Incompetent leaders misled the Marine Corps into ‘force design.’ It badly needs to return to conventional combat power.In the Marine Corps of my father and uncles, the term “Feather Merchant” referred to marines who were considered to be lightweights. These usually were folks who were “in the rear with the gear,” such as clerk-typists and supply types along with staff officers with no front-line combat experience. The term generally fell out of use during the Vietnam War and the War on Terrorism when marines found other, more colorful ways to describe anyone who wasn’t on the front lines. In many...