Why does the Army scream the loudest to eliminate the Marine Corps? Did you guys all skip the Air-Ground Expeditionary Warfare classes?

Hunter is right on the money about the need to continue cutting more high-level O’s. As GE’s Jack Welch used to say ‘cost reduction and improved efficiency is a everyday thing not a one time thing’. Seems to me that the biggest opposition to Pentagon personnel and procurement reform will not so much be the services but greedy congressmen with defense jobs in their districts and rabid nut case right-wing chicken-hawk Republicans.

As far as the Marines are concerned since the nation seemingly treasures the reputation and image of the USMC more so than the less colorful and somewhat more disorientated Army why go ahead and reduce the USMC down to about the 120,000 level but slice the Army dramatically sending two-thirds or more of the units into the National Guard and leaving behind a regular training cadre and a combined arms highly mobile strike force? Something like a tank and artillery brigade, along with Special Forces, Rangers, and attack and transport rotary. If something big develops mobilized deeper into the Natl. Guard, which should absorbed the service reserves.

It is the Marine Corps that has historically captured the public’s and Congress’s imagination and is the legendary force that has the global reputation. Why sacrifice that unique tradition to absorb it into the Army? It is like shutting down Tiffany’s and making it into just another aisle in Wal-Mart.

The concept and development of the EFV that began in the 1980’s was solid, but even if the technology could have delivered it as planned in the 1990’s, the Navy’s concern today with the evolving G-RAAM threat may have a presented a ship-to-shore open sea challenge - the cancellation was probably agreed upon when Gates chose to recommend Gen. Amos’s nomination to the president for CMC.

This, in my view, is a blessing in disguise for the Corps to get back to the innovation it is famous for, along with seizing upon newer and affordable technology.

I’m pretty sure your “stick a fork” statement was meant to elicit rabid rhetoric. You don’t really mean to merge the two services do you? Oh well, it’s a thought. . .but hold that thought.

Secretary Gates has indicated he sees IW is in America’s military’s foreseeable future, but the military must also be prepared to fight a state-on-state confrontation. With that in mind, and also the fact that the majority of the world’s population lives around or near the littorals, it makes perfect sense for the Marines to realign for that role, and the conventional Army to go back to doctrinal planning and training for the big bang combined arms event.

In closing, I would remind you, the Marine Corps’ history is that of fighting IW or small wars, and already had a fairly relevant Small Wars Manual on the shelf prior to the Army flailing-around until creating one of their own doctrine by plagiarizing the likes of Galulua and Trinquier.

Incidentally, did they really allow you as a field grade officer to use a fork, a utensil that has pointy ends on it. and could have poked your eye out? : )

I'd rather see the EFV built and keep the Corps. But without it they haven't got a prayer of doing their legendary 'from the sea' mission - which is pretty suspect even with the EFV - so shutter the force and call it quits.

You Marines are a testy lot. And the Tiffany's comparison is lofty. There is no envy in this matter. I'd rather see a single Defense Force and roll all of them up into one. The amount of waste we have with redundant recruiting, administration, logistics, human resources etc. far outstrips the salaries of a few generals. You know what, heresy though it may be I think one set of common utility uniforms (allowing for actual wartime conditions of course) would be more cost effective too. We used to have that, sort of, until everyone wanted to be pretty little unique snowflakes. Military academies... consolidate those 4 into 2. It goes on and on.

Traditions are great but they ought to come well behind every other criteria esp. effectivity and cost etc. Did you see how they are gonna cut the Army back by some 50,000 troops in the midst of two wars? And you want to worry about what name we stitch across a warfighter's chest? Who cares? We're paying for tradition with redundancy and on the backs of manpower. Make new traditions that are more logical. We have massive, massive problems in the military and in the country and they aren't gonna get solved by dancing around the periphery. Hell, it will give us old men more to complain about and be wistful for. Get off my lawn!

I follow your logic. Perhaps the Corps hasn’t done a good job of articulating its vision of Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS), as opposed to the frontal beach assault of yesteryear, that still lingers in many peoples’ minds, having been distracted by a decade of draining land locked conflict alongside their Army brethren

In that regard I wouldn’t use the term amphibious warfare anymore, and view OMFTS as a way of integrating combined fire and maneuver from the sea ashore. We don’t really need to occupy a port,, airfield, beach area, etc. We only need to deny the enemy use of it. But this is more in line with state-on-state conflict, as opposed to non-state actors asymmetrically challenging us among the population inhabiting the littorals - something that needs to be specialized in: ergo, a smaller Marine Corps.

We know Clausewitz tell us that war evolves, and so too was OMFTS intended to evolve also in concert with the Navy’s Littoral Warfare concept, The Navy’s latter notion now also suspect if the Navy can’t counter that threat, which would deny them area/regional access - something I don’t realistically see them or the Marine Corps allowing, by going forward with innovation and cost effective technology advances.

Fair wind Hunter.

Hunter the Tiffany’s poke to you was basically in response to your ‘stick a fork in them’ grenade that you casually tossed into the site. You wonder if we should care what name we stitch across a war fighter’s chest? Personally, I think it should matter but like TYRTAIOS says it also should be updated with the nations evolving expeditionary needs. And I suspect those needs won’t go away.

The eagle, globe and anchor is one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Winston Churchill knew all the verses of the Marines hymn by heart and would sing them at a drop of a hat. Tradition is important, particularly military traditions in that they bond a people together.

When they reorganized the Scottish battalions of the British Army in 2007 into a big regimental structure they retained as much as possible the distinctive names, headgear and regalia of those famous units. The 3rd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland is still officially the ‘Black Watch’ with the red cockade prominent on their Glengarry’s. For a unit with an uninterrupted lineage to the 1730’s this is important to the society it serves. The historical connection is equally true with the U. S. Marine Corps and the American people. Your right we don’t need a second army, so realign them, fix their role in our national defense posture, shrink them, re-equipment them, but also cherish them. It is legendary but it is a shared American legend unique, distinctive and earned in blood.

Some concepts are beyond accounting and bottom line; lineage, history, and tradition matter to Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines. The Army had a chance to preserve lineages with Modularity, but failed massively in my opinion (why do we have a staff of Army historians?) A retired Colonel wrote an excellent article in AUSA Magazine a couple of years ago with a plan to preserve our regimental lineages in the new BCTs; instead we get 5th Battalion, 71st Cavalry Regiment. What???!!! As we had a 4-Star explain to our CGSC class, with Modularity "no patch is safe."

I think we are largely in agreement. I am as traditional and tradition minded as they come but the time has come to revisit the roles of all our services and we are going to have to break some eggs to make an omelet.

I value the Marine Corps and admire their esprit and their marketing. But I'd abandon all that stuff to get a better force over all. In the Army - and I guess the USMC - esprit resides more at the company level where soldiers admire one another and fight for one another. Indeed it has been proven that soldiers have very little connection to Bn and BDE level organizations. Thus it shall ever be.

As for Modularity, the Army's tragic merry go round of lineages has had very little net effect in the end. My unit was an IN Bn, then an AR Bn and now a CAV Sqdn. It always kept the same unit number, but the guys weren't necessarily excited about the latest change. With a vested command crew that is focused on building a team, that lineage (regardless of what it was) can be incorporated as necessary. I don't believe most of our soldiers give a rats ass about what their unit did 150 years ago though. Could be wrong.

Our military education must make people insane. Here is an example that someone just blurted out.

"We don’t really need to occupy a port,, airfield, beach area, etc. We only need to deny the enemy use of it. But this is more in line with state-on-state conflict, as opposed to non-state actors asymmetrically challenging us among the population inhabiting the littorals'

Madness, this is.

The Marines do two things better than the Army - uniforms and propaganda. Sure they have great traditions and an exceptional heritage. But so do Light Infantry, Armored, Cavalry, Airborne, etc, communities in the Army. Its a shame that the Marines have lost their oldest traditional role of Naval infantry to the SEALs in recent years. (wasn't it SEAL snipers, not Marines, who shot those Somali pirates last year?). It probably makes more sense that ever to roll the Marines into the Army, but it'll never happen in one hundred million years. Same reason we'll never close the Academies. The traditions of those institutions and their place in the 'American Mythos' are more valuable to people (voters) than any efficiencies that would be gained by their elimination or substantive reform.

...vastly better. They properly identify the American people as their customer. Army? A major failing is in its thinking that it is its own customer.

I would say the Marines do a couple of things better than the Army; higher overall level of dicipline, higher level of physical fitness, and a more decentralized leadership model that puts more power and trust into the lower levels of leadership (SGTs). Hey, I'm not saying the Marines are perfect(as someone who has served in the Marines and now serves in the Army) but I and the nation should be embarrassed if the Marines weren't all off the above. The Marines are much smaller than the Army and thus they should be more selective and be able to hold higher standards.

Recon Marines take down Pirates:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/10/us-marines-take-ship-from_n_711813.html#s137563

The Marines clearly have grown way too big for their britches. When they were conceived at the beginning of the Revolution, their main mission was to board enemy ships. I seriously doubt anyone considered them fielding ships and aircraft specifically meant to project the Leatherneck's power. So in that sense the Marines have already gone against tradition.

Reduce their size, refocus their role on providing security on Naval ships and other specific jobs (riverine forces, etc.). And roll up those damn SEALS into the Marines - that whole force reeks of "Me Too" syndrome".

And remember most traditions are Bulls**t. For all the Marine's claims of being amphibious experts, Soldiers have conducted more beachhead assaults than Leathernecks. I don't see the Army running around claiming they should own the littoral regions because of Normandy.