Compass Points - Week in Review
Plus, remembering the Easter Offensive
Compass Points - Week in Review
Plus, remembering the Easter Offensive
March 31, 2024
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Happy Easter Sunday!
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Sunday is a good day to look back at the week. Easter is a good day to look back over the years. Easter is a celebration of resurrection. If hope has died, it can be brought back to life. Broken dreams can be pieced together. Broken relationships can be repaired. Those things that have been lost, can be restored. The promise of Easter is the promise of rebirth and a better tomorrow.
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The Marine Corps is poised for restoration and rebirth. The whole community of Marines, working together, can build a Marine Corps that is stronger than before. The Marine Corps has faced challenges in the past and will face more in the future. But challenges can be overcome.
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For example, the North Vietnamese Army attacked in the Spring of 1972 in what became known as the Easter Offensive. One Marine was suddenly called on to direct much of the US response to the attack. After the week in review, we look back at the Easter Offensive.
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We started on Monday with a discussion of the number of MEUs that are needed today at crisis points around the globe. Tuesday argued that all Marines should come together again just as HMLA-269 is coming back again. On Wednesday and Thursday, we discussed the special importance of both Soldiers of the Sea and of cannon artillery. We ended the week with recommendations for military books and blogs as well as a salute to “Magnificent Majors.” In all, it was a week of particularly good discussion.
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Monday 25 Mar – Calling all MEUs
The operational need for a MEU right now in the Eastern Mediterranean is not the only place a MEU would strengthen global security and give US policy makers more options. A strong case can be made that there are at least three additional trouble spots that need a Marine MEU now, the Arabian Sea, Haiti, and the Philippines.
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Tuesday 26 Mar – Come Together HMLA-269
Despite the warnings, including warnings from the Marine Corps' own Aviation Plan, too many aviation airframes and units were divested and deactivated. But now, because of the hard questions and pointed warnings, the lesson has been learned. HMLA-269 (Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 269) is being reactivated. What is needed now is an urgent campaign, not just of learning, but a campaign to bring back all the similar HMLA-269s that have been heedlessly deactivated throughout the Marine Corps. Bring back what needs to be brought back. Enhance and upgrade all that needs improving. Use the Combat Development Command to thoroughly plan and prepare.
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Wednesday 27 Mar – Soldiers of the Sea
In his article in The Defense Post, "Why We Can’t Beat the Houthis" author and Marine Gary Anderson writes about how the US has lost control of the Red Sea. Responding to air attacks with air attacks will not solve the problem. Military history shows that as powerful as air attacks are, by themselves they prolong conflicts instead of ending them. It is forces on the ground, supported by a range of ordinance from the air, that force the enemy to surrender.
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Thursday 28 Mar – Call for Fire
Why would DAPA contract for advanced cannon artillery rounds if there was no future for cannon artillery on the battlefield? The answer is, despite new rockets and missiles, no other weapon system can do what cannon artillery can do.
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Friday 29 Mar – Books of Battle
Today, March 29th is National Vietnam War Veterans Day. Happy Viet Vets Day! On this day and every day many Viet Vets are still improving their knowledge by reading books. The right books are foundational. They form a bedrock of knowledge, insight, understanding and belief. Compass Points readers have their own thoughts about military books and military blogs. Here is a list of books readers are reading or re-reading today.
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Saturday 30 Mar – Magnificent Majors
For the Majors of today, however, the challenges of the future war will not be the same as the fighting in Vietnam and it will not be the same as the fighting in the deserts of the Middle East. Today's Majors will face new and different challenges. To prepare themselves for future challenges, the Majors of today must ask questions, stretch their thinking, and study thoroughly. One of the foundations of their study must continue to be the maneuver philosophy that has been so deeply a part of the Marine Corps from its earliest years. The Marine maneuver philosophy was summarized years ago in the small book, FMFM-1 Warfighting.
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Compass Points appreciates all the great discussion this week and thanks all our readers who served as seminar leaders this week by providing topics, articles, and comments.
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Remembering the Easter Offensive.
In the Spring of 1972, the North Vietnamese Army launched a surprise attack on South Vietnam in what became known as the Easter Offensive. One Marine suddenly found himself unexpectedly directing much of the US response to the attack.
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--Leadership in the Breach: Gerald Turley and the Easter Offensive
Gerald Turley, a Marine lieutenant colonel and the number two man in the Marine Advisory Unit in South Vietnam, was on an orientation trip to the northern part of the country in April 1972 when the North Vietnamese launched major attacks—the beginning of the Easter offensive. Through force of circumstance, he found himself coordinating much of the South Vietnamese response in the region. In 1985, Colonel Turley wrote The Easter Offensive, a book that resonates today as a personal view of leadership as displayed by the last American advisors in Vietnam. The Vietnamization program was in full force when he arrived in country at the end of March 1972, and the South Vietnamese response was the true test of the program.
In the prologue, the author writes, "One must prepare himself for a moment that may never come; to thrust himself into the uncharted arena of battle should the need arise." This is an important, all-encompassing leadership lesson. When he landed in Vietnam, Turley was to serve in a purely advisory capacity, with absolutely no military command authority. He ended up being the senior American advisor in the region during the Easter Offensive.
To the same end, author James Webb, a Marine infantry lieutenant in Vietnam and a future secretary of the Navy, stated that "for those who might not believe that individuals make the difference in war, this book will surely change their minds." It is imperative that each person train to the utmost to be prepared to fight. The individual's responsibility is to ensure that he is ready for the tasks that lie ahead. The situation in the northern reaches of South Vietnam would have ended much differently but for Colonel Turley's serendipitous presence in the command center.
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--Leadership in the Breach: Gerald Turley and the Easter Offensive
By Second Lieutenant Lacey Ainsworth, U.S. Marine Corps
July 2005
Proceedings
Vol. 131/7/1,229
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Perhaps someone with Congressional access can track COMMANDANT SMITH’S COMPLIANCE WITH Answering THE NDAA QUESTIONS. EXPECT DELAY AND OBFUSCATION.
The phrase, “the pen is mightier than the sword” is most often attributed to the playwriter, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. He used these words in 1839 in his historical play Cardinal Richelieu. The character Richelieu is a priest who discovers a plot against his life but feels he cannot take up a sword to defend himself. Nevertheless, he is determined to overcome the threat against him by using his words and his writing to move the minds of the people and gain support.
However, some have claimed to note even earlier uses of the phrase. The words may have been first used in a newspaper from Ireland, The Northern Whig a few years earlier in 1832. There are even earlier expressions of the same sentiment as well from centuries prior. Thomas Jefferson, William Shakespeare, and others are noted to have expressed the sentiment in different terms. Nevertheless, it was Bulwer-Lytton and his famous play which no doubt popularized the phrase and led it to become a common idiom in the minds of future generations. The phrase went onto be used in numerous publications for its relevance to the power of the media and newspapers over force and armies.