CP Editor's focus on ethos and higher duty is spot on --- As is the last phrase: "most of all General Gray seemed to relish the honor of caring for all his Marines." Honor.
Key issue: Responsibility to care for Marines. Barracks are issue du jour --- should be. Very difficult to read these leadership failures. Marine Officers/SNCOs of a certain age can recall inspecting hundreds of rooms and heads at every rank/grade.
Caring for Marines was embedded in the ethos/culture. It was rare that someone had to be told to do a specific act. Leaders exercised initiative.
No one told the Recon Lieutenant that he ought to take multiple MCI comm courses so he could backup the platoon radio operator (no single point of failure) in the event a medevac was required. He just did it.
No one told the 81mm Mortar Platoon Commander ( a relatively small and wiry Marine) to carry the most awkward and heavy parts of the 81mm mortar during old MCCRES march (entire Battalion, yes 01s included) 40 kilometers in less than 8 hours). He just did it.
No one told the Battalion Intelligence Officer that he ought to organized the officers to serve the first hot chow the battalion had received after weeks on MREs. He just did it.
No one told the student Major at the Army's Command and General Staff College to volunteer for Master Tactician competition and work until 2 AM to solve and write an Army Corps Operation Order for an organization he would never serve in. He just did it.
I , like all of you, could go on with the many examples of Marine Officers pushing themselves and others in order to provide the best possible care in peace and war for their Marines. High standards may not have always made them "popular" but most Marines understood the intent was to build teams that could accomplish tough missions and survive to come home.
Another experience: Some may take me to task, but ...
It can be a good idea for officers, even senior officers, to be present during field days/inspection preparations. Among things, they can see the condition of tools, the type/volume of supplies, and learn if junior enlisted are paying for their own tools/supplies. Without any disrespect intended to the many fine NCOs/SNCOs, officers can see those making a difference. Being there in the midst of hard, sweaty inspection preparations can also be a great time to talk and listen. Crawling under a vehicle as Marines are readying it for inspection can be quite informative, both the issues the Marines are working and what they are thinking. Also, interesting how some SNCOs and junior officers that were taking a break in the (air-conditioned) office suddenly become interested ...
As a MGySgt, I take no offense to your comments, sir. Matter of fact, in my 25 years of service, I served under officers (warrant and commissioned) who did exactly that. I had more respect for them than those officers who did stay in their comfy offices. There’s nothing wrong with leadership out and about and in the space, so long as they don’t micromanage, that I wouldn’t allow.
Another reflection on caring for Marines: Frequently, the Marines who were already working the hardest were the ones who made the time to do something more to care for their Marines.
Just one example of many: Gunnery Sergeant who was serving as Rifle Company First Sergeant (already working hard) scrounged stuff (don't ever ask a Gunny where he gets his stuff!) for self-help barracks improvement project AND in his "free" time complied a tactical notebook based on three straight years in Vietnam and his collection of essential skills from other Service publications --- no digital, no Internet search, all done by hand. He was tough and some did not like him (standards!) but he cared!
If the barracks are not being inspected neither are the armories, motor pools, gun parks, supply warehouses, etc. Taking care of Marines also means ensuring they take care of their supplies and equipment.
Lead by example. We need to see more senior Marines in leadership acting as General Gray did, walking amongst the Marines in the field. Marines will always complain about going to the field but the seem the happiest there as well. Even those in support positions need to go. No one signed up for the Marines to work at the Camp Lejeune Pep Boys, they want to do real Marine work. I am comforted by the fact that the Marine Corps has the highest ratio of prior enlisted serving as officers. They can set the example for their peers. Right now, NCO's need to be living in the barracks and conducting Thursday night field days until this current situation is rectified.
Phew, again, spot on analysis of the state of the leadership in our Corps.
I’m aghast at the number and rank of many senior enlisted and officers who are relieved for loss of trust and confidence and or for bribery and other crimes.
CP is absolutely correct in stating something went wrong with our leadership.
I mentioned this before in one of my comments. In 2012, I visited a base as part of our biennial reunion. We toured our former barracks. The state of disrepairs was astonishingly sad. I asked the active duty SgtMaj who is accompanying us why were the barracks in such a state. He his answer baffled me. He said the MC is on a war footing and thus the focus is on war fighting and not on self help to keep the barracks in tip top shape.
To me, the SgtMaj’s answer is pure BS. War or not, Marines or recruits deserve the best we can give them even if it means, we NCO’s and SNCO’s must roll up our sleeves and do some self help.
I also will add this, traveling in cammies, Marines or other service members is BS too. I see that relaxation in uniform as a contributor to the lowering of standards that leads to poor barracks maintenance. And let’s talk about the proliferation of grooming standards, I won’t bore you with that too much, but damn, beards that make Marines look like the Taliban, and female hair almost down to their shoulder blades, really?
Yes, poor leadership. Weak leadership. Politicized leadership is why we are where we are today!
I've provided a slightly cleaned up version of what could be said: "So, SgtMaj, what you are saying is that because units are cycling to and from a combat zone, you won't make an extraordinary effort for Marines to have a decent place to come home to."
Depending on the SgtMaj's response, a follow-up statement (cleaned up) could be: "Well, SgtMaj, your new residence is that sub-standard barracks, that's where you live until you figure out how to make a decent home for Marines returning from combat ... or, you could just retire and make way for the Gunnery Sergeant described above."
Toxic ambition and greed lead to corruption, graft, breeches of integrity and poor leadership.
You can walk through a unit’s office spaces, billeting areas, motor pool, chow hall, visit the SNCO quarters, Officer Housing and look at the POV’s in the parking lot and draw many accurate conclusions about the combat capabilities of the unit without watching one training evolution or seeing one round fired.
In college, in 1970, I walked through the dorm rooms (46 rooms) with our resident advisor and accurately predicted with 90% accuracy who would flunk out, drop out and who would move forward.
None of this is new. It is as old as time. The Corps once understood this. It appears it longer does. A company commander when I was a Lieutenant said: “If you can’t lead them to the barbershop you cannot lead them over the last 400 meters of foreign policy.”
Back to basics. Where there is integrity and discipline the rest usually follows.
Can I interest anyone in my company's new offering for the 21st century military: Troop Welfare as a Service (TWaaS)? Why not offload troop welfare to the cloud so you can focus on your core business?
From Our Archive: Special Trust and Confidence by Lt. Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr. USMC
By admin | 5342 Days Ago
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HeinlIn May of 1956 then LTCOL Robert Debs Heinl, Jr. USMC, penned a scathing article in PROCEEDINGS magazine about the decline of the officer corps and the loss of “special trust and confidence.” He cited the Roots of the problem, offered 8 points as fixes and challenged all officers and those in DOD authority to reverse the trend.
Heinl was no ordinary complaining officer. He was, in fact, one of the finest writers of military literature ever to emerge from the profession of arms in the United States. A 27 year veteran of the Corps, he saw combat action at Pearl Harbor, the South Pacific, Iwo Jima, and Korea. A contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, The National Geographic, other professional journals, and author of a history of the Marine Corps, Soldiers of the Sea (U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland) and Victory at High Tide.
He wrote the 1956 essay well before the dawn of the all-volunteer force. Yet today young officers still refer to the Heinl piece as a classic (Captain Brian Donlon, USMC, Proceedings, November 2009).
Our question is what might COL Heinl write today about “special trust and confidence” -the words which still appear in every officer’s commissioning paper? Do you agree with Captain Donlon? Are things better; what has changed and, most importantly, what is the same or worse than when he citing the declining role of officers in the military services of 1956?
COLONEL ROBERT HEINL: THE COLLAPSE OF THE ARMED FORCES (1971)
In June 1971, Colonel Robert Heinl published a controversial article, The Collapse of the Armed Forces, in which he claimed the US military was on the brink of disaster. Heinl cited examples of ‘fragging’, combat refusal, desertion, drug use and racial prejudice:
“The morale, discipline and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at anytime in this century and possibly in the history of the United States. By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not nearly mutinous. Elsewhere than Vietnam, the situation is nearly as serious.
Intolerably clobbered and buffeted from without and within by social turbulence, pandemic drug addiction, race war, sedition, civilian scapegoatise, draftee recalcitrance and malevolence, barracks theft and common crime, unsupported in their travail by the general government, in Congress as well as the executive branch, distrusted, disliked, and often reviled by the public, the uniformed services today are places of agony for the loyal, silent professions who doggedly hang on and try to keep the ship afloat…..cont
‘A fish stinks first from the head’….Turkish saying.
Top Marine ‘won’t apologize’ for Corps’ past neglect of barracks
By Irene Loewenson
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Gen. Eric Smith has served as the Marine commandant since September 2023, although he became the acting commandant in July 2023 following the retirement of Commandant Gen. David Berger. (Colin Demarest/C4ISRNET)
WASHINGTON — The top Marine leader “won’t apologize” for the years of underinvestment in the Marine Corps’ barracks even though he has made improving those living facilities a top priority now that he is in charge.
“When we geared up for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we focused on weapons systems, training and technology,” Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said Thursday at the Modern Day Marine conference in Washington. “And that focus kept a lot of Marines alive in Helmand province, kept a lot of Marines alive in Iraq, in the Sunni Triangle.”
This is like an arrow to the heart. Force Design 2030 will destroy the Marine Corps. And those senior 'leaders' in this article are responsible for it. Not one single officer challenged General Berger on his destructive policy of FD 2030. Not one resigned. Why is that? It is leadership at its worst, and one indicator is the subject of A Higher Duty. Anybody remember the word 'careerism'? That was coined as a whole generation of officers worried about how decisions would effect their careers rather than just doing their duty. I think officers in the ranks of 06 and above should be summarily removed. We don't need them. They have done enough to destroy our Corps. Cpl BLT 2/4 '67-68
Here is a perspective from our efforts to fix recruiting the early1980's. The strategy among recruiters versus the officer selection officer (OSO) was quite different. This not a judgement right or wrong of any recruiter or OSO. They formulate their dialogue based on the prospects they can convince of an interview. Herein lies the difference as it played out in the Midwest. The OSO’s found that many prospects primarily sought to build a career in some form or fashion. So, the motivation to join was to build a resume within or without the Corps.
By contrast, recruiters continually faced the challenge of parental consent. Again, any recruiter, calibrates his behavior, appearance and dialogue in accordance with the perceived needs of the prospect. In the rural Midwest, it was routine at such appointments to arrive fit and trim in full Blues knowing full well that ranchers and farmers have a discerning eye as to “talk and walk”. While the recruiter presented and discussed the finer points of a copy of the Marine Corps Manual 1100 and the Hymn, his “flip chart” was open to a picture of a boot camp graduate in blues. The major point was the organization’s allegiance to values in 11001 and 1100.4.b and c. So, the objective was to not only to enable the parents to approve the enlistment, but to bring them to the point of encouraging and supporting the son in his decision. This was critical in the arena of non-cohort attrition.
The parents and son made a commitment in the expectation that a promise would be fulfilled. To the delight of the recruiter, no other Service could present the promise found in MCM 1100.2.d. and MCM 1100.4.b and 1100.4.c. Yet in large part, the OSO’ candidates focused on career development and growth.
The danger in this contrast of commitment and promise, was the risk of forming a culture apart from the Marine Corps Manual 1100 and the Hymn. This could have been reconciled by education and leadership. Yet, to my knowledge and experience, the MCM 1100 was not used by OSO’s, the origin, history and importance of the “promise” was not in the curriculum of OCS, TBS, AWS or C&S. No Chaplains were in the curriculum to show the relationship between MCM 1100 and Paul’s Letters to the Romans, the Ephesians and Philemon (as occurred to a few folks in South Dakota.)
Therein you see the seeds of organizational chaos rather than development. There grew two distinctly different “cohorts” as to the basis for their commitment to the Corps and their life goals.
One that created among some officer ranks, a cohort of unctuous sycophants, obsequious to the point of forming an oleaginous ethos. Another cohort the product of highly resourceful and talented recruiters in the early 1980’s.
This became highly evident in the leadership in 1988. The emphasis on spiritual and physical conditioning was gone. By example and contrast, it was a long way from General Walt’s command guidance in Operation County Fair. Now we see tattooed and obese worshipers of DEI and LQ etc. shepherded by politicians in uniform. Therein lies the chaos -- a deep values disconnect.
CP Editor's focus on ethos and higher duty is spot on --- As is the last phrase: "most of all General Gray seemed to relish the honor of caring for all his Marines." Honor.
Key issue: Responsibility to care for Marines. Barracks are issue du jour --- should be. Very difficult to read these leadership failures. Marine Officers/SNCOs of a certain age can recall inspecting hundreds of rooms and heads at every rank/grade.
Caring for Marines was embedded in the ethos/culture. It was rare that someone had to be told to do a specific act. Leaders exercised initiative.
No one told the Recon Lieutenant that he ought to take multiple MCI comm courses so he could backup the platoon radio operator (no single point of failure) in the event a medevac was required. He just did it.
No one told the 81mm Mortar Platoon Commander ( a relatively small and wiry Marine) to carry the most awkward and heavy parts of the 81mm mortar during old MCCRES march (entire Battalion, yes 01s included) 40 kilometers in less than 8 hours). He just did it.
No one told the Battalion Intelligence Officer that he ought to organized the officers to serve the first hot chow the battalion had received after weeks on MREs. He just did it.
No one told the student Major at the Army's Command and General Staff College to volunteer for Master Tactician competition and work until 2 AM to solve and write an Army Corps Operation Order for an organization he would never serve in. He just did it.
I , like all of you, could go on with the many examples of Marine Officers pushing themselves and others in order to provide the best possible care in peace and war for their Marines. High standards may not have always made them "popular" but most Marines understood the intent was to build teams that could accomplish tough missions and survive to come home.
Another experience: Some may take me to task, but ...
It can be a good idea for officers, even senior officers, to be present during field days/inspection preparations. Among things, they can see the condition of tools, the type/volume of supplies, and learn if junior enlisted are paying for their own tools/supplies. Without any disrespect intended to the many fine NCOs/SNCOs, officers can see those making a difference. Being there in the midst of hard, sweaty inspection preparations can also be a great time to talk and listen. Crawling under a vehicle as Marines are readying it for inspection can be quite informative, both the issues the Marines are working and what they are thinking. Also, interesting how some SNCOs and junior officers that were taking a break in the (air-conditioned) office suddenly become interested ...
As a MGySgt, I take no offense to your comments, sir. Matter of fact, in my 25 years of service, I served under officers (warrant and commissioned) who did exactly that. I had more respect for them than those officers who did stay in their comfy offices. There’s nothing wrong with leadership out and about and in the space, so long as they don’t micromanage, that I wouldn’t allow.
Another reflection on caring for Marines: Frequently, the Marines who were already working the hardest were the ones who made the time to do something more to care for their Marines.
Just one example of many: Gunnery Sergeant who was serving as Rifle Company First Sergeant (already working hard) scrounged stuff (don't ever ask a Gunny where he gets his stuff!) for self-help barracks improvement project AND in his "free" time complied a tactical notebook based on three straight years in Vietnam and his collection of essential skills from other Service publications --- no digital, no Internet search, all done by hand. He was tough and some did not like him (standards!) but he cared!
If the barracks are not being inspected neither are the armories, motor pools, gun parks, supply warehouses, etc. Taking care of Marines also means ensuring they take care of their supplies and equipment.
Lead by example. We need to see more senior Marines in leadership acting as General Gray did, walking amongst the Marines in the field. Marines will always complain about going to the field but the seem the happiest there as well. Even those in support positions need to go. No one signed up for the Marines to work at the Camp Lejeune Pep Boys, they want to do real Marine work. I am comforted by the fact that the Marine Corps has the highest ratio of prior enlisted serving as officers. They can set the example for their peers. Right now, NCO's need to be living in the barracks and conducting Thursday night field days until this current situation is rectified.
Phew, again, spot on analysis of the state of the leadership in our Corps.
I’m aghast at the number and rank of many senior enlisted and officers who are relieved for loss of trust and confidence and or for bribery and other crimes.
CP is absolutely correct in stating something went wrong with our leadership.
I mentioned this before in one of my comments. In 2012, I visited a base as part of our biennial reunion. We toured our former barracks. The state of disrepairs was astonishingly sad. I asked the active duty SgtMaj who is accompanying us why were the barracks in such a state. He his answer baffled me. He said the MC is on a war footing and thus the focus is on war fighting and not on self help to keep the barracks in tip top shape.
To me, the SgtMaj’s answer is pure BS. War or not, Marines or recruits deserve the best we can give them even if it means, we NCO’s and SNCO’s must roll up our sleeves and do some self help.
I also will add this, traveling in cammies, Marines or other service members is BS too. I see that relaxation in uniform as a contributor to the lowering of standards that leads to poor barracks maintenance. And let’s talk about the proliferation of grooming standards, I won’t bore you with that too much, but damn, beards that make Marines look like the Taliban, and female hair almost down to their shoulder blades, really?
Yes, poor leadership. Weak leadership. Politicized leadership is why we are where we are today!
The SgtMaj's comment is sad/painful to read.
I've provided a slightly cleaned up version of what could be said: "So, SgtMaj, what you are saying is that because units are cycling to and from a combat zone, you won't make an extraordinary effort for Marines to have a decent place to come home to."
Depending on the SgtMaj's response, a follow-up statement (cleaned up) could be: "Well, SgtMaj, your new residence is that sub-standard barracks, that's where you live until you figure out how to make a decent home for Marines returning from combat ... or, you could just retire and make way for the Gunnery Sergeant described above."
Toxic ambition and greed lead to corruption, graft, breeches of integrity and poor leadership.
You can walk through a unit’s office spaces, billeting areas, motor pool, chow hall, visit the SNCO quarters, Officer Housing and look at the POV’s in the parking lot and draw many accurate conclusions about the combat capabilities of the unit without watching one training evolution or seeing one round fired.
In college, in 1970, I walked through the dorm rooms (46 rooms) with our resident advisor and accurately predicted with 90% accuracy who would flunk out, drop out and who would move forward.
None of this is new. It is as old as time. The Corps once understood this. It appears it longer does. A company commander when I was a Lieutenant said: “If you can’t lead them to the barbershop you cannot lead them over the last 400 meters of foreign policy.”
Back to basics. Where there is integrity and discipline the rest usually follows.
Can I interest anyone in my company's new offering for the 21st century military: Troop Welfare as a Service (TWaaS)? Why not offload troop welfare to the cloud so you can focus on your core business?
But, but, but I thought troop welfare (taking care of Marines) was our core business.
Request you add your post to the "FD Double Speak" Lexicon you are maintaining --- Definitely worth a beer.
After Korean War same author.’From our Archive
From Our Archive: Special Trust and Confidence by Lt. Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr. USMC
By admin | 5342 Days Ago
Categories
From our Archive
Marine Corps
Proceedings
Tags
No Tags
HeinlIn May of 1956 then LTCOL Robert Debs Heinl, Jr. USMC, penned a scathing article in PROCEEDINGS magazine about the decline of the officer corps and the loss of “special trust and confidence.” He cited the Roots of the problem, offered 8 points as fixes and challenged all officers and those in DOD authority to reverse the trend.
Heinl was no ordinary complaining officer. He was, in fact, one of the finest writers of military literature ever to emerge from the profession of arms in the United States. A 27 year veteran of the Corps, he saw combat action at Pearl Harbor, the South Pacific, Iwo Jima, and Korea. A contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, The National Geographic, other professional journals, and author of a history of the Marine Corps, Soldiers of the Sea (U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland) and Victory at High Tide.
He wrote the 1956 essay well before the dawn of the all-volunteer force. Yet today young officers still refer to the Heinl piece as a classic (Captain Brian Donlon, USMC, Proceedings, November 2009).
Our question is what might COL Heinl write today about “special trust and confidence” -the words which still appear in every officer’s commissioning paper? Do you agree with Captain Donlon? Are things better; what has changed and, most importantly, what is the same or worse than when he citing the declining role of officers in the military services of 1956?
Vol. No. 82, No.5 May 1956 Whole No. 639
We have been here before! “
Vietnam War Search
Primary MenuSKIP TO CONTENT
COLONEL ROBERT HEINL: THE COLLAPSE OF THE ARMED FORCES (1971)
In June 1971, Colonel Robert Heinl published a controversial article, The Collapse of the Armed Forces, in which he claimed the US military was on the brink of disaster. Heinl cited examples of ‘fragging’, combat refusal, desertion, drug use and racial prejudice:
“The morale, discipline and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at anytime in this century and possibly in the history of the United States. By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not nearly mutinous. Elsewhere than Vietnam, the situation is nearly as serious.
Intolerably clobbered and buffeted from without and within by social turbulence, pandemic drug addiction, race war, sedition, civilian scapegoatise, draftee recalcitrance and malevolence, barracks theft and common crime, unsupported in their travail by the general government, in Congress as well as the executive branch, distrusted, disliked, and often reviled by the public, the uniformed services today are places of agony for the loyal, silent professions who doggedly hang on and try to keep the ship afloat…..cont
58 years ago when I went to OCS class 41 we were constantly told that an officer’s primary job was to take care of the troops.
IMO that is an Officer’s primary job.
‘A fish stinks first from the head’….Turkish saying.
Top Marine ‘won’t apologize’ for Corps’ past neglect of barracks
By Irene Loewenson
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Gen. Eric Smith has served as the Marine commandant since September 2023, although he became the acting commandant in July 2023 following the retirement of Commandant Gen. David Berger. (Colin Demarest/C4ISRNET)
WASHINGTON — The top Marine leader “won’t apologize” for the years of underinvestment in the Marine Corps’ barracks even though he has made improving those living facilities a top priority now that he is in charge.
“When we geared up for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we focused on weapons systems, training and technology,” Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said Thursday at the Modern Day Marine conference in Washington. “And that focus kept a lot of Marines alive in Helmand province, kept a lot of Marines alive in Iraq, in the Sunni Triangle.”
This is like an arrow to the heart. Force Design 2030 will destroy the Marine Corps. And those senior 'leaders' in this article are responsible for it. Not one single officer challenged General Berger on his destructive policy of FD 2030. Not one resigned. Why is that? It is leadership at its worst, and one indicator is the subject of A Higher Duty. Anybody remember the word 'careerism'? That was coined as a whole generation of officers worried about how decisions would effect their careers rather than just doing their duty. I think officers in the ranks of 06 and above should be summarily removed. We don't need them. They have done enough to destroy our Corps. Cpl BLT 2/4 '67-68
Here is a perspective from our efforts to fix recruiting the early1980's. The strategy among recruiters versus the officer selection officer (OSO) was quite different. This not a judgement right or wrong of any recruiter or OSO. They formulate their dialogue based on the prospects they can convince of an interview. Herein lies the difference as it played out in the Midwest. The OSO’s found that many prospects primarily sought to build a career in some form or fashion. So, the motivation to join was to build a resume within or without the Corps.
By contrast, recruiters continually faced the challenge of parental consent. Again, any recruiter, calibrates his behavior, appearance and dialogue in accordance with the perceived needs of the prospect. In the rural Midwest, it was routine at such appointments to arrive fit and trim in full Blues knowing full well that ranchers and farmers have a discerning eye as to “talk and walk”. While the recruiter presented and discussed the finer points of a copy of the Marine Corps Manual 1100 and the Hymn, his “flip chart” was open to a picture of a boot camp graduate in blues. The major point was the organization’s allegiance to values in 11001 and 1100.4.b and c. So, the objective was to not only to enable the parents to approve the enlistment, but to bring them to the point of encouraging and supporting the son in his decision. This was critical in the arena of non-cohort attrition.
The parents and son made a commitment in the expectation that a promise would be fulfilled. To the delight of the recruiter, no other Service could present the promise found in MCM 1100.2.d. and MCM 1100.4.b and 1100.4.c. Yet in large part, the OSO’ candidates focused on career development and growth.
The danger in this contrast of commitment and promise, was the risk of forming a culture apart from the Marine Corps Manual 1100 and the Hymn. This could have been reconciled by education and leadership. Yet, to my knowledge and experience, the MCM 1100 was not used by OSO’s, the origin, history and importance of the “promise” was not in the curriculum of OCS, TBS, AWS or C&S. No Chaplains were in the curriculum to show the relationship between MCM 1100 and Paul’s Letters to the Romans, the Ephesians and Philemon (as occurred to a few folks in South Dakota.)
Therein you see the seeds of organizational chaos rather than development. There grew two distinctly different “cohorts” as to the basis for their commitment to the Corps and their life goals.
One that created among some officer ranks, a cohort of unctuous sycophants, obsequious to the point of forming an oleaginous ethos. Another cohort the product of highly resourceful and talented recruiters in the early 1980’s.
This became highly evident in the leadership in 1988. The emphasis on spiritual and physical conditioning was gone. By example and contrast, it was a long way from General Walt’s command guidance in Operation County Fair. Now we see tattooed and obese worshipers of DEI and LQ etc. shepherded by politicians in uniform. Therein lies the chaos -- a deep values disconnect.
Absolutely spot on!