Compass Points - That Ole Jalopy
Working hard to keep it running
Compass Points - That Ole Jalopy
Working hard to keep it running
July 24, 2025
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From 1966–1982 Fiat manufactured the 124 Sport Spider an inexpensive, convertible sports car. It was a beautiful and horrible car. It was beautiful sitting by the curb, but a horrible mess to keep running. Customers would buy the little roadster because it looked fun. The car was anything but fun, however, for their mechanic who did not want the car, who knew all the problems with the car, and who had to work day after day trying to find some way so this bad purchase would keep running just a little further.
The situation in the Marine Corps today is much the same. Very senior officers in their testimony point to the Marine so-called Force Design, Stand-in Force (SIF) sitting by the curb and talk about how beautiful it is. Across the Marine Corps less senior officers are tasked with the much harder work of finding new fixes that will keep the shiny SIF running just a little longer.
Compass Points has been contacted by some of these hard working, senior active-duty officers attempting day by day to apply another patch to the SIF.
What is the Marine Corps' Stand-in Force?
The Marine Corps has been reorganizing itself for the last several years into small so-called, Stand-in Force (SIF) sensor and missile units designed to be placed off China's coastline. In pursuit of these sensor and missile units, storied Marine regiments have been reorganized and stripped of combat capabilities. The 3rd Marine Division, forward based in Japan, is now little more than a headquarters unit. And what the Marine Corps calls its "fight now" MEF, the III Marine Expeditionary Force in the Pacific has very little to fight with.
After all this reorganizing, where are the SIF sensor and missile units? Some Marines from the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) are currently participating in Exercise Talisman Sabre in Australia, which continues through August 4th. But where are the Marine SIF missiles? The US Army has fired a missile in Talisman Sabre but not the Marine SIF.
One current active duty Marine officer put it this way:
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If there were a race to demonstrate capability by test firing missiles to show deterrence, then that race was won as early as 2018 by the Army.
Three things about the test firing in 2018:
1. The year: 2018. The Army fired one of the same systems that the USMC is still struggling to field, the Kongsberg anti-ship missile, seven years ago. The target was an old LST, which incidentally, we could probably use today given the paucity of ships.
2. Joint Operations: The Army Multi Domain Task Force test fired a Naval Strike Missile from the Navy facility at Barking Sands in the midst of RIMPAC under the overall command of US INDOPACOM, an exercise to demonstrate capabilities. They were already operating jointly as part of a JTF-concept.
3. Combined Operations: The Japanese Self Defense Forces took part in all aspects of the demonstration as a combined part of the exercise and concurrently demonstrated firing their own missiles. While the Marine Corps has cut into things like security cooperation and foreign area officer programs to save costs, the Army made being combined with allies part of the first demonstration, thereby showing that Japan was already on board (strengthening the deterrence value significantly).
Among the mistaken assumptions involved with the closed-door opening sessions of FD2030 were the speed and costs, and their interaction, involved. The divestments did not pay for the investments and certainly not at the required speed
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Compass Points thanks the active duty leaders today who are stuck with the Force Design decisions made by others and who work hard everyday trying to find new fixes that will keep that ole jalopy running. Sooner or later, the Marine Corps must turn its focus away from regional, limited, sensor and missile units on islands, and find a new focus on the upgraded and enhanced Marine global, combined arms MAGTF. The Marines must be the Nation's 9-1-1 force, where one call gets it all.
Those of us around when the FIAT 124 was “hot” recall it with great affection and great distain. It was nick named the “Fix It Again Tony” as it was so unreliable and prone to rust. The rubber was poor and gaskets failed, the engine was hard to maintain and tune. It was under powered and required some driving skill to make it perform on the road, especially in corners where power needed to come fast. But it sure looked nice and was a “magnet” when parked. The analogy here at CP to FD2030/FD2025, is apt. It looks nice, it sounds nice, the politicians unable to concentrate on any subject for more than a few minutes want to buy in, why not? It looks nice when parked. And, parked FD2030 has been since the fire sale to finance the Edsel/FIAT 124 through the sell now, buy later summer sales event of “Divest to Invest.” It does not run. We have a $38 billion dollar paper weight called the USMC, and we have two used car salesmen in a dark beige colored sports coats, bright red and blue check trousers and lime green wide collared shirts with fat nondescript ties, topped off with white pork pie hats selling the “dream.” The first salesman, “She has only run on the first Sunday of every month at the coffee and cars event down at the SEARS parking lot. A cream puff! You’ll love her!” The other salesman “Now what’s it gonna take to you in this little baby, sonny?” Each time the Fix It Again Tony comes into the shop there is a new problem, a new excuse, a new failure. More rust, the chassis separating from the body, The doors and hood are out of alignment and don’t close properly. The engines coughs and spews blue oil smoke out the rattling exhaust, but by cracky it’s a gem of a car. This has been the legacy of the acolytes of FD2030. Used car salesmen selling “the dream.” This writer returned from the first increment of PLC OCS at Camp Upshur in 1975, and was sent promptly into a small paper mill to finish out the summer. The mill was shorted due to summer vacations for senior paper makers. The overtime and double over time pay added up fast in a 6 week period. The writer has saved enough for his own car. Jeep CJ5 or FIAT 124…His father had an Alfa Romeo Spider (think the car in the movie “The Graduate.”)The old man explained the difference in cost and workmanship and the choice of the American made CJ5 got made. Not sexy. Not fast. Not a magnet. But it ran, it didn’t rust, it went places that the FIAT 124 would NEVER go. It ran in snow, It ran in the rain, and hot sun. It was reliable, go figure. So all you fellows out there “selling the dream” keep it up. The story changes every day that FD2030 doesn’t run, the sales pitch never ending and ever changing. FD2030 is a rust bucket of loose nuts and bolts with an engine that doesn’t run. Sooner or later the reputation of the car catches up with the manufacturer, and then it is a long road back if at all.
We need someone in leadership to remember what the Corps is, what it always has been, and restore the 911 force we're supposed to be. How did these weak sisters manage to take over? The Corps fights, aggressively and in your face. Providing a fixed target on an island with a missile and no way to replenish or evacuate makes our Corps the "other guy" Patton was talking about when he said "wars are not won by dying for your country, they're won by making the other guy die for his." Time we got rid of the losers in charge and restored the Corps to what it always was, the United States' premier fighting force.