Compass Points - Make More Marines
The three most important things.
April 13, 2024
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It has often been said that the three most important things the Marine Corps does for the Nation are: make Marines, win battles, and develop quality citizens.
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Service in the Marine Corps is not for everyone. Most young people do not want to join the Marine Corps. Most of them are repelled by the Marine Corps' reputation for difficulty and discomfort. Only a few restless souls, eager for a challenge, are drawn to the Corps. They seek a life that is harder and more worthwhile. They seek to draw out of themselves all they have inside. They seek a higher purpose.
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Most Marines serve on active duty for only a few years. After their years in the Corps, they become “quality citizens” and go on to spend decades in other pursuits and other achievements. Yet, no matter how much time passes, they remain proud of their Marine Corps service.
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Years after their service, the values learned in the Corps give meaning and direction to life's most difficult moments. Service over self. Sacrifice over safety. Obstacles are seen as only temporary detours. Inside the Corps or long afterward, Marines improvise, adapt, and overcome. Success in civilian life comes from those Marine Corps years, when young Marines, without enough experience, are thrust into challenges they could never fully foresee. And in finding a new strength inside themselves, they grow themselves better, the Corps better, and the Nation better.
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There is a long roster of Marines living as “quality citizens” across the Nation who have used their experience in the Corps to turbocharge their lives and become great spouses, great parents, and great Americans. Let us consider one young man. He lost his father at age 4. He grew up and went to college. After college, looking for a challenge, he joined the Marine Corps -- much to the astonishment of family and friends. He spent nearly 4 years in the Marine Corps, including service in combat in Vietnam.
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After his active-duty years, he became a “quality citizen” and went on to a successful career in business. In December 2022 the young man, now not as young, but still proud of his Marine Corps service, gave a donation to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation. He gave the largest donation in the history of the organization, $65 million. In 2024, Military Times named him “Veteran of the Year” and called him, "one of the greatest living business minds in the world."
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How did Fred Smith, the founder and chairman of shipping giant FedEx, achieve so much success? Military Times reports, “FedEx founder credits Marine Corps for giving him the tools to succeed.”
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While Fred Smith has received numerous awards, including induction into both the Business and Aviation Halls of Fame, Smith says his greatest award was back in Vietnam when his Marines dug a hole for him.
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“When I was company commander in Vietnam, it was a hard way to make a living,” Smith said. “We were out on operations virtually the whole time … and so I had to go up and talk to the colonel nearly every day, while my troops were setting into positions, digging their fighting holes. And I’d dig my hole when I came back from the briefing.”
“Then one night, I came back, and my troops had dug my fighting hole for me. They were as tired or more tired, but they took their energy to take care of me. And it was one of the best things that ever happened to me, because it told me they cared for me, they appreciated my leadership.”
-- Fred Smith quoted in Military Times
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Fred Smith received two Purple Heat medals and the Silver Star for his actions in combat. Fred Smith today remembers the advice given to a young Lt. Smith back in Vietnam by a veteran Marine sergeant: “There’s only three things you gotta remember: shoot, move and communicate.” When the bullets started flying, 1stLt Smith figured out what needed to be done.
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SILVER STAR
AWARDED FOR ACTIONS
DURING Vietnam War
Service: Marine Corps
Rank: First Lieutenant
Battalion: 3d Battalion
Division: 1st Marine Division (Rein.), FMF
GENERAL ORDERS:
CITATION:
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to First Lieutenant Frederick Wallace Smith (MCSN: 0-95227), United States Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving as Commanding Officer of Company K, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division in connection with operations against the enemy in the Republic of Vietnam. On the morning of 27 May 1968, while conducting a search and destroy operation, Company K became heavily engaged with a North Vietnamese Army battalion occupying well-entrenched emplacements on Goi Noi Island in Quang Nam Province.
As Lieutenant Smith led his men in an aggressive assault upon the enemy positions, the North Vietnamese force launched a determined counterattack, supported by mortars, on the Marines' left flank. Unhesitatingly rushing through the intense hostile fire to the position of heaviest contact, Lieutenant Smith fearlessly removed several casualties from the hazardous area and, shouting words of encouragement to his men, directed their fire upon the advancing enemy soldiers, successfully repulsing the hostile attack. Moving boldly across the fire-swept terrain to an elevated area, he calmly disregarded repeated North Vietnamese attempts to direct upon him as he skillfully adjusted artillery fire and air strikes upon the hostile positions to within fifty meters of his own location and continued to direct the movement of his unit.
Accurately assessing the confusion that supporting arms was causing among the enemy soldiers, he raced across the fire-swept terrain to the right flank of his company and led an enveloping attack on the hostile unit's weakest point, routing the North Vietnamese unit and inflicting numerous casualties. His aggressive tactics and calm presence of min under fire inspired all who observed him and were instrumental in his unit accounting for the capture of two hostile soldiers as well as numerous documents and valuable items of equipment. By his courage, aggressive leadership, and unfaltering devotion to duty at great personal risk, Lieutenant Smith upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.
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It has often been said that the three most important things the Marine Corps does for the Nation are: make Marines, win battles, and develop quality citizens. Marines do great things in their active-duty years and then go on to serve more by helping their communities in later years. Compass Points salutes Fred Smith for his decades of faithful service to Country and Corps and salutes all those Marine “quality citizens” who were molded by their years in the Corps and who are still improvising, still adapting, and still overcoming today.
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Military Times - 04/09/2024
FedEx founder credits Marine Corps for giving him the tools to succeed
By Leo Shane III
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Fred Smith
Silver Star Citation
https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/23898
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Achievers
Frederick W. Smith
Founder and Chairman FedEx Corporation
https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/
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MCSF - 12/12/2022
Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation Receives Record-Breaking $65 Million Gift
https://www.mcsf.org/marine-corps-scholarship-foundation-receivesrecord-breaking-65-million-gift/
The Marine Corps does make Marines and win battles. That it results in good citizens is a by product and not a mission. It stems from the ancient Greeks who believed better men were forged in tougher environments. The selection process is vital. You cannot make tempered steel from aluminum or tin. Nor can you make steel without the fires in the forge.
Pick the right young men, separate the quality from those unsuited and keep holding them to the standards. Who you select, how you train, who you retain and who you promote are crucial to the process.
Stoic selfless service and a servant warrior ethos transfer well into civilian society in the right place and right time. It is not appreciated in others. Fred Smith is the epitome of the right path. A remarkable human being.
As our society drifts further from these values it is critical that the Corps not drift to accommodate. MacArthur’s farewell speech captures it succinctly. Standing firm can make others in society uncomfortable and resentful because they cannot grasp what it takes to prevail on the battlefield. Even if a person does not become highly successful they will,to a remarkable degree be a better person.
Semper Fidelis!