Compass Points - MAGTF Fire Watch
Fire Watch to MAGTF Ops
Compass Points - MAGTF Fire Watch
Fire Watch to MAGTF Ops
August 30, 2024
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Who is standing watch over the Marine MAGTF today? The Marine Air Ground Logistics Task Force is the secret strength of the Marine Corps. Who can discuss the MAGTF, protect the MAGTF, and advocate for the MAGTF? The value of the MAGTF must be communicated both inside the Marine Corps itself and to those outside, in other services and in Congress. Just as Marines sleeping in a squad bay need a fire watch watching over them, the MAGTF needs watching over.
Marines learn early that they are responsible for themselves, for the Marine on either side of them, and for the mission. A young Marine's responsibilities increase when the Marine is posted as a watch stander. Marines sleeping in a squad bay and Marines sleeping on a battlefield know that as they sleep, someone watches over them. Someone is monitoring. Someone is prepared to take action. That person is the fire watch. Watch standers are guided by the Marine 10 General Orders. "#1.To take charge of this post and all government property in view." General Order #10 requires the Marine to be "especially watchful at night and, during the time for challenging."
As Marines grow in the Corps, some begin to be called to broader duties, not only standing watch over a squad bay, but over several squad bays, and then over hundreds and thousands of Marines. It is not only a matter of age, or rank, or position, some Marines, even early in their service, become interested in questions about the operation of the Marine Corps. How do the different Marine ground, air, and logistics units work together? Why does the Marine Corps fight as a combined arms force? How does the Marine Corps win?
Of course, it all begins with individual Marine joined as part of a larger fireteam, squad, and platoon. Platoons are rolled into companies, battalions, regiments, and divisions. All those infantry Marines are supported, augmented, and reinforced by amphibious ships, aviation, artillery, armor, and a variety of combat support and combat service support.
All these different units are assembled into extremely flexible and powerful Marine Air Ground Logistics Task Forces, (MAGTF). The global MAGTF, embarked on amphibious ships, is the secret strength of the Marine Corps. It gives the Marine Corps the ability to arrive quickly off any troubled shore, ready to deter, assist, and fight. Should the crisis worsen, Marines then need the ability to reinforce quickly by flying in more Marine units and linking them with the supplies and equipment aboard nearby prepositioning ships.
While physical objects like Marine rifles, aircraft, artillery, computers, and ammunition are always important, the things that cannot be touched are even more important. The ethos of a Marine, that aggressive, indomitable, spirit is more crucial. And the Marine maneuver warfare philosophy provides the mindset that allows Marines to overcome every obstacle by using speed, mass, and creativity to seek and seize fleeting opportunities. When all Maine units, equipment, and capabilities are put together into a combined arms MAGTF, then US policy makers have more options.
But policy makers cannot know of the importance of the Marine MAGTF unless someone is willing to stand up and speak out about the MAGTF.
Long before General Al Gray was Commandant, he was a Marine fire watch. He was a curious fire watch and over the years took time to learn the Marine Corps from its smallest unit to its largest. He understood why all the different kinds of ground, air, and logistics units were important and how they fit together and worked together to make the Marine Corps strong. Gray understood how the Marine Corps could get a small unit of Marines quickly to any global crisis and how that small unit could be rapidly expanded. When Gray was a MAGTF brigade commander, he gave thousands of talks about the importance of the MAGTF. Gray was ready and willing to talk to anyone about the importance of the Marine MAGTF. As he recalls in the story below, Gray was even willing to talk to a politician.
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In 1976, Newt Gingrich was a fairly new Congressman and very interested in military reform and maneuver warfare. He asked the Pentagon if they could have a flag or general officer brief him. He wanted to talk to them and ask questions. They didn’t really want to touch it. They didn’t want to get involved with it.
So they kicked it around here, there, and everywhere, and finally it ended up in the Marine Corps, and the Commandant asked me if I would do it. Because he knew that I could do this kind of thing, maybe, without tying the Marine Corps to it as a service. In other words, it would be my own view and I could protect the Marine Corps and protect our principles and what we’re all about.
You know, when you give 8,000 briefings to NATO and everybody else, you ought to be able to do that. In those days, I had the 4th Marine Amphibious Brigade (MAB) – our Atlantic and Mediterranean contingency force – home ported in Norfolk.
I drove up to Arlington, Virginia on a Sunday. Gingrich was living in an apartment in Arlington, and he and his wife were there. We went from 9:30 in the morning until 1:30 the next morning.
He asked me all kinds of questions and I told him what we thought and he asked about the reform movement and maneuver warfare, and on and on and on . . .
-- General Al Gray, quoted in Grayisms pp 44-45
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Al Gray sat down for 16 hours with just one junior Congressman. Gray took the time to discuss the importance of the Marine MAGTF. When Marine Corps, infantry, aviation, artillery, armor, engineers, and more, all infused with the Marine ethos and maneuver warfare philosophy, are sent around the globe on amphibious ships to deter, assist and fight, then the US is stronger, and the world is safer. When the combined arms, expandable Marine MAGTF arrives off a foreign shore, enemies have more fear, friends have more hope, and US policy makers have more options.
Al Gray advocated for the MAGTF for 16 hours with just one junior Congressman.
Who is willing and able to talk about the importance of the MAGTF for even one hour or two?
We need more MAGTF Marines. It is not only a matter of age, or rank, or position. Some Marines, even early in their service, become interested in questions about the operation of the Marine Corps. How do the different Marine ground, air, and logistics units work together? Why does the Marine Corps fight as a combined arms force? How does the Marine Corps win?
Years ago, Al Gray was a one-man fire watch, standing over the MAGTF and making sure no harm came to it. Who will watch over the MAGTF today? Who will stand up? Who will speak out?
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Grayisms
Complied by Paul Otte
Potomac Institute Press
https://potomacinstitute.org/images/stories/publications/Grayisms.pdf
It seems that we here on Compass Points are the Fire Watch, the combination of retired, active duty Marines, Chowder Society II, other interested parties, many intellectually curious and some really experienced senior leaders (age is a number) have been walking watch through the squad bay of the FD of no sense Marine Barracks with a flashlight in hand and sound knowledge of where the buckets of sand are stowed and how to sound the alert, for some time now. They smell thick smoke and are looking for the fire. We have found the fire and it is smoldering, the problem is waking up the squad bay and getting everyone activated. The efforts to reinvigorate the MAGTF are fulsome, but we need more juice. Likely with the distraction of the election cycle it is hard for those elected officials to focus on much other then being returned to office or getting there for the first time. So there is a lull, and maybe this lull is a good opportunity to regroup and figure out to put out the FD no sense fire once and for good. That said, the world isn’t sleeping. There is trouble everywhere, and many of the trouble spots have ARG/MEU welcome mats on their doorsteps. If the various combatant commanders are not so joint commanded blind that they can’t see the absolute brilliance of the MAGTF, than it is no longer just a Marine Corps problem, it is a civilian and defense establishment problem. This all said, we learned that a small group of Marines with a retired Lt. Colonel in the lead, are sorting ways to fight the next conflict such as Ukraine presents today. Imagine if they had a full complement of the MAGTF toolbox. Well they don’t, but it isn’t stopping the deep and innovative thinking. It has been said that nothing clarifies the mind quite like the specter of ones immediate demise on the hanging gallows with the noose around one’s neck. Perhaps as this group of younger Marines look at the prospect of a currently depleted Marine Corps, they are using the time wisely to figure how to fight hard enough and long enough for people to come their senses and get the tools divested back into the Corps. Now where the Hell did I put my spare batteries for the flashlight that was part of the basic issue the very first day of OCS, they are around here somewhere, I’m on watch tonight and for the duration.
Don't ask the Commandant. In his recent CPG, he stated, as he has previously, that the MEF is a force provider. Oh really? The Service Component is the force provider. The MEF is the warfighter. Or it was until Force Design emasculated it.