Funny how the man who told Congress and the Navy that there was no need for the mandated 38 amphib ship requirement would sign the letter stating we need more amphib ships!
This reminds me of the work we had to execute coming out of Vietnam and rebuilding our Corps to the Nation’s force in readiness — 911 force. It took us a lot of hard work, devotion and aggressiveness to complete that mission. This will take a while, hopefully we can get it developed in time!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every Marine past and present must devote time and energy (no matter how small or large an effort) where needed to return our Corps to the Nation’s Force in Readiness - 911!!!!!!! And That includes the most needed MPS!!!!
Partial penitence, repentance, contrition, compunction, remorse,ah shucks? What good are the ships w/o artillery, tanks, engineers, snipers, King Stallions,Carl Gustav 84mm and all the requisite support system and ammunition etc etc etc.. To be a full confession a true confession of his enormous disaster just say it Force Design is a Fxxxxxx Dxxaster FULL STOP! MAKE THE MARINE CORPS MAGTF AS DEADLY AS BLACK MOMBA VENOM….ABLE TO PUT THE ENEMY “ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA” AND KILL IT! WHATEVER IT DOES, WHERE EVER IT MAY BE, ANYWHERE ON THE BALL, OUR PROUD EAGLE EXISTS!
Thank you Gentlemen. It is good to see our former Commandants make common cause and highlight this most important capability gap. I am especially glad to see General Berger standing with his peers, and his peers standing with him, on this issue.
Cfrog, indeed good to see General Berger standing up and signing on. Better late than never. But, not sure he has earned our trust on the matter. As we know 1000 atta boys are wiped out by 1 “ah shite.” In his case it has been the obverse. But you never know. He may have taken that first step towards Damascus, and if so, has earned at least a chance at redemption!
Bravo Zulu to our CMCs! The course the USMC is moving is wrong. The power of the USMC is called MAGTF. Starting with the Banana Wars and the development of class air support to ground units fostered an ability to maximize ground and air operations. The MAGTF is the only capability the USA has to maneuver across the globe to meet any adversary, place a well trained team to thwart any enemy of the USA and has the capability to build combat power and sustainability for the nation. The MAGTF provides the nation with a unique capability to support global operations, focusing on a regional foe forgets that foe is global. To met the global threat requires a MAGTF with its maneuverability, firepower and sustainability to meet any threat this nation faces. The current leadership needs to stop this experiment and go back to what the nation needs - a true 911 force that can be employed globally.
General Krulak’s letter jogs my memory back to an old discussion titled the “Three Block War”. The focus of that discussion was the US Marine Corps NCO as a tactical situational decision maker. Then I catch this article on RCP (April 7, 2025) about the US Marine Rifle Squad strength remaining at 13 Marines. https://taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-rifle-squads-commandant/
This article talks about the squad size “experimentation” of 12 to 15 Marines and the decision to maintain the 13-man squad organization. I should note that this idea of “experimentation” started under General Berger almost 6 years ago. My question is: Why “tinkering with of the standard infantry squad” is so hard to figure out? Really! Years of work to make the 13th squad member the “one rifleman trained for expertise in long-range weapons like drones” as “an organic precision fires specialist” to coordinate the “direct assault, such as mortars, rockets or loitering munitions and drones”.
Yes, let’s develop and give the squad leader a drone and control panel small and rugged enough to carry on his cartridge belt. Ideally, the drone should have the capability to network in the Platoon Leader, Company Commander, FOs (arty and mortars), and the FAC. Instead of burdening the Squad Leader with this responsibility, why not make the Weapons Platoon Leader the Company precision fire specialist. The drone needs to be strictly tactical with a line-of-sight control range of about 3000 meters. As a tactical drone, for example, it needs to move/fly using cover to a ridge line and pop-up for a look on the other side.
If a Company Commander, after ordering a squad on a patrol or as the point element for a movement to contact, does not sit the squad leader down with the company FOs (Arty, 81s, and 60mm mortars), FACs to plan the fire support coordination that Company Commander is not doing his job (and he is not taking care of his Marines).
The article also states that we are going to have “a school-trained sergeant squad leader, corporal assistant squad leader, and corporals assigned as fire team leaders”. I am wondering how that is going to happen. Promotions to Corporal and Sargent starts at the Company Level.
The requirement here is the company needs a damn good 1stSgt to run the (unofficial) Company NCO Program. Promotions to Corporal and Sargent are control by something called a “Cutting Score”. The cutting score number is made up of Time in Service, Time in Grade, PFT, Combat Fitness Test, Rifle Qualification, the Marine Martial Arts Program, Education Points (PME, MCI), Command Input, and Pro and Con Marks. All these scores need to be entered into the “Unit Diary”. There was a time in the US Marine Corps when we had Company Admin and the 1stSgt ran the Unit Diary. The problem is not solved with a School to train Sergeants, the problem is getting them promoted to Sergeant and Corporal by the Rifle Company. (The 1st Sgt. should also be coordinating with the Battalion Career Planner.)
The Marine Rifle Squad does not need a reorganization when a new weapon system becomes available. The Company Commander and Platoon Leader already conducts training (I hope) to integrate crew served weapons (machine guns, rocket launchers, recoil rifles, grenade launchers and mortars) into the Rifle Squad training. The Marine Squad Leader’s job is to the lead and fight his squad of three fire teams. The Squad Leaders does not need an assistant squad leader for a precision strike coordinator. Just because we now have a loitering drone for recon, with or without a warhead, does not mean we have to experiment with the tried-and-true squad organization that has existed since Colonel Carlson established the new fire team organization in his WW2 Raider Battalion. GUNG_HO! S/F
Today it was announced that CMC “tinkered” w the Marine Infantry Squad. Could it be it’s all that is left for him to adjust! What is next a new uniform item?
These former Marine Commandants represent over 300 years of dedication, service, sacrifice, and knowledge. Their recommendations must not be taken with a grain of salt.
Wow, having just made the Corps responsible for my love of education, these Gentlemen show that they are still in the game. We definitely need to rethink how we are going to hold up our responsibilities to our country and the world with what we have today and what we can change for tomorrow. Gotta love the Corps for many reasons.
We are not alone,”“The US Coast Guard is less ready today than any other time since World War II. We are on a readiness spiral. Today our fleet of cutters are in significant decline. We are in repair failure mode.. No ship today gets underway without canabilizing others for parts” ADM Lunday, Acting Commandant USCG at Sea Air Space”…Thanks Mayorkas…No Cutters but 40 percent of the US Coast Guard Academy was or is FEMALE and really Woke!
Since the USCG is somewhat of a maritime police force, I have thought when the Navy gets rid of DDs, frigates and the LCS, they should go to the CG to boost their numbers.
Where are the Marines? Stuck in Quantico playing war games, organizing drone units, dreaming about battery powered 180 mi range WIGs, divesting toward irrelevancy? Chaos reigns, the World is on Fire. Our Marines have No leadership, No Amphibious Lift and No MPPS reminiscent of a nursery rhyme.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.”…..
SUBMENU
Home > Churchill > Speeches > 1941 - 1949 Speeches > Never Give In, Never 10/29/1941
Never Give In, Never, Never, Never, 1941
When Churchill visited Harrow on October 29 to hear the traditional songs again, he discovered that an additional verse had been added to one of them. It ran:
"Not less we praise in darker days
The leader of our nation,
And Churchill's name shall win acclaim
From each new generation.
For you have power in danger's hour
Our freedom to defend, Sir!
Though long the fight we know that right
Will triumph in the end, Sir!"
Churchill 1941: “Almost a year has passed since I came down here at your Head Master's kind invitation in order to cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of my friends by singing some of our own songs. The ten months that have passed have seen very terrible catastrophic events in the world — ups and downs, misfortunes — but can anyone sitting here this afternoon, this October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for what has happened in the time that has passed and for the very great improvement in the position of our country and of our home? Why, when I was here last time we were quite alone, desperately alone, and we had been so for five or six months. We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has been this long lull with nothing particular turning up!
But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months — if it takes years — they do it.
Another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must "...meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same."
You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period — I am addressing myself to the School — surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.
Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.
You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honour, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter — I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: "Not less we praise in darker days."
I have obtained the Head Master's permission to alter darker to sterner. "Not less we praise in sterner days."
Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days — the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.
Funny how the man who told Congress and the Navy that there was no need for the mandated 38 amphib ship requirement would sign the letter stating we need more amphib ships!
I did find that interesting also. That was one of the first things which captured my attention.
This reminds me of the work we had to execute coming out of Vietnam and rebuilding our Corps to the Nation’s force in readiness — 911 force. It took us a lot of hard work, devotion and aggressiveness to complete that mission. This will take a while, hopefully we can get it developed in time!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every Marine past and present must devote time and energy (no matter how small or large an effort) where needed to return our Corps to the Nation’s Force in Readiness - 911!!!!!!! And That includes the most needed MPS!!!!
Semper Fi, Colonel!
Partial penitence, repentance, contrition, compunction, remorse,ah shucks? What good are the ships w/o artillery, tanks, engineers, snipers, King Stallions,Carl Gustav 84mm and all the requisite support system and ammunition etc etc etc.. To be a full confession a true confession of his enormous disaster just say it Force Design is a Fxxxxxx Dxxaster FULL STOP! MAKE THE MARINE CORPS MAGTF AS DEADLY AS BLACK MOMBA VENOM….ABLE TO PUT THE ENEMY “ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA” AND KILL IT! WHATEVER IT DOES, WHERE EVER IT MAY BE, ANYWHERE ON THE BALL, OUR PROUD EAGLE EXISTS!
Amen! That is what the American public, in its most sober of minds, expects of us!
Semper Fidelis!
Thank you Gentlemen. It is good to see our former Commandants make common cause and highlight this most important capability gap. I am especially glad to see General Berger standing with his peers, and his peers standing with him, on this issue.
Cfrog, indeed good to see General Berger standing up and signing on. Better late than never. But, not sure he has earned our trust on the matter. As we know 1000 atta boys are wiped out by 1 “ah shite.” In his case it has been the obverse. But you never know. He may have taken that first step towards Damascus, and if so, has earned at least a chance at redemption!
Yes. If he would stand up and concur that we need more than the basic 31 ships. That would go a long way. But this is a good start.
Bravo Zulu to our CMCs! The course the USMC is moving is wrong. The power of the USMC is called MAGTF. Starting with the Banana Wars and the development of class air support to ground units fostered an ability to maximize ground and air operations. The MAGTF is the only capability the USA has to maneuver across the globe to meet any adversary, place a well trained team to thwart any enemy of the USA and has the capability to build combat power and sustainability for the nation. The MAGTF provides the nation with a unique capability to support global operations, focusing on a regional foe forgets that foe is global. To met the global threat requires a MAGTF with its maneuverability, firepower and sustainability to meet any threat this nation faces. The current leadership needs to stop this experiment and go back to what the nation needs - a true 911 force that can be employed globally.
Marine Rifle Squad
General Krulak’s letter jogs my memory back to an old discussion titled the “Three Block War”. The focus of that discussion was the US Marine Corps NCO as a tactical situational decision maker. Then I catch this article on RCP (April 7, 2025) about the US Marine Rifle Squad strength remaining at 13 Marines. https://taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-rifle-squads-commandant/
This article talks about the squad size “experimentation” of 12 to 15 Marines and the decision to maintain the 13-man squad organization. I should note that this idea of “experimentation” started under General Berger almost 6 years ago. My question is: Why “tinkering with of the standard infantry squad” is so hard to figure out? Really! Years of work to make the 13th squad member the “one rifleman trained for expertise in long-range weapons like drones” as “an organic precision fires specialist” to coordinate the “direct assault, such as mortars, rockets or loitering munitions and drones”.
Yes, let’s develop and give the squad leader a drone and control panel small and rugged enough to carry on his cartridge belt. Ideally, the drone should have the capability to network in the Platoon Leader, Company Commander, FOs (arty and mortars), and the FAC. Instead of burdening the Squad Leader with this responsibility, why not make the Weapons Platoon Leader the Company precision fire specialist. The drone needs to be strictly tactical with a line-of-sight control range of about 3000 meters. As a tactical drone, for example, it needs to move/fly using cover to a ridge line and pop-up for a look on the other side.
If a Company Commander, after ordering a squad on a patrol or as the point element for a movement to contact, does not sit the squad leader down with the company FOs (Arty, 81s, and 60mm mortars), FACs to plan the fire support coordination that Company Commander is not doing his job (and he is not taking care of his Marines).
The article also states that we are going to have “a school-trained sergeant squad leader, corporal assistant squad leader, and corporals assigned as fire team leaders”. I am wondering how that is going to happen. Promotions to Corporal and Sargent starts at the Company Level.
The requirement here is the company needs a damn good 1stSgt to run the (unofficial) Company NCO Program. Promotions to Corporal and Sargent are control by something called a “Cutting Score”. The cutting score number is made up of Time in Service, Time in Grade, PFT, Combat Fitness Test, Rifle Qualification, the Marine Martial Arts Program, Education Points (PME, MCI), Command Input, and Pro and Con Marks. All these scores need to be entered into the “Unit Diary”. There was a time in the US Marine Corps when we had Company Admin and the 1stSgt ran the Unit Diary. The problem is not solved with a School to train Sergeants, the problem is getting them promoted to Sergeant and Corporal by the Rifle Company. (The 1st Sgt. should also be coordinating with the Battalion Career Planner.)
The Marine Rifle Squad does not need a reorganization when a new weapon system becomes available. The Company Commander and Platoon Leader already conducts training (I hope) to integrate crew served weapons (machine guns, rocket launchers, recoil rifles, grenade launchers and mortars) into the Rifle Squad training. The Marine Squad Leader’s job is to the lead and fight his squad of three fire teams. The Squad Leaders does not need an assistant squad leader for a precision strike coordinator. Just because we now have a loitering drone for recon, with or without a warhead, does not mean we have to experiment with the tried-and-true squad organization that has existed since Colonel Carlson established the new fire team organization in his WW2 Raider Battalion. GUNG_HO! S/F
Today it was announced that CMC “tinkered” w the Marine Infantry Squad. Could it be it’s all that is left for him to adjust! What is next a new uniform item?
These former Marine Commandants represent over 300 years of dedication, service, sacrifice, and knowledge. Their recommendations must not be taken with a grain of salt.
Significant insight! Concur.
Wow, having just made the Corps responsible for my love of education, these Gentlemen show that they are still in the game. We definitely need to rethink how we are going to hold up our responsibilities to our country and the world with what we have today and what we can change for tomorrow. Gotta love the Corps for many reasons.
We are not alone,”“The US Coast Guard is less ready today than any other time since World War II. We are on a readiness spiral. Today our fleet of cutters are in significant decline. We are in repair failure mode.. No ship today gets underway without canabilizing others for parts” ADM Lunday, Acting Commandant USCG at Sea Air Space”…Thanks Mayorkas…No Cutters but 40 percent of the US Coast Guard Academy was or is FEMALE and really Woke!
Since the USCG is somewhat of a maritime police force, I have thought when the Navy gets rid of DDs, frigates and the LCS, they should go to the CG to boost their numbers.
Where are the Marines? Stuck in Quantico playing war games, organizing drone units, dreaming about battery powered 180 mi range WIGs, divesting toward irrelevancy? Chaos reigns, the World is on Fire. Our Marines have No leadership, No Amphibious Lift and No MPPS reminiscent of a nursery rhyme.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.”…..
SUBMENU
Home > Churchill > Speeches > 1941 - 1949 Speeches > Never Give In, Never 10/29/1941
Never Give In, Never, Never, Never, 1941
When Churchill visited Harrow on October 29 to hear the traditional songs again, he discovered that an additional verse had been added to one of them. It ran:
"Not less we praise in darker days
The leader of our nation,
And Churchill's name shall win acclaim
From each new generation.
For you have power in danger's hour
Our freedom to defend, Sir!
Though long the fight we know that right
Will triumph in the end, Sir!"
Churchill 1941: “Almost a year has passed since I came down here at your Head Master's kind invitation in order to cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of my friends by singing some of our own songs. The ten months that have passed have seen very terrible catastrophic events in the world — ups and downs, misfortunes — but can anyone sitting here this afternoon, this October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for what has happened in the time that has passed and for the very great improvement in the position of our country and of our home? Why, when I was here last time we were quite alone, desperately alone, and we had been so for five or six months. We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has been this long lull with nothing particular turning up!
But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months — if it takes years — they do it.
Another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must "...meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same."
You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period — I am addressing myself to the School — surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.
Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.
You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honour, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter — I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: "Not less we praise in darker days."
I have obtained the Head Master's permission to alter darker to sterner. "Not less we praise in sterner days."
Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days — the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.
Winston Churchill
October 29, 1941
Harrow School
Is this the final curtain?