Compass Points - Righteous
CMC testifies about 'righteous journey'
Compass Points - Righteous
CMC testifies about 'righteous journey'
May 15, 2025
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In a Congressional oversight hearing on May 14, 2025, US Navy Secretary John Phelan, Acting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James W. Kilby and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric M. Smith addressed the House Appropriations Committee defense subcommittee on the posture of the Navy.
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May 14, 2025
1:00:24 Gen Eric Smith Opening Statement
(AI generated transcript may contain errors)
I'm here for you on behalf of your Marine Corps and I look forward to answering your questions. First I'd like to start by sharing the Marine Corps' top three priorities
First, restoring a 3.0 amphibious ready group, Marine Expeditionary Unit presence. This is the Marine Corps's Northstar. That's one amphibious ready group constantly deployed off the East Coast. One constantly deployed off the West Coast. And one amphibious ready group episodically deployed out of the forward deployed naval force in Japan. The amphibious ready group with a Marine Expeditionary Unit embarked is the most versatile tool in our Nation's arsenal. It is the Swiss Army knife of the joint force and we're working closely with our Navy partners to maximize this capability.
Our second priority is accelerating Force Design. Force Design is our righteous journey to adapt to the changing character of war. The nature of war remains the same but the character changes. We are in the implementation phase. We're fielding new capabilities now and reshaping formations across the force, from our Marine Expeditionary Units and Marine littoral regiments, to our Marine Expeditionary Forces.
And finally improving quality of life. Every Marine deserves a clean, safe place to lay their head at night. They don't ask for much but they do ask for that. Barracks 2030 is how we're getting after this. It is the most consequential housing investment in Marine Corps history. And quality of life goes beyond our barracks. We're also investing in the well-being of Marine families because retaining our Marines means supporting those who stand by them. We say you recruit the Marine, but you retain the family.
I'll close with this, your Marines remain the most ready when the Nation is least ready. It's who we are. It's our foundation, a forward postured force trained for combat and built to deliver flexible, lethal options anywhere, anytime.
Thank you again for your trust and support and I look forward to your questions.
-- Gen Eric Smith
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With all due respect to the Commandant, much of what he told Congress in his opening statement on May 14, 2025, was at best exaggerated and at worst misleading.
Let's look at three examples.
1. "Restoring a 3.0 amphibious ready group, Marine Expeditionary Unit presence. This is the Marine Corps's Northstar." Northstar? More like forgotten star. The leadership of the Marine Corps has spent most of the last half dozen years destroying and degrading the units, equipment, and capabilities of the combined arms MAGTF. It would be better to explain forthrightly to Congress that the Marine Corps' Northstar has been stripped of too much armor, air, artillery, infantry, engineering, snipers, and more.
2. "Force Design is our righteous journey" Why is the Marine Corps' misguided Force Design program continually called a "righteous journey"? What does that mean? The word 'righteous' involves virtue and morality. The so called righteous journey began in the summer of 2019 when the 38th Commandant in his initial planning guidance said the Marine Corps would be willing to accept fewer amphibious ships. Fewer ships? Back in 2019 there was already a severe issue with the shortage of amphibious ships, but that shortage became instantly worse when the Marine Corps leadership backed away from the need for amphibious ships.
Marine leaders over the last years have been focused on placing a string of missile units on islands off the coast of China. Even after nearly six years, there are still no operational Marine missile units on islands off the coast of China. The focus on theoretical missile units has taken the focus of the Marine Corps off of worldwide combined arms MAGTFs onboard Navy ships. There should be at least three MEUs on the world's oceans at all times. Instead, today there are often none at all. How can the global Marine combined arms MAGTF be the Marine Corps' Northstar when Marine leaders are not willing to fight every day for more amphibious ships, more prepositioning ships, and more worldwide combined arms units, equipment, and capabilities?
3. "Improving quality of life" How did the senior leadership of the Marine Corps, over many years, allow young Marines to live in unsat barracks? That mystery has never been answered. Still, as important as barracks are, the real quality of life for Marines is making sure, before they go into battle, that they have the training, leadership, organization, equipment, supplies, and capabilities the next battle requires. There is no virtue in sending Marines to the next battle without the combined arms armor, artillery, and more the next battle will demand.
What the Commandant should have told Congress is that over the last several years the Marine Corps has taken its focus off global crisis response and needs the help of Congress to restore and enhance the Marine Corps' global crisis response capabilities. The Marine Corps needs to focus less on island missiles and more on combined arms warfighting.
Earlier this year, the new Secretary of Defense had his own three priorities for the US military.
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The President gave us a clear mission: achieve Peace through Strength. We will do this in three ways — by restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence.
-- We will revive the warrior ethos and restore trust in our military. We are American warriors. We will defend our country. Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose.
-- We will rebuild our military by matching threats to capabilities. This means reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisition process, passing a financial audit, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies. We will remain the strongest and most lethal force in the world.
-- We will reestablish deterrence by defending our homeland — on the ground and in the sky. We will work with allies and partners to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by Communist China, as well as supporting the President's priority to end wars responsibly and reorient to key threats. We will stand by our allies — and our enemies are on notice.
All of this will be done with a focus on lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards, and readiness.
-- Defense Secretary Hegseth
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In a Congressional oversight hearing on May 14, 2025, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric M. Smith came to answer questions from Congress. Instead of answering questions, however, much of what the Marine General said in his opening statement just raised more questions about the always controversial Marine Corps plan to place a string of island missile units on islands off the China coast.
While the Congress wants more answers, the Secretary of Defense wants more warrior ethos, combined arms capabilities, and global deterrence. What is the best way for the Marine Corps to increase its own warrior ethos, combined arms capabilities, and global deterrence? Are more island missile units the answer? Or something much more flexible and much more powerful, the global Marine Air Ground Task Force?
To get in step with the SecDef's focus on warfighting, the Marine Corps needs to rethink its misguided focus on island missile units, and focus once again on making sure there are always forward deployed Marines on the world's oceans ready to arrive off of any troubled shore to deter, assist, and fight. When there is a crisis in some corner of the world, forward deployed Marines on Navy amphibious ships can immediately sail toward the crisis. Sailing into harm’s way is a genuine righteous journey.
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Congressional Testimony
LIVE: US NAVY Chiefs Face Congress in HEATED Oversight Hearing on May 14, 2025.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt9mumDHsvA
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OSD - 01/25/2025
Secretary Hegseth's Message to the Force
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Stunning, leaves one breathless at the prevarication of a four star flag officer in the post of Commandant of the US Marine Corps. That was just his opening statement, do any of us have the courage to watch C-Span and see what other tales he attempted to tell? Imagine sitting with the “acting CNO” the new SevNav and running that jive by Congress, especially when his boss’s boss has said something completely different and given new commanders intent. General Smith is either the most stupid man ever to sit in residence at the oldest standing structure in Washington DC, or he figures he is the smartest guy in the room, and can blow this dreck by everyone. He likely has rat like cunning, figures the “Acting CNO” is just that and he has looked at Secretary Phelan and figures him for a political dupe and is going to outlast they, and us all.
Can we blame him? He looks across the broad spectrum of those Congressmen and women before whom he is testifying and sees what we see. A bunch of tired whited haired old dudes with hearing aids (one lady has purple hair, okay we like diversity) and not one knows a thing about the business of the Marine Corps. One can guess if challenged to tell the American people what the Marine Corps mission is, and or give broad strokes of Title X that they would fail. So General Smith gets a pass. SecNav’s priority is ship building, thus General Smith skates.
General Smith built his own prima fascia case for being fired. Perhaps our best hope is that the SecDef will see enough and decides to fire the 39th CMC himself and leave the SecNav out of it. But nothing will change until General Smith, and every acolyte associated with FD Fuzzy Wuzzy are sent into retirement. Hopefully to retirement where there is very little modern communications capability.
I say again….stunning, breathlessly stunning…
I devoted 2-plus hours of my retired life to listen to the oversight committee question SecNav, the acting CNO and the CMC. I was sorely disappointed that no one seriously questioned Gen. Smith on the viability of Force Design. Either 1) they don’t care, 2) don’t know enough to ask questions, or 3) think all is well and the Marine Corps is on the right path forward. Or maybe all three. Very disappointing, except to watch the old lady with blue/purple hair.