door!