The other day I read an article on Military.com entitled How to Absorb the Marine Corps into the Army and Navy by Commander Norman R. Denny, U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired) Read the whole article here, the gist of the column says the Marine Corps should cease to exist and all it’s missions and many, but not all, of it’s personnel, should be absorbed into either the Navy or the Army. I believe that is a huge mistake and after a little background, I will state my reasons why.
In an effort at full disclosure, I served in the Marine Corps from 1989 until 1993. I was a Field Radio Operator with the infantry unit, 3rd Battalion 7th Marines
and the artillery unit Echo Battery 2nd Battalion 12th Marines.
I fought in Operation Desert Storm (the First Gulf War) and Operation Restore Hope (the humanitarian mission in Somalia). I am extremely proud of my time in the Marines and of my service to this great country.
There is a saying in the Corps: Once a Marine, always a Marine, and I take that to heart. I keep an eye on what is going on with the Marines and care about decisions that are made regarding them. You will also notice that from time to time I will write “we” or “us” instead of them. Please indulge me.
Commander Denny is just the newest in a long line of people, that over the last 189 years, have been trying to disband the Marine Corps. The first attempt was in 1833 when President Andrew Jackson, who even though he had a force of Marines under his command at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, wanted to roll the Corps into the Army. Congress objected and passed the Act for the Better Organization of the Marine Corps in 1834. This law stipulated that the Corps was a permanent part of the Department of the Navy as a brother service to the Navy.
After the Civil War, in which Marines had fought on both sides and in both the land armies and in our traditional role aboard naval vessels, there were more grumblings from officials in what was then the War Department as to the real need for the Marine Corps. War Department staff were looking at the way that many Marine units had fought alongside the Army and wondered why should the U.S. pay for both branches. However, at the same time Marines were very busy. They were deployed on 28 separate occasions in the 30 years from the end of the Civil War to the end of 19th century, including an operation in Korea after American shipping was fired upon and securing the trans-isthmus railroad in Panama, as well as significant action in the Mexican-American War, and the talk of disbandment faded away.
In the early 20th Century, Marines fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion in China and began it’s involvement in the Caribbean and Central America (an on going series of deployments that would last until 1936). It was during this period that Marines invented the techniques of anti-guerilla warfare that would be key to many conflicts for the rest of the century and the Marine Corps was a acknowledged as a separate and equal branch of the military.
During World War I two regiments of Marines, the 4th and 5th, were involved in fighting in France as part of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) and fought with distinction, including the iconic Battle of Belleau Wood. 2,461 Marines were killed and eight won the Congressional Medal of Honor. However, John Pershing commander of the AEF and others in the Pentagon saw no need for a branch of the military that filled a similar role as the Army and tried to get the Marine Corps disbanded.
However, the inter-war period was also an important one for the Marine Corps. They took the knowledge learned in the Banana Wars and turned that into the Small Wars Manual Read the 1940 addition here. Amphibious warfare doctrine was established and equipment was procured. Marines aldi invented and perfected the tactics and procedures for the close air support (CAS) of infantry units. In fact German military observers were so impressed with the effectiveness of the CAS operations that they built the JU-88 Stuka dive bomber that was so iconic in World War II and used the CAS principles in their blitzkrieg operations.
Forward thinking Marines like Lieutenant Colonel Earl Hancock Ellis saw an upcoming war against Japan that would be fought across the expanse of the Pacific Ocean and wrote Operations Plan 712: Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia in 1921. Read the full paper here. As the prospect of war grew, the Corps pushed urgently for joint amphibious exercises with the Army and acquired amphibious equipment that would prove of great use in the upcoming conflict.
Everyone is familiar with the Marine Corps efforts in defeating Japan in World War II. 24,511 Marines gave their last full measure on islands in the Pacific that they had never heard of and 86 Marines were awarded the Medal of Honor. Despite Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal’s prediction that the Marine’s flag raising at Iwo Jima meant "a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years", the Corps faced an immediate institutional crisis following the war, because of severe budget cuts. Army generals pushing for a strengthened and reorganized defense establishment attempted to fold the Marine mission and assets into the Navy and Army. Drawing on hastily assembled Congressional support the Marine Corps rebuffed such efforts to dismantle the Corps, resulting in statutory protection of the Marine Corps in the National Security Act of 1947.
The Korean War ended any talk of dismantling the Marine Corps. When a hastily formed Provisional Marine Brigade was instrumental in holding the defensive line at the Pusan Perimeter. It was the 1st Marine Division that spearheaded the landings at Inchon and the drive towards the Yalu River and they were the unit that took the brunt of the Chinese attack that became known as the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Marines continued to fight in Korea until the armistice in 1953. 4,267 Marines were killed in the Korean War and 42 were awarded the Medal of Honor.
Marines were involved in many operations between the Korean War and Vietnam, from aiding in rescue work during flooding in Tampico Mexico, Guam and Sri Lanka, evacuating people from Egypt and Israel during the Suez Crisis and intervening in Lebanon to stop Syrian infiltration and to prevent internal strife between Christians and Moslems as just a few examples.
The Marines involvement in Vietnam started in 1954 with Marine Attack Squadron 324 ferrying planes to the French in Vietnam. The first “Advisor” arrived in August of that year and the last Marine wouldn’t leave until April 1975. It was a long frustrating, dirty and deadly time for the Marines, 13,091 Marines were killed and 57 were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The time between the end of the Vietnam War and the War on Terror was another busy one for the Marines they took part in Operation Eagle Claw (the unsuccessful attempt to rescue the hostages held by Iran), another deployment to Lebanon (this one coasting 243 Marine lives when their barracks were bombed by terrorists), Operation Urgent Fury the invasion of Grenada, Operation Just Cause the invasion of Panama, the evacuations of the Embassies in Monrovia, Liberia, Mogadishu, Somalia and Tirana Albania. As well as Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm (my war in Kuwait),
Operation Restore Hope, Restore Hope II and United Shield (my time in Somalia).
After September 11th 2001 the Marines were deployed to both Afghanistan in Operations Enduring Freedom (2001-2015) and to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2016), where 1,261 Marines were killed and three were awarded the Medal of Honor. While Marines were overseas involved in these operations, budgets were being cut back home. In 1991 there were 196,000 Marines but because of budget sequestration in 2013, Commandant of the Marine Corps General James Amos was forced to set a goal of a force of 174,000 Marines. He testified to Congress that this was the minimum number that would allow for an effective response to even a single contingency operation, but it would reduce the peacetime ratio of time at home bases to time deployed down to a historical low level.
That brings us to today, as you have seen Commander Denny isn’t the first to suggest that the Marine Corps be disbanded and I’m sure he won’t be the last. Now that I have laid out the long and storied history of the Marine Corps, I will address Commander Denny’s assertions point by point.
Commander Denny states that the Marines should be resized to the “small police force” it was before World War I (10,600 Marines). He fails to realize that that force was always outnumbered by enemy forces but managed to secure a victory despite that. As an example, during the occupation of Haiti in 1915 the Marines landed one reinforced company of 300 while there were at least 5,000 Haitian rebels. If he wants to make the Marines small, smaller than the currently are, it is a recipe for disaster.
The Commander also says that the Army could assume the Marines amphibious assault role and uses the Normandy invasion in 1944 as an example. Commander Denny forgets that the Army hasn’t conducted any water-borne landings since World War II. Getting the Army up to speed would involve a huge amount of time and money, enough money that it wouldn’t make practical sense to do it. He also ignored the fact that it was the Marine Corps that developed the technology and the tactics for those kinds of missions. Marines were on hand during the Normandy invasion as advisors and had been the initial trainers of the Army units that conducted the invasion.
The next point given in the article, is Marine Corps aviation could be folded into the Air Force for the fixed-wing aircraft and the Army for the rotor/tilt wing aircraft. While the Marines are happy to see an Air Force A-10, F-15, F-16 or F-35 coming to help us out of out of a jam we would rather see a AV-8B Harrier or a F/A-18 Super Hornet. If you ask an Marine, past or present, they will say they feel more comfortable with Marine aircraft in CAS then with the Air Force pilots. Marines invented close air support and it’s all they do, and since every Marine pilot will serve as an Air Officer in an infantry unit sometime in their career they see it from the ground pounder perspective that isn’t so, for the Air Force and you can see the difference in their approach. As for the helicopters and Ospreys the problem is that to fulfill the expeditionary aspect of the Marine Corps mission the Army would need to use the Marine helicopters, the AH-1Z Viper, CH-53K King Stallion, UH-1Y Venom and the V-22 Osprey.
Because of their foldable parts for decreased storage space, they are already designed to operated aboard naval vessels. If you’re going to use our helicopters and train their pilots to fly them, why not just use our pilots? If one were to say just let the Navy do it, the same thing applies with pilot training because the Navy doesn't have attack helicopter pilots.
The Commander Says “the average citizen may see no difference between Marine rotary and tilt-wing aviation and its Army equivalents. The average citizen likely sees no difference because the differences that do exist—primarily the ability to fly from ships—are minor.” However, according to Forbes not only are the Marines advancing leaps and bounds towards the future the Army isn’t getting anything done to modernize or improve it’s helicopter force. Read the article here.
I’m getting nasty message from Substack telling me this post is too long to send through email so I will cut it off right now and there will be a Part II that will be coming to you right on the back of this one.
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