A Taste of Chowder
Looking Back, before looking forward.
FD 2030 is controversial. Love it or hate it, it is controversial. Compass Points has compiled a PME Library of more than 70 authoritative articles raising grave doubts about FD 2030. In just a few days, those with concerns about FD 2030 will unveil an alternative, Vision 2035.
Vision 2035 will be introduced by a series of four articles in the online pages of the Marine Corps Gazette. Compass Points has been previewing the upcoming publication of the four articles, which the Marine Corps Gazette will publish one after another from Tuesday, 29 November through Friday, 2 December. The articles are the product of the Chowder II Society, an organization devoted to advancing our Corps as the nation’s premier combined arms, air-ground-logistics, 9-1-1 force, for rapid response to crises and contingencies around the world.
The four articles introducing Vision 2035 are:
The Preface - Who is Chowder II?
The Concerns - Fatal Flaws in FD 2030.
The Choice - Retreat to defense or retake the offense?
The Vision - Global response, today and tomorrow.
Before introducing both the Chowder II Society and Vision 2035, It is worth looking back. Before today’s Chowder II Society, there was the original Chowder Society. Seventy-five years ago, the Marine Corps was fighting for its institutional survival. The President of the United States, the War Department, and the United States Army wanted to abolish the Marine Corps as a viable combat military organization. The Navy, itself under programmatic attack, was content to watch from the sidelines. The Marine Corps was in very real danger of extinction.
Facing an almost impossible task, a group of fourteen active duty Marine officers, and four reserve officers joined together and worked tirelessly in an effor to somehow save the Marine Corps as a separate Service. The officers fighting for the Marine Corps called themselves, the Chowder Society.
The Marine Corps was in a fight for its existence. The Army claimed the Marines were only a second land army and therefore, unnecessary. President Truman was no friend of the Marine Corps. The President said: “The Marine Corps is the Navy’s police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain.”
The sentiment inside the Department of War was even stronger. The Secretary of War and most of the other officials wanted the Marine Corps reduced to something no larger than a regiment. Without assistance from the Navy, the Marines knew they had to turn to Congress for statutory legislation to protect Marine Corps roles, mission, and aviation.
But it was legislation that was killing the Marine Corps. In 1946, the Senate proposed a service unification bill that would essentially drive a stake through the institutional heart of the Marine Corps. The Marines knew they must have the support of the House of Representatives or the Marine Corps would be killed. Speaking before the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs on May 6, 1946, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Alexander Vandegrift, delivered his famous “bended knee“ speech, which said in part:
… The Marine Corps, then, believes that it has earned this right to have its future decided by the legislative body which created it, nothing more. Sentiment is not a valid consideration in determining questions of national security. We have pride in ourselves and in our past but we do not rest our case on any presumed ground of gratitude owing us from the Nation. The bended knee is not a tradition of our Corps. If the Marine as a fighting man has not made a case for himself after 170 years of service, he must go. But I think you will agree with me that he has earned the right to depart with dignity and honor, not by subjugation to the status of uselessness and servility planned for him by the War Department.
General Vandegrift’s speech galvanized the American public and the Senate bill was tabled and eventually died. The Chowder Society continued to work with selected Members in the House of Representatives. Against all odds, the Chowder Society persuaded the House to pass a a much differnt bill, one giving the Marines protection under law. On 26 July 1947 the National Security Act was signed into law by President Truman.
The National Security Act of 1947, codified Marine Corps roles and mission, stating in part:
“The United States Marine Corps, within the Department of the Navy, shall include land combat and service forces and such aviation as may be organic therein. The Marine Corps shall be organized, trained, and equipped to provide fleet marine forces of combined arms, together with supporting air components, for service with the fleet in the seizure or defense of advanced naval bases and for the conduct of such land operations as may be essential to the prosecution of a naval campaign.”
Instead of being reduced to an insignificant Navy police force, the Marine Corps was established as a seperate service. Against all odds, the Marine Corps had been saved from destruction by a few good men, the Chowder Society.
Today, the Marine Corps is at a different, but similar crossroads. The Nation’s Corps of Marines is at risk of becoming operationally insignificant due to a strategically myopic and narrowly defined mission in the Southeast Pacific. Fortunately, the Nation has a modern-day Chowder Society, calling itself, Chowder II. The goal of Chowder II is to ensure the Marine Corps remains the Nation’s premier 9-1-1 force, capable of global response across the spectrum of conflict.
Stand by. In just a few days, Compass Points, Chowder II, and the Marine Corps Gazette will present, Vision 2035.
The Corps no longer protects itself from the army… It is morphing into a useless appendage of the army.
TLDR alert
https://www.bluetoad.com/publication/?i=3570&article_id=32339&view=articleBrowser
The "Chowder Society" was so named due to Brute Krulak's resemblance to a character in a comic strip "Barnaby." Within the comic was an organization often referred to as the "Little Men's Chowder and Marching Society. Full name was actually "Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes and Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society."
Seminal efforts, such as the "No Bended Knee" speech emanated from Brute's Chowder Society, with much of that being drafted by LtCols Twining and Krulak.
Since the Chowder Society there have been several additional efforts, probably some populated by subscribers to Compass Points: The Quatrefoil Club (LtGen van Riper?), The Marine Society (Gen Al Gray, Lind, Gen Dunford?) as well as several not formally affiliated with the Marine Corps. One of these, Brute's Chowder Society, is a national security forum that has been ongoing for several years and has hundreds of members (content not limited to discussing the Marine Corps).