Compass Points - Captivating Comments
Readers expand the discussion.
Compass Points - Captivating Comments
Readers expand the discussion.
October 26, 2024
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Early this morning, Israel conducted a series of air attacks on targets in Iran. The air strikes were made in response to Iran's ballistic missile attack on Israel on October 1, 2024.
Worldwide challenges threaten the safety and security of the US. What will happen next? No one knows. No matter what happens, however, there is no doubt Compass Points readers will have insightful analysis and comment.
Over the last week, Compass Points readers have responded online and off with a cornucopia of comments, insights, and analysis. Only a few of the comments are re-posted below. Most of the full comments are available for reading on the Compass Points site. As always, comments have been edited for length and content. Several long, thoughtful comments have been reduced to just a sentence or two. Often the real enjoyment comes, not as much from the excerpt included below but, from reading the comment in full. Compass Points appreciates the full, insightful, and professional comments of all readers. Many thanks!
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cfrog
Some of the best Marines I knew were Corpsmen. Semper Fi, Doc.
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John C Harvey, Jr
Very proud to have commanded USS DAVID R RAY (DD 971) 1991-1992!
It meant a great deal to the crew to serve on a warship named for a Sailor who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Semper Fi and Go Navy, J.C Harvey, Jr ADM USN (Ret)
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Joel T Bowling
Thank YHWH for our USN Corpsmen and Chaplains/RPs who are always in the thick of combat and training with us! Also, much appreciation to the USN dentists/techs who take care of our dental needs! Semper Fidelis my Shipmates and Shalom!
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DARRELL HATCHER
The Corpsman is God's gift to the Marine Corps. To quote a GySgt in my first unit, E 2/1, " No one f***s with our Doc."
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Coffeejoejava
As a brand new Embarkation/Logistics NCO, I was sent to 3rd Medical Bn. First words out of my mouth when I got the assignment was "What the @#$% is Medical Bn?"
I got there and met some of the finest sailors I ever had the pleasure of working with.
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medevicerep
I prefer the bluntness of Mr. Anderson. I recall being a young Lieutenant at TBS. I had a clear notion of how I could best serve our Corps and country and where. I was corrected of that notion “bluntly”. I was not the one to decide, it was the Corps and country I served that would decide. Congress informed us of our mission years ago and did not change it. It was a small cadre of leadership that made that decision that brought us to today. Hopefully Congress will correct this soon.
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hcinco
Excellent piece. There. Is food for thought, and ideas to act on.
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Robert Strahan
This article (and many others) correctly describe the "close fight" of resisting the stubbornness associated with the current misguided redesign of the USMC force structure. The "deep fight" isn't talked about much. That is the need for another congressional "roles and missions" law. Roles and missions law was passed in 1949. I think it's about time we revisited the issue. The lack of contemporary clarity has developed into what I think has become a diffusion of USMC focus. I can't for the life of me figure out how the current leadership can think that defense of islands not associated with Naval Bases, and/or becoming a reconnaissance tripwire for the Joint Forces can be interpreted from USMC roles and missions.
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Jerry McAbee
The Marine Corps is not "stuck" with Force Design. The Commandant, using his Title X authority to "organize, train, and equip" the Service, could change course today by simply adopting a better capstone operating concept for the Corps. Fielding new capabilities would take time, probably years but the vector could be changed with the stroke of a pen. Vision 2035 offers the Marine Corps the intellectual foundation for a better way forward. The failure to change course and to instead continue down the FD rabbit hole can be hung on only one person - - the Commandant.
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Raymond Lee Maloy
There will be no attaboys for the dolts behind this fiasco. Too bad that they will not be held accountable. Semper Fi.
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Tom Eagen
Accepting responsibility and WELCOMING accountability is what adult leaders do. I and many of my peers feel let down by current senior leaders who have not found a way to call for an accounting. If there is a sound basis for decisions taken re FD 2030 then a defense and justification would have been presented years ago. CMC and his supporters may be true believers, but they have not made their case and at this late date that fact alone undermines confidence in their leadership. But perhaps we old guys were shaped by leaders who could anticipate the reaction to changes and act promptly and sometimes bluntly to demonstrate the value of their decisions.
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Don Whisnant
General Al Gray attended the funeral of over 100 of his Marines that were killed in Beirut. Why can't we have more Marine leaders like him?
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norman sheridan
That mold was broken when Gen Gray passed. He was something to behold and about as close to being compared to Gen "Chesty" Puller" as a Marine could get.
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Don Whisnant
I agree. He was special, a great Marine and human being.
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Charles Wemyss, Jr.
The siren song of "special operations" has a grand appeal. "We are so different and special that we don't need the rest of you straight leg Infantry Marines or the enormous back up that the rest of the Corps provides to us to and from where we need to go." This is not meant as a dismissal of the importance of special operations. But do we need 2,000 SEALS? The Basher 52 mission proves the point, hard and careful training of most Marines can lead to very good results and in a relative flash of time.
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Joel T Bowling
As a 0321 (sec MOS... PMOS was 2531) who served with 2nd Reconnaissance Bn and then with C/E 26th MEU (SOC) Comm Plt as a PSC3A SATCOM operator with the newly minted MSPF (1987-90), I well remember the 6 hr time from getting the mission to launching it, regardless of the nature or type... I'm afraid that with FD2030, this SOC capability has been lost... thank G_d that Gen Gray, upon assuming his role as CMC in July 1987, immediately implemented the SOC for all MEUs.
Semper Fidelis! Joel "Big Country" Bowling, SGT USMC 1985-91; CWO2 (ret) NCARNG 1991-2013
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Charles Wemyss, Jr.
One question that seems unaddressed, is what the ultimate goal of the CCP is in the Pacific region. Is it so that they are just a regional player bent on confronting the United States? Why the belts and roads strategy spreading outward from Beijing around the world, and halfway through the 100-year plan are they focusing solely on a "One China" policy. How can any military respond with a short-, medium- and long-term plan, if it doesn't know A. what its civilian leaders want and think, B. Work from a limited knowledge (apparently) of what the adversary/adversaries want and intend to achieve. Let alone develop a logistics plan of any substance to support the confrontation.
By the way, what is in it for China, to blast away one of its largest trading partners, who's appetite for their lousy products is voracious, besides which they need to steal the partners technology to just keep pace with the trading partner's technology?
FD203 is a disaster cobbled together by some mostly nameless faceless group of individuals working under non-disclosure agreements (which likely wouldn't hold up in a court of law) championed by two CMC's who were/are so bought in, they can't seemingly get out of the box they have built.
Logistics?!? We can't roll steel to any great effect in the USA. Nippon Steel wishes to acquire US Steel, what a great idea. Forget building a 300-ship navy, if you haven't the steel to lay the keel. Forget a new armored fighting vehicle tracked or on wheels, if you can't fabricate the steel and other high heat metals because A. You don't have the materials and B. no one can run a turning lathe tower. 300 ship navy? Hard to do, when you can't repair what you own now, or burn a vessel to the water line at the pier. Or maybe one of the 150 flag navy officers with their 10,000 mile screw drivers can keep a precious US Navy oiler from running aground, apparently not....
So now let's take a rifle company with a top heavy T/O and send it to outposts in the "first Island Chain" to intercept the CCP/PLA with missiles that are not currently available, once fired at something the SIF has no way to get Beans, Bullets and Band Aids and this is a good idea and no one at DOD or the Congress says, wait a minute. But the current CMC took time out from his busy schedule 10 days ago to travel to North Berwick, Maine to visit the Pratt Whitney factory that produces F-35 engines. If we don't need the Wing why visit the factory that makes the engines for an aircraft serving on active duty??
In the meantime, we know what works, and that is the MAGTF, we have had several senior (former CMC's and 3-4 star generals) provide a very deliberate and workable plan through Vision 2035 which would restore the Corps capabilities to fight in any clime and place. This mess needs to be straightened out, no business in the world survives the current level of abject incompetence as we currently witness in the senior managers of the USMC. Business go broke for one reason, they run out of money. Divest to invest anybody? Well is seems we are out of cash. Divest! Sell assets! Oh that's right we never got the cash for the divestments that were made, one wonders if Saigon Sam's out on Route 17 in Jacksonville, is still in business and doing deals for 782 gear, might be some dough to found there.
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polarbear
I can detect a bit of frustration here among the comments and I think it is justified. The FD2030 debate has been going on since 2019 aimed at two Marine Commandants (one former and the current). The current Commandant by plunging ahead with the former’s “experiment” and not acknowledging the mistakes and short comings of FD2030 is frustrating. FD2030 attempts to sell us on a war that will be fought defensively in the “WEZ” on small Pacific islands that grants the false superiority to A2/AD missiles. What FD2030 misses is the flexibility, adaptability and strategic mobility of the US Marine Corps that can fight a global war in every “clime and place”.
The rise of the CCP, as a competing global power, presents the need of a new National Security and Military Strategy. The myopic “island chain” strategy is a ‘Containment Strategy” left over from the 1950s Cold War and is a political vs a military strategy. The global “great power competition” that now confronts the US needs a deterrence strategy. If that strategy fails, we will need a global military strategy and war plan that brings China to the negotiation table. For that reason, the US needs a global war plan similar to the Pre-WW2 Rainbow Plans.
In 1924 the US started planning for a global war with a set of “Rainbow” Plans assigning colors to potential adversary countries; war against Germany was Plan Black and Japan was Plan Orange. Interestingly, Plan Orange was initiated even though relations with Japan were friendly at the time. The US Navy empowered the Naval War College to play a pivotal role in the War Plan Orange. The “Navy painted Orange Plans on a canvass of heroic size” (p.14) because it focused on the Pacific and the SLOCs. The idea was to block the SLOCs and starve Japan to the negotiation table. The goal of complete surrender did not develop until the war was well under way and was a political decision.
The CCP continues to spread its influence globally with its BRI particularly focused on SLOC choke points. For example, the CCP now has a military base in the Horn of Africa; it is contributing to infrastructure projects (including ports, highways, and railroads) in Myanmar and Pakistan) negating their Malacca Strat Problem. The CCP recognizes that it must keep its SLOCs open to feed its population and keep its people employed. For that reason, a war with the CCP will be a global war. The US, both political and military planners, need to get all its junk into one sea bag and focused on the global war problem and most certainly its logistics. S/F
BTW when it comes to frustration, I hear ya brothers.
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Jud Blakely
As always, the post is in the middle of the middle of the middle of the black. I feel as if I'm enrolled in the University of Compass Points. What you offer––these daily gifts of collective insight––is a marvel of scrupulous vetting and personal experience. Can't thank you enough.
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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!
