[pct-l] USMC Birthday & Veterans Day

[g l]

I was annoyed by it.  And I say that meaning no disrespect to any present or former service men.  I just think it was better suited to another forum......perhaps one related to the armed forces.

Wheeew

Tom Bache <tbache at san.rr.com> wrote:Re: [pct-l] USMC Birthday & Veterans Day     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 Veteran’s 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.
 > _______________________________________________
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