You really don’t get it. You seriously believe that if Obama ordered it, 300 Marines would surrender,, to ISIS and certain beheading?
Ask any Marine you can find, or any era. Get back to us.
I wish i was a confident as you that in the last resort your scenario would play out. Unfortunately from what I have seen and know about the US armed forces in the last decade it seems to me more likely that any such crisis would look more like the British at Kabul in what 1841 rather than Thermopylae or the Chosen.
You have no idea how much the services, all of them, have been corrupted by political correctness and legalism. The browbeating of males with traditional attitudes towards the service over ‘rape in the ranks’ as well as the relentless pressure from various ‘thought reform’ type training programs developed to make straight white men in uniform feel a generalized sense of guilt and shame have scarred the services more than anyone can imagine.
I am pretty certain that while this force may number 300 there are about a dozen field grade officers with them . They were all anxious to gild their resumes and pick up another decoration when they signed on. When the rubber hits the road and the flood of confusing, indecisive and just plain ridiculous command guidance comes pouring in from Eucom, FMF Lant and HQ USMC and even further up the chain these staff wallahs will mill about trying to figure out how best to protect their careers and manage to escape this place physically intact. Stupid directions to ‘minimize loss of life (ISIS lives that is) and even disable personal weapons based on what some ‘reliable Iraqi’ says can be worked out is what is likely to go down. Unlike the Philippines in 1942 when direction to the US garrisons in the southern islands were to stand by and await Japanese plenipotentiaries to surrender to there are no friendly native populations for Marines who think surrender to ISIS sucks to flee to.
One thing hasn’t changed; young men join the Marine Corps to fight, i.e. kill. I think those Marines at al Asad are just fine with making quite a few martyrs.
I hope there are a few gunny sgts in the mix. They will know what to do.
“In my experience, Marines are gung ho no matter what. They will all fight to the death. Everyone of them just wants to get out there and kill. They are bad-ass, hard-charging mothers.”
Chris Kyle, American Sniper
You just could not be more wrong. No matter who orders it, 300 Marines will not surrender to ISIS. It’ll never happen. Take it to the bank.