Posted on 05/20/2010 5:52:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
HBO's 10-part series on the Pacific campaign of World War II just ended. That story of island-hopping was mostly about how the old breed of U.S. Marines fought diehard Japanese infantrymen face-to-face in places like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Guam and Okinawa.
We still argue whether it was smart to storm those entrenched Japanese positions or whether all those islands were strategically necessary. But no one can question the Marine Corps' record of having defeating the most savage infantrymen of the age, thereby shattering the myth of Japanese military invincibility.
Since WWII, the Marines have turned up almost anywhere that America finds itself in a jam against supposedly unconquerable enemies -- in bloody places like Inchon and the Chosin Reservoir in Korea, at Hue and Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War, at the two bloody sieges of Fallujah in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan.
Over the last two centuries, two truths have emerged about the Marine Corps. One, they defeat the toughest of America's adversaries under the worst of conditions. And two, periodically their way of doing things -- and their eccentric culture of self-regard -- so bothers our military planners that some higher-ups try either to curb their independence or end the Corps altogether.
After the Pacific fighting, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson wanted to disband the Marines Corps. What good were amphibious landings in the nuclear age? Johnson asked. His boss, President Harry Truman, agreed and didn't like the cocky Marines either.
Then came Korea -- and suddenly the Pentagon wanted more Marines. The fighting against hard-core North Korean and Communist Chinese veterans was as nasty as anything seen in three millennia of organized warfare. The antiquated idea of landing on beaches proved once again a smart way of outflanking the enemy.
The Marines survived Korea, Louis Johnson and Harry Truman -- and continued to carve out their own logistics, air-support and tactical doctrine. Marine self-sufficiency was due to lingering distrust of the other services dating back to the lack of air and naval support in World War II, and to Marine paranoia that the other services liked their combative spirit but not their independence.
We are once again seeing one of those periodic re-examinations of the Corps. This time, the old stereotype of the lone-ranger, gung-ho Marines supposedly doesn't fit too well with fighting sophisticated urban counterinsurgency under an integrated, international command.
After all, America is fighting wars in which we rarely hear of the number of enemy dead, but a great deal about the need to rebuild cities and infrastructure. In Afghanistan, there have been rumors about a new medal for "courageous restraint" that would honor soldiers who hesitated pulling the trigger against the enemy out of concern about harming civilians.
The Marines are now starting to redeploy to Afghanistan from Iraq and are building a huge base in Delaram. They plan to win over southern Afghanistan's remote, wild Nimruz province that heretofore has been mostly a no-go Taliban stronghold. While NATO forces concentrate on Afghanistan's major cities, the Marines think they can win over local populations their way, take on and defeat the Taliban, and bring all of Nimruz back from the brink -- with their trademark warning "no better friend, no worse enemy."
So once again, the Marines are convinced that their own ingenuity and audacity can succeed where others have failed. And once again, not everyone agrees.
The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, retired three-star Army General Karl W. Eikenberry, reportedly made a comment about there being 41 nations serving in Afghanistan -- and a 42nd composed of the Marine Corps. One unnamed Obama administration official was quoted by the Washington Post as saying, "We have better operational coherence with virtually all of our NATO allies than we have with the U.S. Marine Corps."
Some officials call the new Marine enclave in Nimruz Province "Marinestan" -- as if, out of a Kipling or Conrad novel, the Marines have gone rogue to set up their own independent province of operations.
Yet once again, it would be wise not to tamper with the independence of the Marine Corps., given that its methods of training, deployment, fighting, counterinsurgency and conventional warfare usually pay off in the end.
The technological and political face of war is always changing. But its essence -- organized violence to achieve political ends -- is no different from antiquity. Conflict will remain the same as long as human nature does as well.
The Marines have always best understood that. And from the Marines' initial mission against the Barbary Pirates to the battles in Fallujah, Americans have wanted a maverick Marine Corps -- a sort of insurance policy that kept them safe, just in case.
I would agree also, but from my limited knowledge I believe it captured the essence of the Pacific Theater. The distances and the fact that it was an island hopping campaign makes it very different from the eleven months from D-Day to VE day.
I’m sure we only got a glimpse of the savagery our forces had to face.
I know some Marines would like to forget that, but it wasn't a case of the Army "linking up with" them, just being there. They were there.
Good point.
But we know how it was going to go when obammy insulted the Marines during his campaign.
Then the Marines blew him of when he tried to hang out with them at the K bay chow hall.
Good times.
I've talked to some guys who swore they were in that one ~
He says it likes it's supposed to be an insult or something. Hell, it's a compliment.
Semper Fi.
Actually I think it was the Wingers who gave him the cold silence.
Never made it to K bay but was on Okinawa for 2 years.
Semper Yhut!
One thing about K-Bay, its not a big base, but after you get in the front gate, the road goes straight down to the Regimental (I believe, I kind of forget) CO’s building. That road is the divider line. On the left as you go down is the Air Wing side and on the right is the Infantry side. And boy can you tell the difference.
I’m a weird one about Okinawa. I love Camp Schwab. It’s the camp farthest north and furthest away from society. That’s why most Marines hate it. But it has the best beaches to swim and snorkle on. That’s why I loved it. It’s just so dang hot and humid there!!
Yeah
And I hate the rifle range at Schwab... the winds coming in from both sides of the point blow the little 556’s around at the 500 meter line!
That happened to me there!
Shot a pizza box that day....I am still p*ssed to this day!
This wasnt in ‘91 by chance was it?
LOL!!!
LOL!
I was a winger with MWSG 17 and yeah the R/O’s we trying to decide to close the range or not that day.
BTW by chance you werent a skinny dude w Calvin and Hobbs tatoos or a buffed out guy who was pissed because he was TAD to s-1?
We were in the butts together.
Wasn’t me. Though I did always like Calvin and Hobbes. I wish that dude had not quit creating that cartoon. I wasn’t expecting them to close the range. In all my years, I never saw a range closed down on qual day. Just doesn’t happen. They’ll have you out there at midnight with lamps to light up the targets if they have to!! Seriously, I have heard of times when they cancelled it and had people come back on Saturday. Usually only happens during a thunderstorm.
Yeah we had a typhoon bearing down on us and they didnt want to canx the range .....so we were firing into the wind...literally!
Semper Yhut!
Bttt
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