Sunday, June 26, 2011

Pride

Pride can be deadly.  We (my wife and I) have a Eagle Globe and Anchor door knocker on my steel reinforced door to our home on a hill that has clear envelopes of fire on both laterals.  We have yellow footprints entering our home and we still have our magnetic "Parent's Pride" Emblem on our truck with Marine Corps personalized plates.  We wear red on Fridays and we donate the time we can to those you need it.   The pride we have, if you could contain it in a jar, would be enough to shine bright until everyone came home.

Monday, June 13, 2011

A Version of Genesis

In the beginning was the word, and the word was God.

In the beginning was God, and all else was darkness and void, and without form. So God created the heavens and the Earth. He created the sun, and the moon, and the stars, so that light might pierce the darkness. The Earth, God divided between the land and the sea, and these he filled with many assorted creatures.
And the dark, salty, slimy creatures that inhabited the murky depths of the oceans, God called sailors. And He dressed them accordingly. They had little trousers that looked like bells at the bottom. And their shirts had cute little flaps on them to hide the hickeys on their necks. He also gave them long sideburns and shabby looking beards. God nicknamed them "squids" and banished them to a lifetime at sea, so that normal folks would not have to associate with them. To further identify these unloved creatures, He called them "petty" and "commodore" instead of titles worthy of red-blooded men.

And the flaky creatures of the land, God called soldiers. And with a twinkle in His eye, and a sense of humor that only He could have, God made their trousers too short and their covers too large. He also made their pockets oversized, so that they may warm their hands. And to adorn their uniforms, God gave them badges in quantities that only a dime store owner could appreciate. And He gave them emblems and crests... and all sorts of shiny things that glittered... and devices that dangled. (When you are God you tend to get carried away.)

On the 6th day, He thought about creating some air creatures for which he designed a Greyhound bus driver's uniform, especially for Air Force flyboys. But He discarded the idea during the first week, and it was not until years later that some apostles resurrected this theme and established what we now know as the "Wild-Blue-Yonder Wonders."

And on the 7th day, as you know, God rested.

But on the 8th day, at 0730, God looked down upon the earth and was not happy. No, God was not happy! So He thought about His labors, and in His divine wisdom God created a divine creature. And this He called Marine. And these Marines, who God had created in His own image, were to be of the air, and of the land, and of the sea. And these He gave many wonderful uniforms. Some were green; some were blue with red trim. And in the early days, some were even a beautiful tan. He gave them practical fighting uniforms, so that they could wage war against the forces of Satan and evil. He gave them service uniforms for their daily work and training. And He gave them evening and dress uniforms...sharp and stylish, handsome things…so that they might promenade with their ladies on Saturday night and impress the hell out of everybody! He even gave them swords, so that people who were not impressed could be dealt with accordingly.

And at the end of the 8th day, God looked down upon the Earth and saw that it was good. But was God happy? No! God was still not happy! Because in the course of His labors, He had forgotten one thing: He did not have a Marine uniform for Himself. He thought about it, and thought about it, and finally God satisfied Himself in knowing that, well....

Not everybody can be a Marine!

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

A Fan of WSJ's Mackubin Thomas Owens

The Wall Street Journal's Mackubin Thomas Owens has been inpressing me for quite some time now.  He is  a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College, editor of Orbis, the quarterly journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and author of "US Civil-Military Relations After 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain" (Continuum, 2011).

He writes quite fluently with his military topics and is "top on" with his audience.  Here is a copy of what he worte on May 2, 2011:

Why We Still Need the Marines

Their unique combination of sea, land and air capabilities makes them an indispensable rapid response force.


In Washington these days, the Defense Department is looking to cut its budget and the Marine Corps especially is reviewing its future role. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has spoken of "anxiety" that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned the Corps into a "second land army," and he has cancelled major Marine weapons systems, such as the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. No institution is sacrosanct, so it's worth asking: Why should we maintain the Marine Corps in the future?

The utility of any institution must be balanced against the opportunity cost of maintaining it. In arguing against maintaining a Marine Corps in the future, one must prove either that what the Marines do isn't necessary, or that it is necessary but that another organization can do it more efficiently and effectively.

In 1954, the political scientist Samuel Huntington argued that each service was built around a "strategic concept"-"the fundamental element of [a] service . . . its role or purpose in implementing national policy." A service's strategic concept answers the "ultimate question: What function do you perform which obligates society to assume responsibility for your maintenance?"

The current Marine Corps strategic concept envisions an expeditionary force in readiness capable of responding rapidly to the full range of crises and contingencies, primarily but not exclusively from the sea, with integrated and balanced air, ground and logistics teams. To this end, the Marines provide a responsive and scalable "middleweight" force that is light enough to get to where it is needed quickly but heavy enough-and with sufficient logistics support-to prevail against an adversary upon arrival.

Due to the proliferation of high-tech defensive weapons, the most controversial element of the Marines' strategic concept are amphibious assaults against defended littorals. What most people envision when they think of an amphibious assault is a World War II scenario with landing craft churning toward a defended beach. But today's amphibious assaults seek to avoid the strength of the enemy's defenses, exploiting seams and gaps in those defenses in order to achieve surprise.

For example, in October 2001, Naval Task Force 58-commanded by then-Brig. Gen. James Mattis, who is now commander of U.S. Central Command-conducted an amphibious assault to seize the airfield at Kandahar, Afghanistan. Gen. Mattis's force of two infantry battalions, along with fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and logistics support, thrust 450 nautical miles from ships off the coast of Pakistan to Kandahar in only 48 hours.

In addition to conducting amphibious operations and providing forces for two wars, over the past decade the Marines have also been engaged in the Caucasus, Africa, the Pacific and Latin America. They have provided training and support for friends and allies and have responded to numerous crises: noncombatant evacuation operations in Liberia (2005) and Lebanon (2006), as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations in Indonesia, the U.S. Gulf region (2005), Haiti (2008 and 2009), Pakistan (2010) and Japan (2011).

Marines routinely split amphibious ready groups into smaller packages to provide a variety of capabilities over a wider geographic area, reassembling to conduct larger operations. Marine assets are currently involved in aircraft-recovery operations in support of NATO forces in Libya.

So it would seem that what the Marines do is of value to the United States. But could another service do what the Marines do? The answer, of course, is yes. But the opportunity cost would be very high.

All of the U.S. military services are carrying out missions in support of their own strategic concepts. Asking another service to do what the Marines do risks crowding out what they already do. Each of the other services operates primarily in one "domain": the Army on land, the Navy on water, and the Air Force in air and space. The Marines operate in a "lane" that intersects all three domains. In that lane, the Marines possess what economists would call comparative advantage.

What about the charge that the Marines have become a second land army in Iraq and Afghanistan? As the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Joseph Dunford, recently remarked, the Marines have no reason to apologize for sustained operations ashore.

Such operations, he observed, are part of the basic "sticker price" of the Marines: the requirement to carry out missions as directed by the president, an obligation Marines have met in Korea and Vietnam as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, an important part of Marine Corps tradition has been to prepare to fight the kind of small-unit wars we have confronted over the past decade.

The Marines are an expeditionary force with a maritime soul. Of course, the current security environment requires all services to become more expeditionary than was the case during the Cold War. But as former Marine Commandant Gen. Carl Mundy was fond of saying, "'Expeditionary' is not a mission. It's a mindset." The Marines have developed this expeditionary mindset over decades, and it is something that will serve the nation well in the future.

 

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Comments

I had used Haloscan for years for my commenting on this blog.  As the times have changed, Haloscan is no more.  And with that, I have lost all of those years worth of comments.  I never downloaded them to keep them and my attempts to get them back from the company (Echo) seems futile.

So I am starting a leaf by using the blogger's version and I hope that this will still be an enjoyable website with comments.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Things I am Going to Miss

This is some of the cadences that I will miss saying and hearing in return 20 fold.
(The authors are unknown, these have been passed by word of mouth for many generations.)



1775
BACK IN 1775,
MY MARINE CORPS CAME ALIVE.
1ST THERE CAME THE COLOR GOLD,
SHOWED THE WORLD THAT WE ARE BOLD.
NEXT THERE CAME THE COLOR BLUE,
SHOWED THE WORLD THAT WE ARE TRUE.
THEN THERE CAME THE COLOR GREEN,
SHOWED THE WORLD THAT WE ARE MEAN.
THEN THERE CAME THE COLOR RED,
SHOWED THE WORLD THE BLOOD WE’VE SHED.
(CAN BE SUNG AS A ROUND OR BY THE LEADER WITH THE PLATOON SINGING “MARINE CORPS” IN BETWEEN LINES.)

HORSE MARINE
MY GRAND DADDY WAS A HORSE MARINE
EVERYTHING HE WORE WAS MARINE CORPS GREEN
HE ATE STEAKS 8 INCHES THICK
HE PICKED HIS TEETH WITH A GUIDON STICK
HE LIVED EVERYDAY OF HIS LIFE IN THE CORPS
TILL THEY SENT HIM OFF TO WAR
THEY SENT HIM TO A PLACE CALLED VIETNAM
TO FIGHT PEOPLE CALLED THE VIETCONG
TILL ONE DAY IN A FIRE FIGHT
HE COME HOME ON A MEDIVAC FLIGHT
NOW HE SITS ON THE PORCH AND STARES
MARKING TIME IN HIS ROCKING CHAIR

EVERYWHERE WE GO
EVERYWHERE WE GO
PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW
WHO WE ARE
SO WE TELL THEM
WE’RE THE BOY’S FROM * (INSERT YOUR PLATOON #) YOU’VE HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT
THE MOTHERS TAKE THEIR DAUGHTERS IN WHEN EVER WE GO OUT!
PEOPLE SAY WE’RE CRAZY FOR THE CRAZY THINGS WE DO
WE’RE THE BOYS FROM *, WHO THE HECK ARE YOU!

MOMMA MOMMA
MOMMA MOMMA CAN’T YOU SEE
WHAT THE MARINE CORPS HAS DONE TO ME?
PUT ME IN A BARBER’S CHAIR,
I TURNED AROUND AND HAD NO HAIR
THEY PUT ME IN SOME CAMMIE GREEN
 THEY TRAINED ME HARD THEY MADE ME MEAN

THEN THEY SHIPPED ME OFF TO WAR
PUT ME ON A FOREIGN SHORE
THEY PUT A RIFLE IN MY HAND
 TOLD ME TO DEFEND OUR LAND

BUT IF I DIE IN A COMBAT ZONE
BOX ME UP AND SHIP ME HOME
PUT ME IN A SET OF DRESS BLUES
COMB MY HAIR AND SHINE MY SHOES
PIN THE MEDALS UPON MY CHEST
AND TELL MOMMA I DID MY BEST

BUT MOMMA MOMMA DON’T YOU CRY
MARINE CORPS MOTTO IS TO DO OR DIE
SAYING, “LEFT RIGHT A LOW RIGHT LEFT”
“LEFT RIGHT A LEFTY RIGHT LEFT”

IF I DIE, BURY ME DEEP
2 M16’S, BENEATH MY FEET
AND BY MY SIDE, PLACE MY 9MM THERE
BUT DON’T FORGET TO PACK MY PT GEAR,
BECAUSE EARLY ONE MORNING, AROUND ZERO-FIVE
THE EARTH’S GONNA SHAKE, THERE WILL BE LIGHTNING IN THE SKY
BUT DON’T YOU WORRY, DON’T COME UNDONE
IT’S JUST ME AND CHESTY PULLER ON A PT RUN.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Physical Evaluation Board

Time has come that my Fun with Navy Medicine will come to a close. I have been on a PEB since January and according to the Magic timeline that was given to me by December I could be on the way out of the Marine Corps. I wrote briefly about the Worst Case Scenarios once before but now that it seems to be reality I have been pinching myself on a regular basis.

The following is what I have learned so far:

During the VA appointment process each member will be assigned a code that is part of the VASRD and the reference for that is 38 CFR part 4. The codes will later translate into the VA's disability rating and has nothing to do with the military's rating. The military rating comes from the unfit condition that is preventing the member from doing his/her job. There can be multiple issues but after the initial is submitted, an addendum for each other unfit condition must be submitted otherwise it doesn't count. Of course the magic number for permanently disability retirement listing (PDRL) is 30 percent or higher. Anything less than that and the member is under 20 years will get a severance package. The math for that is 2 x base pay x # years, if combat related the number of years is 6. Obviously that doesn't help the more senior Marines.
(The unfit condition is anything that stops the Marine from performing ITSS/MOS/PFT/CFT.)

Before a package is sent to MEB the Marine is going to sign it and receive a copy. It was reiterated that the Marine must pay attention for any discrepancies since this will delay the process or give an undesired result from the board.

Right now, I am about halfway through the VA appointment process and have not seen my doctor for my unfitting condition as of yet.

I am going to have to find another theme to right about. Maybe I will write about the squirrels that make my clothes for me and the birds that make my bed.