Get Rid of the Marine Corps???

Besides our abilities in the battlespace, we have 245 years of "gung-ho'ness" history that has been instilled in our brain housing group that pushes us to be the way we are both in the world and in the zone. We will be here forever...at least the remainder of my lifetime....;-)
 
Totally true. Although I had to move to Hawaii to get him to actually visit... for some reason he couldn't bring himself to come see us at West Point. Maybe this time around...

For those who haven't met him yet, Teufel is one of the best storytellers I've ever met. My children would get so excited when I would tell them he was coming to town. My oldest insisted on riding with me to drop him off at his hotel so she could hear more stories about @pardus , who she also met many years ago at @Ex3 's summer home.

He's also an amazing cook. 10/10, would recommend having him come over to your house for dinner. :)
Also when I visited you all at West Point with @Marine0311 and brought you some Scottish swill.

I think we are a fairly balanced force presently that can easily adapt to different missions. The current direction is to invest everything in this concept and divest of anything that does not directly support this mission. It's also a cultural shift. We go from "the nation's 9/11 force" to a service entirely dedicated to directly supporting the Navy in their quest for sea control. The Marine Corps has always had a island seizing mission. The Commandant is talking about building up little island fortresses similar to what the Chinese are doing and staying within the adversary's weapons engagement zone. We are dropping almost all conventional artillery in favor of multiple launch rocket systems and I assume eventually anti ship missiles. Each of the Marine Littoral Regiments will have anti-air capabilities that do not presently reside within the Marine infantry divisions (they are with the Air Wing). The commandant has even talked about getting into the anti-sub game Marines Will Help Fight Submarines. I think that these new Marine commandos may be using small boats and maybe even swimming ashore to infiltrate into the littorals. That said, I'm not in any of the experiment and war gaming groups so this is all my opinion and guess work.

Without any research, my first thought is that the Corps is setting itself up exactly as the Japs did in WWII, isolated, static, pre-targeted and almost irrelevant unless they occupy something particularly useful in which case they could be bombed and then overrun by a superior force in short fashion.
I wonder if the next Commandant, and the one after that, will continue along this line?
 
Dude, I completely forgot about that actually until you mentioned it. Must have been the whiskey ;)

Well, I'm back so I guess it's time for another meetup with you two.

Indeed, however I'm currently deployed somewhere sandy where the Kosher club have been stirring up trouble so it'll have to wait a few months yet.
 
Without any research, my first thought is that the Corps is setting itself up exactly as the Japs did in WWII, isolated, static, pre-targeted and almost irrelevant unless they occupy something particularly useful in which case they could be bombed and then overrun by a superior force in short fashion.
I wonder if the next Commandant, and the one after that, will continue along this line

The Marine Corps is far from irrelevant. We’re a multibillion dollar warfighting organization with a plethora of hard fighting experience from you-name-it campaign, skirmish, etc.. scattered across the ranks and all we care about is making ourselves as lethal and ready as possible.

It is said that every 23 seconds a Commander is dragged into a conference room to sponsor a new initiative brought on by Major, MSgt, MGySgt, Gunner, Captain so and so, etc.. to either fuck up an enemy or demonstrate how we’re going to fuck up an enemy in a really shitty place... then we go prove it.

We’re not extremely scaleable as a force but we can dominate the ever living dog shit out of a large region or territory and everything will be smoldering by the time everyone else arrives. Our lack of size also means we can do a pretty quick turnaround from conceptualizing something to getting some legs to the idea and funding/supplying/implementing the gear and/or training.

Our combat support types are top notch in their understanding of the combat jobs they support. Im not talking Pfc whats-his-nuts, Im talking GySgt Coffee & Cigarettes who has been all over the Force at various commands who did time in the middle east. He plans motor t, comm, etc and does so at the advantage of knowing & understanding what the guys on the ground need because the Marine Corps is so small that even he took on a flak, kevlar, and crew served or hit some patrol work outside his firebase or vpb.

Even that little PFC could plop down on an M2, function it, and put rounds downrange (results may vary). A data geek is probably humping out a sustainment load to the prescribed Marine Combat Readiness standard for his assigned Infantry Company time now.

Marines are the fucking shit and anyone who doesnt know that already is just waiting to find out.
 
The Marine Corps is far from irrelevant. We’re a multibillion dollar warfighting organization with a plethora of hard fighting experience from you-name-it campaign, skirmish, etc.. scattered across the ranks and all we care about is making ourselves as lethal and ready as possible.

It is said that every 23 seconds a Commander is dragged into a conference room to sponsor a new initiative brought on by Major, MSgt, MGySgt, Gunner, Captain so and so, etc.. to either fuck up an enemy or demonstrate how we’re going to fuck up an enemy in a really shitty place... then we go prove it.

We’re not extremely scaleable as a force but we can dominate the ever living dog shit out of a large region or territory and everything will be smoldering by the time everyone else arrives. Our lack of size also means we can do a pretty quick turnaround from conceptualizing something to getting some legs to the idea and funding/supplying/implementing the gear and/or training.

Our combat support types are top notch in their understanding of the combat jobs they support. Im not talking Pfc whats-his-nuts, Im talking GySgt Coffee & Cigarettes who has been all over the Force at various commands who did time in the middle east. He plans motor t, comm, etc and does so at the advantage of knowing & understanding what the guys on the ground need because the Marine Corps is so small that even he took on a flak, kevlar, and crew served or hit some patrol work outside his firebase or vpb.

Even that little PFC could plop down on an M2, function it, and put rounds downrange (results may vary). A data geek is probably humping out a sustainment load to the prescribed Marine Combat Readiness standard for his assigned Infantry Company time now.

Marines are the fucking shit and anyone who doesnt know that already is just waiting to find out.

On day one of FMSS at Camp Pendleton we were told "you are not Marines but as close to being one without having stepped on yellow footprints; as a corpsman you will also be part infantry, part logistics, part clerk, part motor-T, part shrink, part chaplain. You will have to talk with a general with as much ease as you talk with a private, and you need to understand military strategy, tactics, and history just as much as you understand medicine. You may be in the Navy but you are no longer in the Navy. You are part of the World's Finest Fighting Force."

That's in quotes because it was part of the welcome aboard package we got. I know there's some ooh-rah and moto in that, but really, it's pretty true.
 
Without any research, my first thought is that the Corps is setting itself up exactly as the Japs did in WWII, isolated, static, pre-targeted and almost irrelevant unless they occupy something particularly useful in which case they could be bombed and then overrun by a superior force in short fashion.
I wonder if the next Commandant, and the one after that, will continue along this line?

I need to disagree here. While I do believe you are correct in some regards, especially that maybe the strategy is too narrow focused, the intent is to not stay on an island long enough to be targeted. The teams will be agile and light, capable of moving around. The intent here is that so they cant be targeted by bombing raids or shipboard missiles.
 
Well...we did always refer to ourselves as "03 do-it-alls" back in the day....;-)

Maybe we are now coming full-circle....
 
I think it was Robert Heinlein who said specialization is for insects and we (humans) attempt to achieve broad competency. I think the Corps in general does this extremely well--it's always had to do more with less, and this is just a natural extension.
To be honest, it really is that way to a great degree now. The only thing I didn't do a lot of was dealing with mortars. As to most everything else in the 03 field, I did it with competency but only received two of the MOS's.
 
I don't know a single 0311 in the fleet that cant already operate as an 0331 but that training doesn't happen at ITB.
To be honest, it really is that way to a great degree now. The only thing I didn't do a lot of was dealing with mortars. As to most everything else in the 03 field, I did it with competency but only received two of the MOS's.

You know how the Navy is about warfare qualifications; to get the FMF qualification I had to be able to disassemble, reassemble, clean, fix minor problems with, and use every weapon in 'that' unit's TO&E. In the FSSG unit, that was M9 and M4. In the weaps platoon, that meant mortars. In the infantry platoon, that meant the SAW. The idea wasn't to become an expert but rather have enough knowledge to fill in if needed.
 
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