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Message: [QUOTE="Hitman2/3, post: 35814, member: 101"] I found the article to have an interesting view on things; however I would have to disagree with a fair amount of what he had in mind. Specifically, big surprise, the portion on the Marine Corps being absorbed into the Army, but also the idea of saying Army you can only operate on land, Navy only water, Air force you got the skies. I understand where he was trying to go with this, but he either isn't aware of why the other services have been so successful or just decided to overlook it in the interest of this plan. For one thing you can't start sectioning off each Department to only have assets that pertain to their "Job". This in itself is just not good tactics. The author proposes that all the branches turn their respective air power over to the Air Force, who will then train, and detach said units back to their respective branch. First problem here, of many, is that for the most part the Air force knows dick about operating from a carrier and close air support. Now I'm not talking about what the Air Force calls close air support, I'm talking about what Marine aviation call close air support. Not dropping shit at 2km out, but more like 800m or closer depending on the munitions and severity of the situation. As far as carrier ops I think if you tell an AF pilot to go land on a postage stamp in the middle of the ocean at night in inclement weather he might just tell you to fuck off. Navy pilots are use to operating far away from friendly airfields and pushing until they are lower on fuel then an AF pilot would even consider. Not knocking the AF on either account because God knows they bring some pain, but when you train someone as an AF pilot then tell them to go and work off of a Carrier or get down a couple of hundred feet off the deck and lay some hate there is definitely going to be a problem and combat effectiveness of the respective force is going to take a nose dive. Why bother taking a tried and true capability away from on branch and give it to another just so that the same capability can now be turned over to the same branch that had it in the first place only in worse condition. It’s a waste of time money and resources. This same argument could be made for putting SEALs in the Army as was implied by the author. Saying that a SEAL has no business operating in the mountains is like saying a frog has no business on land. You can't limit a SOF to a specific geographical location, they can specialize in one but you can't say "Even though there is no telling where the next conflict will be and we might need you guys to do it you aren't going to train in mountainous environments because you should be sticking to the water". I think we all know it doesn’t work that way. Next, while I agree that the Marine Corps and Army have much more in common than the Marine Corps and Navy I don't see how folding us into the Army will improve our combat effectiveness or help the over all situation. If anything it almost looks as though this individual is trying to eliminate what he sees as the competition. Fold the Marine Corps into the Army then the Army Generals (who are obviously loyal to the Army and possibly to a specific unit) get to decide who a mission goes to, regardless of if this new Marine Corps is best suited for the mission chances are it will go to a less capable Army unit. The Marine Corps effectiveness as a Combat element lies in the understanding of how it works by those individuals on high who have more or less inherited the wisdom of those who went before them. If you turnover the reigns to someone who has inherited the knowledge of how the Army works, there are going to be problems, potentially big problems. One I can foresee right off the bat is boot camp. "Why can't these Marines (who are now technically soldiers) go to Army boot camp, what do we need two different boot camps for?" I'm not going to get into the specifics but those individuals who have studied Marine Corps culture already know what I'm saying. A joke I once heard from my Black Hat at jump was "You tell a soldier to charge a machine gun nest he'll tell you fuck no. You tell a Marine rifle man the same thing and he goes without question" While it’s a joke maybe a little extreme, and doesn’t apply to every Soldier or Marine it’s not too far off as some of you may be able to attest. That discipline and instant willingness and obedience to orders starts at boot camp. The leaders of the Corps know that more likely than not those boots, just like the Soldiers of a Ranger Bn, will someday find themselves in a really shity place with little to no back up and just the Marines to their left and right. There is no time for a PFC/LCpl to question an order, as I frequently observed Army Pvts at Jump doing on a regular basis (needless to say there was much hazing, I mean training going on while myself and my fellow Marines squashed all inserections). I don't know how you guys deal with it I would be choking a boot everyday. Anyway, you take away the institution that makes Marines and the foundation that makes the Corps the Corps is soon to follow. Finally the Marine Corps, despite the current situation is an Expeditionary unit. While the Army is capable of Expeditionary warfare I think the Marine Corps has proven itself to be the go to branch for such missions. I mean hell at any given time there are three Marine Expeditionary Units out and about ready to deliver a re-enforced battalion of Grunts anywhere in the world with in hours, backed up by enough armor air and logistics to sustain a hard fight for a fairly long time. The author seemed to want to use the Marine Corps in the role of the Ranger Regiment and the Rangers more or less as strictly security for SF and SFOD-D, which would be a gross misuse of boths talents and capabilities. I do agree that there needs to stop being dick measuring contest both between branches and units within the branches. However, making a cookie cutter military is not the way to go, and if anything make the Corps its own branch, it damn near already is. The Navy's even stealing our uniforms:) . The more time we spend fighting each other the less time we have to fight and kill the enemy. P.S. Sigo thanks for the complement, you too always bring some good convo to the table. [/QUOTE]

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