FD 2030 - It is Not Just the Gear, It is the Ethos
Four Marine Medal of Honor Recipients Sound Wake Up Call
It is Not Just the Gear, It is the Ethos
The authors of the article at the link below are the only living Marine Corps officers awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous valor during the Vietnam War. The article expresses their concerns that recent changes in Marine Corps force structure and personnel management are dangerously close to destroying the culture, traditions, and warfighting ethos of America’s Marines. It is a “wake-up” call that Force Design 2030 and Talent Management 2030 are ripping the fabric that makes Marines different and underpins Marine combat effectiveness. The authors’ underlying message is clear. Unless we act now to reverse this trend, the Marine Corps that the American people know and love will be lost forever.
Please read the full article on National Review, share the article widely, and bring it to the attention of your elected representatives.
National Review (nationalreview.com) October 3. 2022
The Marine Corps is Dangerously Close to Losing its Customs, Traditions and Warfighting Ethos
By James E. Livingston, Jay Vargas, Harvey Barnum, & Robert Modrzejewski
As Marines and Medal of Honor recipients, we believe the intangibles that make the Marine Corps exceptional are under attack and at risk of being overrun.
. . . Many, arguably most, former Marines, ourselves included, find it increasingly difficult to recognize our Marine Corps. The organization in which we served is being radically altered with little or no apparent appreciation for unforeseen consequences. The unnecessary cutting of force structure, coupled with the ill-advised jettisoning of combat multipliers such as tanks, cannon artillery, assault amphibious vehicles, heavy engineers, aviation, and logistics before replacement capabilities have been procured, will perilously weaken the flexibility and lethality of forward-deployed Marine Air Ground Task Forces and the ability of the Marine Expeditionary Forces to task organize for combat across the spectrum of conflict.We fear that soon Marines will no longer be able to pride themselves on being“most ready when the nation is least ready.” . . . .
Let me back track. I was in 1/8 in 1975-76 when we were buying into maneuver warfare. Perhaps the field grade leadership was ahead of its time and perhaps we had an exceptionally well read group of company grade officers with a focus on history. We were certainly conversant in Clausewitz, Rommel, Robert E Lee, Jackson, Guderian, MacArthur, John Boyd, Curtis LeMay, Bernard Fall, Patton, Manstein, and Liddell Hart.
We most certainly were not a bunch of intellectual nerds as our PT, hand to hand, knife fighting, long runs and forced marches could attest to. The CMC’s ( Gen Wilson) focus on supporting arms, maneuver and CAS was not lost on us and the CAX exercises were right in our wheel house. We only later heard of Bill Lind by introduction via BG Gray when we became part of the 4th MAB. What was later introduced to the AWS class 1980-81 had already been practiced in 1/8 from 1975-77. Sadly, we got a new BN Cmdr with virtually no infantry back ground and quickly returned to unimaginative plodding, micromanagement and mind numbing inspections of painted tent pegs.
The same officers I served with in 1/8 embraced the direction Gen Gray embarked on as CMC. The professional reading list had been part of our mind set for 15 years and longer. We all wanted maneuver warfare to become institutionalized in everything we did. Certainly in RD&A, in training, recruiting, logistics, education, personnel policies and evidenced in the concept of special trust and confidence. It was probably expecting too much in a DoD that was a giant, plodding bureaucracy of micromanagement, budgets, accountants and the stirrings of political correctness. While the OODA loop was preached in the tactical and operational Marine Corps and sincerely embraced in the operational formations it was not viewed as applicable in most endeavors. The more senior one became the less the OODA Loop could be applied.
But the lesson had not been lost on outside forces seeking to change the Corps and DoD. Feminists applied it at every turn and DoD rolled in the surf like a beached whale unable to make a cogent case or remained mute in the face of accusations. They were out maneuvered at every turn. Tailhook was a great example of a defenseless institution that accepted organizational and cultural blame for the actions of a few. Racial provocateurs used the OODA loop to accuse the least racist institution in the United States of racism and forced reverse racism accommodations in a profession where merit is directly related to victory and saved lives. The Homosexual lobby outmaneuvered DoD time and time again inflicting humiliating defeats on their enemy who they knew better than DoD knew them. It was painful to watch a slightly built knife fighter disembowel the cowardly and stupid day in and day out. It was amazing to find out that a mentally ill misanthrope passed 700,000 classified documents to Assange, change his orientation to female and had his sentence commuted by the same President who considered the traitor Bergdahl an American hero.
Some did learn to use maneuver warfare and the OODA loop. I would contend that Gen Berger executed it masterfully the first 90 days he was Commandant. Before the smoke cleared he had dispatched Tanks, tube artillery, whole infantry formations, tactical air, combat engineers and changed the mission of the Corps to a light weight, short range coastal defense organization, once a branch of the Army. A very small group of Retired Marines whose communications are facilitated by a retired Colonel in Jacksonville NC saw through it within hours. Sadly their alarm bells were not heard and their written objections were thrown in the trash at numerous professional military journals. Clearly, they were not names familiar to the elite levels of DoD and Marine Corps thinking. The wider response to Gen Berger’s Blitzkrieg was slow. It was easy to ignore the polite, serious and professional monologue by dismissing it as the rantings of a small minority of intellectual dwarves and Neanderthals opposed to change. Gen Berger’s opening moves have all be unbelievably successful. The second part is harder. I would merely remind that change is certain but progress is not.
If a 3 star general needs to hold a road show to validate decisions on force structure and design…then the FD plan is flawed and he’s failed.