Compass Points - A Stronger 911
Keeping the promise
Compass Points - A Stronger 911
Keeping the promise
April 27, 2025
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Sunday is a good day for reflection.
Over the last week, Compass Points readers have generated online and off a cornucopia of comments, insights, and analysis. Compass Points salutes all readers who in their own ways are continuing to build the discussion about a stronger Marine Corps, and also thanks all our readers who served as seminar leaders this week by providing topics, articles, and comments. Many thanks!
This week it is worth reflecting on the national 911 system.
Does it ever happen, when one person calls 911, that they do not get the help they need? When a person calls 911 for help, that call should be answered in one frantic breath and help should arrive nearly with the next breath.
Author Jen Zwinck has investigated the 911 system in the United States.
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Picture this scenario. You have an emergency. A health crisis. Or your kitchen is on fire. Or someone is trying to break into your home. You grab the phone, shaking, and frantically call 911. Then you’re put on hold. And you wait. And you wait. Not just a few seconds. It seems like a lifetime goes by before you finally talk to a live person. This scenario happens way more often than you think.
Petra Gordon came home to find her husband on the floor of his office. She tells us “I called 911. I was put on hold. Which I never even thought you could be put on hold for 911. I didn’t get a real person on the phone for a good 60 seconds. So, then I finally got a live person who told me to do CPR and told me how to do the compressions on my husband.”
— Jen Zwinck
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Jen Zwinck warns that when the call goes out to 911, a person may not get the help they need. She goes on to suggest, everyone should learn CPR so they can help their loved ones without waiting.
What about when a nation calls?
When some global crisis erupts and the United States calls 9-1-1, US policy makers cannot put their hands on some distant crisis and start foreign policy CPR. US policy makers need immediate operational options. They need US Marines and they need them now.
The good news is the spirit and fight of the individual Marine is undimmed. Marines in their own fire team, squad, and platoon are eager to be called and eager to jump into the fight.
It is at the higher level, unfortunately, where Marine Corps capabilities as a crisis response force have been greatly diminished. New leaders should take time to understand that today's Marine Corps is not the 9-1-1 force it once was, nor the 9-1-1 force it should be.
Two experienced Marine leaders have issued a warning.
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The American people and a growing number of elected representatives are beginning to suspect something some Marine Corps leaders have been unwilling to admit: United States Marines are no longer capable of responding to global crises and contingencies quickly and effectively, and in some cases, at all.
. . . How capable are the Navy and Marine Corps to answer a 9-1-1 call for future military and humanitarian emergencies?
Timely and effective global response across the spectrum of conflict requires a combination of amphibious lift for forward presence, maritime prepositioning for rapid deployment and sustainment, and a combined arms force that can be task organized for everything from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to major combat against a determined enemy. Neither the Navy nor the Marine Corps can meet these essential requirements today.
-- Generals Conway and Zinni
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Generals Conway and Zinni ask the new SecDef, SecNav, and members of Congress to closely question any Marine leaders who claim that the Marine Corps still has its full, global, combined arms capabilities.
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Marine Corps leaders are being disingenuous when they tell Congress and the American people that the Marine Corps is the nation’s 9-1-1 force, fully capable of responding to crises and contingencies across the spectrum of conflict and in every “clime and place.” It no longer is and the Navy shares much of the blame.
The Navy-Marine Corps team is now a shell of the capacity that served our maritime nation so effectively for over two centuries.
Until Marines are properly supported with adequate amphibious ships, bolstered by a robust maritime prepositioning force, and restored to a true combined arms force, they will remain incapable of fulfilling the will of the 82nd Congress: “to be most ready when the nation is generally least ready.”
-- Generals Conway and Zinni
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Compass Points thanks Generals Conway and Zinni and all those across the Marine community who have been sounding the alarm about the loss of Marine Corps capabilities. New civilian leaders need to closely examine how the Marine Corps over the last 5 years has degraded and destroyed too many combined arms units, equipment, and capabilities, including armor, artillery, air, infantry, combat engineering, snipers, and more. The needs of the Nation require the Marine Corps to be quickly restored, updated, and enhanced so it can become, once again, America’s fully capable 9-1-1 force.
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Widow 180
Does 911 ever not answer?
By Jen Zwinck
https://www.widow180.com/resources/911
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Marine Times - 07/07/2024
How capable is today’s Marine Corps to answer a 9-1-1 call? Not very
By Gen. James Conway (retired) and Gen. Anthony Zinni (retired)
Gen. James Conway (retired) is a career infantry officer with extensive experience in global response operations. He was the operations officer for the 31st Marine Amphibious Unit during contingency operations in Beirut, commanded Battalion Landing Team 3/2 during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and commanded I Marine Expeditionary Force during two consecutive combat tours in Iraq. His last assignment was 34th commandant of the Marine Corps.
Gen. Anthony Zinni (retired) is a career infantry officer with extensive experience in global response operations. He commanded the 35th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which was deployed twice to the Philippines to conduct emergency security operations and disaster relief operations. He also served as the director of operations for the Unified Task Force in Somalia for Operation Restore Hope. His last assignment was commander, United States Central Command.
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I applaud all the written efforts to question the obvious disaster of Force 2030 but my real question based on my HQMC experience is who is carrying the message face to face with the White House, SecDef, SecNav and Congress? We have less than 4 years before the next Presidential election and less than two for the House of Representatives. Like many as distasteful as it sounds I looked forward to a house cleaning of defective Leadership in the Corps which hasn’t occurred. IMHO we don’t have a lot of time to turn this around, change is inevitable but needs to be properly vetted by traditional open war gaming evaluations not closed door secrecy.
One of the things that I loved about the Marine Corps was our ability for self reflection after each combat operation or field exercise…What we did right…And more importantly, what we did wrong. Corrections began immediately. Phonies and B. S. artists couldn’t survive very long in that environment. I don’t see it in this new generation. Semper Fi