The Demise of the Marines?

[downbeatplumb]

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2...Last-Fight

Because of this lack of mission and ongoing budget pressures, the Marines are becoming an endangered branch. In the age of DOD austerity, they represent low-hanging fruit that could easily be picked from the Pentagon’s tree.

You have more of a Marine Corp than we have an army it total

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps

The U.S. Marine Corps has around 194,000 active duty members

on 1 December 2013, the British Army employed; 95,800 Regulars, 3,130 Gurkhas[55] and 26,500 Army Reservists[56] for a combined component strength of 125,430 personnel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army

[Minimalist]

The American Empire needs soldiers to protect it!

[Anomalocaris]

The army is the mainstay of the military, right? I doubt they'd disband that.

Army is suppose to be a heavy land force with staying power and capacity to fight lenghty campaigns with large enemy ground forces. Marine is suppose to be a small assault force mainly to break down the door.

One can be sure that America will continue to stir up hornet nests around the world. We think this is what makes us great. With an army, we are also tempted to stick around for a long time to be stung after we stir up each hornet's nest.

With just a marine corp, at least we are more likely to hightail it out of there soon after the poking.

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You have more of a Marine Corp than we have an army it total

That's because the self-styled land of the free needs to spend more on defence than the next 20 countries combined in order to pretend to be the home of the brave.

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The American Empire needs soldiers to protect it!

No, American Empire needs soldiers in order to convince itself that it is ego boostingly intimidating.

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The US has got like 7 fleets scattered all over the world. Elite forces on each and every one of them greatly increases their range of capabilities. I don't see how this could ever be not useful.

(Edit: Unless fleets themselves become obsolete.)

Actually, the different fleets are just command structures with responsibilities over a region. There are two pools of resources, including ships, planes, and marines. One assigned to the pacific and another atlantic, these resources gets assigned to the different fleets as the need arises.

So 7 fleets doesn't mean 7 times one fleet in ships and marines.

[Ravenshire]

America loves its military, after all. Though strangely not its surviving veterans.

I must proudly admit that I make older vets, especially WWII vets, cry at every opportunity...










































By thanking them for their service and their sacrifice.

I met a U.S.S Arizona survivor once, a long while back and made his day. He was at the hospital waiting for his wife who was having a series of tests done. I sat with him and we talked for a couple hours about his service in the war and after it, even after my wife at the time was finished up (made her hang out with us). If you've seen the movie "Pearl Harbor" (yes, it sucked) you'll understand something of the horror he experienced that day. When all was said and done, he thanked me for listening and made a comment that broke my heart a little and still brings a tear to my eye today: "Son, I want to thank you. No one listens the way you do any more."

I could see how emotional he was, just from having someone listen to his story. And, you know, he's right. So few of our under 30's even really understand the type of war this guy fought in. They think of "war" as small, local skirmishes fought a bazillion miles away and as something that really has no impact on their life beyond the price of a gallon of gas. Fewer still would even consider stopping and thanking this man or listening to what he has to say. The generation that fought in WWII is very nearly gone now and we're poorer for that!

If you ever get the chance to sit and talk with a WWII vet about his service in that war, take it! Don't just sit and listen. Engage with them. It's soooo worth a couple hours out of your day.

[StealthySkeptic]

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2...Last-Fight

I'm no American, and have never been in service. But this article seems a bit alarmist to me.

1. Funding always goes down if an army has got no war on it's hands. I believe I read somewhere cutbacks by the navy historically have been a problem for the marines, but they have always proudly stuck around and bounced back. I'll try finding it. I remember it said the marines were proud of their ability to be the most usefull guys around in spite of that.
2. The article claims there is no longer a use for amphibious attacks, I disagree. Let's say ISIS wins all of Syria and Iraq and Kuwait. Let's say SA will be very reluctant to be a springboard for an invasion. And Iran just stays Iran. You'd have to wade all the way through Syria to get to the oil.
3. I think the marines have been reformed into an elite unit that can project power anywhere and anytime. They grabbed Obama, who was in a country without water.
4. I like space marines.

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The existence of the marines corp is bound up in national mythology, and it no longer a purely rational choice of national policy. So I suspect the Marine corp will continue to exist and to both mythologize itself and be mythologized so long as the United States continue to exist roughly in its current form. Only a complete defeat in a major war, similar to that experienced by Germany or Japan, can impose the disbandment of the Marine corp.

To me the thing reads as an advertisement to vote for politicians who like marines. The conclusion is that these politicians are the only thing that keep the core alive.

I think you meant that they grabbed OSAMA.

[Minimalist]

I knew what he meant. Those were SEALS anyway...not marines.

We are stuck with this legacy....

"The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years." - James Forrestal, Sec. Navy

[vorlon13]

I'll always have room at my house for a couple of big, tough, masculine hombre type marines at my house.


(as long as they are bottoms)

[Bibliofagus]

I'm no American, and have never been in service. But this article seems a bit alarmist to me.

1. Funding always goes down if an army has got no war on it's hands. I believe I read somewhere cutbacks by the navy historically have been a problem for the marines, but they have always proudly stuck around and bounced back. I'll try finding it. I remember it said the marines were proud of their ability to be the most usefull guys around in spite of that.
2. The article claims there is no longer a use for amphibious attacks, I disagree. Let's say ISIS wins all of Syria and Iraq and Kuwait. Let's say SA will be very reluctant to be a springboard for an invasion. And Iran just stays Iran. You'd have to wade all the way through Syria to get to the oil.
3. I think the marines have been reformed into an elite unit that can project power anywhere and anytime. They grabbed Obama, who was in a country without water.
4. I like space marines.

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To me the thing reads as an advertisement to vote for politicians who like marines. The conclusion is that these politicians are the only thing that keep the core alive.

I think you meant that they grabbed OSAMA.

Oops. I did

I also didn't know SEALS were a seperate unit.

[The Grand Nudger]

The army is the mainstay of the military, right? I doubt they'd disband that.

In the US, yes. The army is a force of occupation. Numbers are required to do the job.

[Anomalocaris]

I think you meant that they grabbed OSAMA.

Oops. I did

I also didn't know SEALS were a seperate unit.

SEALS is a unit within and under the Navy. Marine corps is a spearate branch of service parallel to the Navy, although it falls administratively under the civilian Department of Navy.

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The army is the mainstay of the military, right? I doubt they'd disband that.

In the US, yes. The army is a force of occupation. Numbers are required to do the job.

We should do less occupation. It has not worked out well for us since 1945.