Compass Points - Trenchant Comments
Readers expand the discussion.
Compass Points - Trenchant Comments
Readers expand the discussion.
June 1, 2024
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Even as June arrives and another sunny summer begins, the US is being challenged around the world by ongoing threats and conflicts. 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.
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Over the last week, Compass Points readers have responded online and off with a treasure load 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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Raymond Lee Maloy
Individuals like your friend, John Sayen, should not only be tolerated but cultivated, as you said. One of the things that seems to be missing in the Corps lately is “characters”, individuals who made life in the Corps interesting and fun.
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Palmer Brown
'till the last landings made
and we stand unafraid
on a shore no mortal has seen.
'till the last bugle call
sounds taps for us all
it's Semper Fidelis, MARINE!
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Charles Wemyss, Jr.
Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of fathers and the temples of his Gods.
With Horatius went Spirius Lartius and Herminius they went forward, when others would not.
A lot can be said on this most humbling of days, too many are firing up grills and chilling beer and saying Happy Memorial Day. There is nothing happy about it except per chance our happy memories of fellow Marines we served with that are not here with us now.
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Douglas C Rapé
I have visited many of these Pacific islands and coasts. These are not the deserted islands of 100 years ago. There is no sneaking ashore and no movement without detection. The populations have a cell phone density of any place in the United States. That alone ensures that your every location and movement is reported in real time.
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Jerry McAbee
Unbeknownst to the reporter, her article pulled the scab from the Marine Corps’ self-inflicted Force Design 2030 wound. In a sign of increasing irrelevance, “America’s New Island Fighters” deployed aboard U.S. Army helicopters, not Marine Corps V-22s or CH-53s or even Navy ships. After four years, the highly touted Landing Ship Medium is still on the drawing board and, more likely, on life support as the U.S. Navy and the Congress debate its utility in a war with China. After debarking the borrowed aircraft, the Marines were left stranded on the tiny island without mobility, the full range of logistics, or missiles, which, even if deployed, would have been largely ineffective. Under the 38th and 39th Commandants, we have witnessed the Marine Corps transform itself to irrelevance.
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Christopher Wright
Huge amphibious landings are a thing of the past according to the BBC. Wait until China does exactly that to Taiwan. As for the "new island fighters" they are a mosquito bite on an elephant. Small, agile, and irrelevant to the mass that the PLA represents.
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Samuel Whittemore
The WSJ article is little more than a shallow propaganda piece for Force Designs impotent Marine Littoral Regiment, which in this instance borrows Chinook helicopters from “someone” in order to be dropped off in the jungle w 3 days of rations, where -- if this were an actual operation -- they would be ignored and left to starve to death.
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Ray “Skip” Polak
Ignore the lessons from WWII at our peril. Units on bypassed islands are irrelevant.
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Polarbear
An item not discussed concerning the tactic of the “MLR hiding on small islands” is the CCP’s People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM). The PAFMM is a government-supported armed fishing force and operates under the direct command and control of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
What is the Combatant Commander going to do, in an environment of rising tensions, when he orders the deployment of the MLR but finds the area is saturated with large numbers of PAFMM and CCP fishing boats?
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Samuel Whittemore
Polarbear, you are spot on. Hiding the MLR in the PI? LOL! Google Earth, Commercial Satellites, thousands of drones, and then the CCP has plenty of surveillance capabilities. The PRC will laugh at their ineffective weapons and let them hide.
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Raymond Lee Maloy
We need a reporter like retired Colonel David Hackworth to delve into the idiocy that has infected the U. S . Military today. Civilians are too easily manipulated and wowed by tough sounding lingo with little substance. Semper Fi
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Douglas C Rapé
Under General Berger’s secretive guidance, the Corps divested itself to irrelevance. It is a large force of 160,000 that cannot contribute in any relationship to its size. Its current, self-delineated mission hardly warrants 15,000 Marines let alone 160,000. Congress will soon realize this, and the Army, Navy and Air Force will gladly point it out. Their recruiting shortfalls will benefit from 145,000 Marines made available at the garage sale of people and equipment.
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Charles Wemyss, Jr.
The Marine Corps is and has been a pebble in the shoe of all five sides of the puzzle palace for decades. General Berger and for that matter General Smith can paint it any way they want, but they attempted and hopefully have failed to reduce the Corps to irrelevance.
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cfrog
Gen Zinni and BGen McAbee, in their article, aptly provided a mission statement that can be paraphrased for the Marine Unit we wish we had: "The Mission of the Marine All Domain Task Force (MADTF) is to confront threats from adversary general purpose and unconventional/irregular forces like those operating today where belligerents are effectively using combined arms together with emerging technologies to locate and destroy opposition using fires and maneuver.".
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Colonel Jack D. Howell
I agree with General Zinni and Brigadier General McAbee's position regarding the damage the Force Design 2030 Plan caused to the Marine Corps force structure. Sadly, we are no longer the 911 premier fighting force. The Corps is now molded into something of an unproven entity—a Corps with a defensive structure but with no real offensive bite as before!
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Don Whisnant
To save our Marine Corps, a leader with big kahunas must admit the mistake of Force Design and strive to regain all the lost capabilities, restoring the Corps' credibility. General Al Gray, where are you?
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Coffeejoejava
In the meantime, the Navy still can't get the Boxer right. It is back in for repair now and is scheduled for maintenance from April 2025 until October 2026. When will it be available for Marines?
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Randy Shetter
I think the problem regarding ship construction and the need for more amphibs is a much larger problem. There have been many Navy ship programs which have failed to produce. The Zumwalt Class of just three destroyers and the Littoral Combat Ship program are just a few examples.
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cfrog
Under the NDAA, Congress has given the Navy the authority to enter into MYP contracts in order to bring stability to the industrial base, not JUST to get at cost savings. (source-https://conservativewahoo.substack.com/p/the-greatest-gathering-of-men-since).
It is the USMC's vested interest to (by both gentlemanly and ungentlemanly means as necessary) push the Navy into multiyear programs for Amphib acquisition. Granted, it means we could lock in for quicker attainment of LSMs (FYI -LSM stands for undernourished sub-par LST), but I'll take that evil if it means more LHDs.
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Charles Wemyss, Jr.
The reading list is a good place to get the bamboo network humming, “hey you young infantry officers at IOC read “Fields of Fire” before you hit the fleet.” Winds of change whisper through the system. Hmmm sort of like an insurgency, managers don’t like what they can’t control. Insurgency by its very nature is hard to control. Brigadier General Evans Carlson comes to mind, when thinking of the reading list, make it inclusive, wide ranging and about war fighting and how to fight better.
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Douglas C Rapé
The interview with LtGen Van Riper about the Marine reading program is one of the best things I have read in Compass Points.
I have been an avid, life long reader of military history, theory, strategy, tactics, operations, biographies and auto biographies. Growing up in a home without television I started to read from my grandfather’s extensive library. My focus was school, sports, gardening and reading. Once commissioned I was surprised by the reading habits, or lack thereof by many of my peers. When General Gray pushed the reading program, I was an enthusiastic supporter. I believed it was absolutely critical to a professional military force.
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cfrog
I came for the free beer and stayed for the interview!
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Raymond Lee Maloy
Every Marine I know who was worth his salt maintained a professional library.
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The Wolf
The current Marine Corps Reading List indicates that the Commandant, Assistant Commandant, Commanding General of the Training and Education Command, and President of the Marine Corps University are not well versed in important military literature, or else they are inattentive to one of their fundamental responsibilities. How else to account for the travesty that this so-called professional reading list represents.
Many of today’s senior Marine Corps leaders disparage the “old guys” for being out of touch and behind the times. The Wolf longs for the Corps they led. It had the capability and capacity to respond to crises around the globe and was filled with general officers who were known to read and study. It appears to me those in the top billets today are living off the reputations the so-called “old guys” earned. They give no evidence that they are aware let alone knowledgeable of essential professional literature.
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John Folchetti
"The short answer is if I had sent the current Marine reading list to General Gray, he would have immediately relieved me of my duties, told me to submit my retirement papers, pack my trash and go home. The current list is a professional embarrassment to the Marine Corps." -- PKVR
Absolutely priceless. Unfortunately, true.
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Keith Holcomb
It is only by reading serious books seriously and mixing that reading with thoughtful experience that one is able to develop an understanding of an area. Mortimer J. Adler, editor of the Britannica and a lifelong advocate for reading and understanding the canon of Western civilization actually wrote a book entitled "How to Read a Book." Short answer: Three times! Of course, that was for worthy books.
Having known General Van Riper for over 45 years, I can attest that he was one always exploring the limits of knowledge, always challenging the thinking and understanding of others. Perhaps, that made others uncomfortable, bruised sensitive egos, but for most of us his actions stimulated understanding and competence. It is past time to permit this Warrior-Scholar to once again be able to teach at the University he founded.
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Paul K. Van Riper
There is no technology that can substitute for deep, continuous, self-study. The profession of arms is unlike anything else. All Marines and particularly Marines who aspire to be leaders of Marines, must grow themselves in every way. They must grow their physical strength, their spiritual strength, and their mental strength. Engaging with the classic books on war and warfighting is like engaging in a live fire exercise with a well-armed adversary. Take hold of one of the great books on warfighting. Go page by page. Wrestle with the author, underline key ideas, stop and think, argue, question, and learn. Reading deeply is like good PT, exhausting, worthwhile, and fun.
I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1956. Decades and wars have rolled by. I have studied war, experienced war, and taught war. I am still studying, still learning, and still growing today. Why bother after all these years? Because working to get better day by day is what Marines do.
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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.
My time as a senior officer that I enjoyed the most by far was the time I spent studying, debating, teaching and mentoring about war, leadership in war and decision making in war. Thank you to Compass Point for keeping this moving forward for me.
Semper Fidelis, Dale Alford