Ooh Rah!

My blog posts usually appear on Monday, but today marks the 249^th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, and a fitting moment to pay tribute to the men and women who epitomize the meaning of honor, courage and commitment.  The Marines are America’s “force in readiness.”  From the land, sea or air, the mission of the Corps is to successfully prosecute forcible entry operations anywhere on the globe, to quickly project and sustain American power in the littoral regions of the world and to shape the combat environment during conflict.

But that’s the textbook description; perhaps the words of Colonel David Hackworth, the most decorated Army officer during the Vietnam War is more telling. “The Corps…has never lost sight that its primary mission is to fight, remains superbly trained and disciplined.”  “The law of nature is simple: survival of the fittest.  And in the 21^st century…the forward-based and highly deployable U.S. Marine Corps is the fittest.”

Not to take anything away from any of the other branches of America’s Armed Forces because our soldiers, sailors and airmen continue to perform magnificently, but America’s enemies have a particular fear of U.S. Marines.

Best-selling author Tom Clancy once wrote, “Marines are mystical.  They have magic.”  It is this same magic, Clancy added, that “may well frighten potential opponents more than the actual violence Marines can generate in combat.”  But then, fear of Marines is not a new phenomenon.

Established on this day in 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps came of age in World War I during the 1918 Chateau Thierry campaign near the French village of Bouresches.  There, Marines assaulted a line of German machine-gun nests on an old hunting preserve known as Belleau Wood.  The fighting was horrific, and the Marines who weren’t cut down by machine guns captured the nests in a grisly hand-to-hand combat.  The disbelieving Germans called their foes, teufelhunden (devil dogs).

Twenty-four years later as the 1st Marine Division was steaming toward Guadalcanal, Japanese radio taunted that which the Japanese soldiers feared most. “Where are the famous United States Marines hiding?” the propagandist asked derisively.  “The Marines are supposed to be the finest soldiers in the world, but no one has seen them yet!”  But over the next three years the Japanese would get their fill of Marines in places like Tarawa, Saipan, and Iwo Jima.

The Corps’ reputation carried over into the Korean War.  “Panic sweeps my men when they are facing the American Marines,” confessed a captured North Korean major.  In late 1950, Chinese premier Mao Tse Tung put out a contract on two Marine regiments (the 5^th and 7^th Marines) of the 1^st Marine Division.  In written orders to the commander of the Chinese 9th Army Group, Mao wrote, “It seems not enough for our four divisions to surround two Marine regiments; you should have more divisions as a reserve force.”  The Chinese massed 12 divisions in total, and it still wasn’t enough.

The subsequent battle at the Chosin Reservoir literally decimated the 9^th Chinese Army Group and its 150,000 men who ceased to function as an operational fighting unit for the duration of the conflict.  U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Frank Lowe said it best, “The safest place in Korea was right behind a platoon of Marines. Lord, how they could fight!”  Fortunately for America, our enemies will continue to shudder upon hearing, “The Marines have landed.”

The Corps’ reputation stems from a variety of factors: The Marine Corps is most unique branch of the U.S. armed forces and its philosophical approach to training and combat differs greatly from other branches.  Marine boot camp is more of a rite-of-passage than a training program and is the longest and toughest recruit indoctrination program of any of the military services.

All Marines from private to Commandant are considered to be first-and-foremost riflemen, and special-operations units in the Marines are not revered as they are in other branches.  The Marines view special operations as simply another realm of warfighting.  Marines are Marines, and no individual Marine or Marine unit is considered more elite than any other.

Marines believe that they are a part of a family that includes every Marine who ever lived.  And it’s that sense of belonging, the “Esprit de corps” that outlives their mortality.  For as long as a Marine lives and wherever he goes, every Marine past and present is his brother.

Brave men and women populate all of our Armed Forces, and each branch has its special traditions; nevertheless, it is impossible to relate to those who have not experienced it personally, what it means to be a Marine.  It is something that cannot be undone, making the expression, “Once a Marine, always a Marine” a verity.

So, it is to them that I say, Happy Birthday brothers, and Semper Fi!