[pct-l] USMC Birthday & Veterans Day

[Tom Bache]

Jim and Ginny Owen,

Your post was totally off-topic for PCT-L ‹ and off-topic posts usually
annoy me.
But this is so much on the topic we should all think about on Veteran¹s Day
that I must thank you for posting it.

Tom Bache
USMC
1964-1968


> In any case, the article that follows is a very short history lesson. I
> think it's appropriate to remember just what it is that keeps this country
> free so that those who choose to do so can hike the long trails.
> 
> Walk softly,
> Jim
> 
>> >March 11, 2004
>> >
> Return of the Marines: All-American warriors in Iraq
> by W. Thomas Smith Jr.
> 
> Beginning this month, leathernecks from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
> will return to Iraq, replacing elements of the Army's 82nd Airborne
> Division. The return of the Marines is surely bad news for those desperate
> to undermine the liberation of Iraq.
> 
> Not to take anything away from the U.S. Army  its soldiers have performed
> magnificently, and will no doubt continue to do so  but America's enemies
> have a particular fear of U.S. Marines.
> 
> During the first Gulf War in 1991, over 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were deployed
> 
> along the Iraqi-Kuwaiti coastline in anticipation of a landing by some
> 17,000 U.S. Marines. Terrified by what they had been taught about the combat
> 
> prowess of Marines, the Iraqi soldiers had nicknamed them "Angels of Death."
> 
> The moniker  first published by Pulitzer-winner Rick Atkinson in his
> best-selling Crusade  carried over into the second Gulf war, last year, as
> the 1st Marine Division swept across the Iraqi plains. Attacking American
> forces were unsettling enough, but reports of the seaborne "Angels of Death"
> 
> being among the lead elements were paralyzing to many Iraqi combatants.
> 
> Despite less armor than other American ground forces, the Marines were among
> 
> the first to fight their way into Baghdad. And when intelligence indicated
> that foreign troops were coming to the aid of Iraqi diehards, Marine Brig.
> Gen. John Kelly stated, "we want all Jihad fighters to come here. That way
> we can kill them all before they get bus tickets to New York City."
> 
> Typical Marine bravado, some say. But it works.
> 
> Best-selling author Tom Clancy once wrote, "Marines are mystical. They have
> magic." It is this same magic, Clancy added, that "may well frighten
> potential opponents more than the actual violence Marines can generate in
> combat."
> 
> Fear of Marines is not a new phenomenon, nor is it unique to Iraqi soldiers.
> 
> Established in 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps came of age in World War I during
> 
> the 1918 Chateau Thierry campaign near the French village of Bouresches.
> There, Marines assaulted a line of German machine-gun nests on an old
> hunting preserve known as Belleau Wood. The fighting was terrible. Those
> Marines who weren't cut down by the enemy guns captured the nests in a
> grisly close-quarters slugfest. The shocked Germans nicknamed their foes,
> teufelhunden (devil dogs).
> 
> "Marines are considered a sort of elite Corps designed to go into action
> outside the United States," read a German intelligence report following the
> battle. "They consider their membership in the Marine Corps to be something
> of an honor. They proudly resent any attempts to place their regiments on a
> par with other infantry regiments."
> 
> Twenty-four years later as the 1st Marine Division was steaming toward
> Guadalcanal, a Japanese radio propagandist taunted that which the Japanese
> soldiers feared most. "Where are the famous United States Marines hiding?"
> the announcer asked. "The Marines are supposed to be the finest soldiers in
> the world, but no one has seen them yet?"
> 
> Over the next three years, Marines would further their reputation at places
> with names like Tarawa, Saipan, and Iwo Jima.
> 
> That reputation carried over into the Korean War.
> 
> "Panic sweeps my men when they are facing the American Marines," confessed a
> 
> captured North Korean major. It was a fear echoed by his Chinese allies. In
> late 1950, Chinese premier Mao Tse Tung put out a contract on the 1st Marine
> 
> Division. The Marine division, according to Mao in written orders to the
> commander of the Chinese 9th Army Group, "has the highest combat
> effectiveness in the American armed forces. It seems not enough for our four
> 
> divisions to surround and annihilate its two regiments. You should have one
> or two more divisions as a reserve force."
> 
> Though costly for both sides, the subsequent Chinese trap failed to destroy
> the 1st Marine Division.
> 
> U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Frank Lowe later admitted, "The safest place in Korea
> was right behind a platoon of Marines. Lord, how they could fight!"
> 
> Over a decade later, Marines were the first major ground combat force in
> Vietnam. Army Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded all American
> military forces in that country, conservatively stated he "admired the ilan
> of Marines." But despite the admiration, some Army leaders found their
> equally proficient units wanting for similar respect.
> 
> In 1982, during the invasion of Grenada, Army General John Vessey, then
> chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, telephoned one of his officers and
> demanded to know why there were "two companies of Marines running all over
> the island and thousands of Army troops doing nothing. What the hell is
> going on?"
> 
> The reputation of Marines stems from a variety of factors: The Marine Corps
> is the smallest, most unique branch of the U.S. armed forces. Though it is
> organized as a separate armed service, it is officially a Naval
> infantry/combined-arms force overseen by the secretary of the Navy. The
> Corps' philosophical approach to training and combat differs from other
> branches. Marine boot camp  more of a rite-of-passage than a training
> program  is the longest and toughest recruit indoctrination program of any
> of the military services. Men and women train separately. All Marines from
> private to Commandant are considered to be first-and-foremost riflemen. And
> special-operations units in the Marines are not accorded the same respect as
> 
> they are in other branches. The Marines view special operations as simply
> another realm of warfighting. Marines are Marines, and no individual Marine
> or Marine unit is considered more elite than the other.
> 
> Consequently, newly minted Marines believe themselves to be superior to
> other soldiers, spawning understandable resentment from other branches.
> 
> But do Marines actually fight better than other soldiers? Rivals argue it's
> not so much their ability to fight  though that's never been a question 
> but that Marines are simply masters in the art of public relations.
> President Harry Truman once stated that Marines "have a propaganda machine
> that is almost equal to Stalin's." Fact is, while other armed services have
> lured recruits with promises of money for college, "a great way of life," or
> 
> "being all you can be;" the Marines have asked only "for a few good men [and
> 
> today, women]" with the mettle to join their ranks.
> 
> Not surprisingly, there have been numerous unsuccessful efforts  primarily
> on the part of some Army and Navy officers  to have the Corps either
> disbanded or absorbed into the Army or Navy. Most of those efforts took
> place in the first half of the 20th Century. But even after the Marines'
> stellar performance in World War II, Army General Frank Armstrong proposed
> bringing them into the Army fold and condescendingly referring to the Corps
> as "a small bitched-up army talking Navy lingo."
> 
> As late as 1997, Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister took aim at the
> 
> Marines. "I think the Army is much more connected to society than the
> Marines are." Lister said before an audience at Harvard University. "Marines
> 
> are extremists. Wherever you have extremists, you've got some risks of total
> 
> disconnection with society. And that's a little dangerous."
> 
> Of course, the Commandant of the Marine Corps demanded an apology. Lister
> was fired. And Marines secretly said among themselves, "Yes we are
> extremists. We are dangerous. That's why we win wars and are feared
> throughout the world."
> 
> Despite its detractors, the Marines have become a wholly American
> institution  like baseball players, cowboys, and astronauts  in the eyes
> of most Americans. Marines indeed may be extreme, but America loves them,
> extremism and all. And fortunately for America, her enemies in the war
> against terror will continue to shudder upon hearing, "the Marines have
> landed."
> 
>  A former U.S. Marine infantry leader and paratrooper, W. Thomas Smith Jr.
> is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in a variety of national
> and international publications. His third book, Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to
> American Airborne Forces, has just been published.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/pct-l/attachments/20071112/8746b997/attachment.html