Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit

Tom Clancy's engaging work on the MEU (SOC) captures much of this history and spirit. It provides the reader a lens through which to see today's Marines, and to experience their training, their challenges, and the intense confidence and camaraderie that continues to bind them. I commend it to your reading. It reaffirms my long-held belief that Marines are truly America's warriors, '…the few and the proud.' Again for a brief moment, it has been my honor to reflect on the history of the courageous accomplishments of our Marine warriors. To all the Marines and sailors who have made our nation's Marine Expeditionary Forces truly special operations capable, take care of yourselves, take care of each other and — Semper Fidelis!

Al Gray, Marine

General, United States Marine Corps

29th Commandant of the Marine Corps

Introduction: Marine — Part of the American Soul

Let me pose a question to you. Do we actually have to learn who the men and women of the United States Marine Corps are? Or is it just an inbred part of our identity as Americans, like baseball and apple pie? Well, no, not really. Nevertheless, the Marines are older than baseball, much older in fact. It's generally accepted that America's birthday is July 4th, 1776, with the signing of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Interestingly though, the Marines were there first. Their institutional birthday is November 10th, 1775, predating the birth of the United States by fully eight months. Thus, the history of America is the history of the Marine Corps, and they have always been there for us.

It is perhaps the vision of Marines storming ashore onto a hostile beach that is the most enduring image of the Corps. Their amphibious tradition began in the Revolutionary War with the successful assault on Nassau in the Bahamas (we gave it back). Since then the Corps and its members have been at the crossroads of American and world history. Later, our first overseas assertion of national power was in the Mediterranean to fight the Barbary Pirates — Marine Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon on the 'Shores of Tripoli,' successfully attacking Derna and winning the Mameluke sword, which is still part of the uniform today. Marines also helped to raise the Bear flag in California. Marines even captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry, while under the command of two native Virginia Army officers, Colonel Robert E. Lee and Captain J.E.B. Stuart. When World War I came, Marines so impressed the French in 1918 that the forest they captured (Belleau Wood) was renamed in their memory. In World War II, Marines engaged in America's first major ground actions when we took the offensive against Japan on the steaming island of Guadalcanal in Operation Watchtower. During the Korean War, Marines anchored the stop line around Pusan, and then blew the Korean War wide open with their dramatic landing at Inchon. Almost everywhere our country has gone in the last twenty-two decades, the United States Marine Corps was the team that knocked on the door — or just kicked it in! Marines have even led us into outer space. The first American to orbit the earth — Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr. (now the senior senator from Ohio) — was a Marine aviator. They do get around.

The Marines have a global reputation. Whether it's fear or respect — probably a little of both — people around the world know exactly who the U.S. Marines are. At the Royal Tournament in London back in 1990, I saw the U.S. Marine Corps Band welcomed so warmly as to make me wonder if the British thought it was theirs. Clearly the Marines have a highly developed sense of public relations, but all that does is make people aware of who they are and what they've done. The Army's 82nd Airborne, the proud 'All American' division with its bloused pants and jump wings, calls itself 'America's Honor Guard,' but look outside the White House and you find Marines. Probably there is no more easily recognized symbol of our country anywhere in the world — aside from the Stars and Stripes itself — than a Marine in dress uniform. What does it mean? It means the Marines are America. The Corps is an organization in which legend and fact intertwine to the point that you have to believe it all, because it really is true, ought to be, or soon will be. As recently as this last summer, in the science-fiction movie Independence Day, who saved the world from destruction? A Marine fighter pilot (ably played by actor Will Smith), of course.

The United States Marine Corps is America's national SWAT team. When there is trouble, they usually get there first. Their lifelong partnership with the U.S. Navy sees to that, since almost every nation in the world is accessible from the sea, and the Marines can appear like a genie from a bottle, deployed by helicopter from ships well beyond the horizon, projecting force within minutes of the President's phone call. Why? Lots of reasons. To rescue American citizens. To render disaster assistance. To stabilize a dangerous situation. To begin the invasion of a country to be liberated from tyranny. To do almost anything, because the Marine Corps by its nature is both a sharp and flexible instrument of national policy, with a lot of weight and power behind it.

Weighted? Flexible? These are terms that may not seem applicable to the 'devil dogs' of the Corps. You would be wrong to assume this though. The Marine Corps is a package deal. Under the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) structure that every unit of the Corps fights from, you get almost every kind of combat power that can be imagined. Mostly you get riflemen — because every Marine is a rifleman. Tankers, artillerymen, helicopter and fixed-wing aviators, all one integrated MAGTF force package whose members all wear the same uniform, attend the same schools, pass the same standard tests, and talk the same language. Their Navy brethren are kind enough to provide transport, logistics, and medical corpsmen — and heavier air and fire support if any is needed. As a result, person-for-person, the United States Marine Corps may be the most dangerous group on the planet.

Weighted? Flexible? But how about smart? Somewhere in their history, the members of the Corps seem to have gotten a reputation for being simple-minded 'jarheads.' Let me tell you here that this is a major misconception. Marines have been among the most innovative of the world's military forces. Consider the following: there have been five major tactical innovations in twentieth-century ground combat. They are:

• Panzerblitz (Armored Assault): The use of heavy mounted formations was systematized by Hans Guderian of the German Reichwehr in the early 1930s. From this came the development of the large armored formations that were the spearheads of the campaigns in Europe in World War II. Since that time, armored units have been the cutting edge of the world's ground forces.

• Airborne Assault: The idea of dropping light infantry by parachute into an enemy's rear actually dates back to Ben Franklin in the late eighteenth century — he proposed using balloons to lift the troops. The idea was then resurrected in 1918 by General Billy Mitchell, though the Germans were the first to use them in combat against France and the low countries in 1940. Later, airborne assaults would be executed by all the major powers in World War II.

But, what about the other three?

• Amphibious Assault: This particular concept resulted from the British disaster at Gallipoli during World War I. After the Great War, two Marine colonels studied that campaign, diagnosed its failures and found in them both a formula for success and a mission for the Corps. Also called 'Combined Operations' (by the British), Amphibious Assault almost overnight became a recipe for success. The Marine Corps wrote the cookbook.

• Close Air Support: The use of aircraft to support ground troops is another Marine innovation, practiced and perfected in the 'Banana Wars' of the 1920s, and brought to the point that no American fighting man feels entirely clothed without aircraft overhead — preferably piloted by Marines.

• Airmobile (Helicopter) Assault: The technological perfection of the airborne assault, this concept was first used by Marines following Korea (they called it 'vertical envelopment') to deliver riflemen and their support units in cohesive packages to decisive points behind the enemy front lines. It's both safer and more effective than falling from the sky in a parachute. With the addition of supporting attack helicopters, airmobile units are among the most mobile and well-armed in the world.

In short, for tactical innovation, the score for this century is U.S. Marine Corps 3—the World 2. All this from