Listen Up Marines, We Belong at Sea

[Ken White]

“The Army is pretty good at feeding perceptions.” The AC isn’t the only organization good at molding perceptions.

True, that's why I wrote in response to Bill Moore's "...and the unrealistic expectations we have of them.":

""There we agree -- and you've summed it up nicely. The Guard is NOT supposed to a part time active Army; they are to comprise a limited capability force for State emergencies and a force in being that can expand the manpower of the Active Army given adequate training and time. The unrealistic expectations are the fault of many, to include the Guard themselves (and of Guardsmen like Bob) who try to make it into something it is not -- and was never intended to be.""

The guard -- and Reserve -- are as good or better at that perception gig than the Regular Army...

Bob's World is correct in that after 60 days or so in a real middle-sized or big war, you or anyone else would be hard put to tell what a unit's pedigree happened to be…” well I guess we’ll need a middle or big sized war to bear that out.

We had a big one, WW II and a middle sized one, Korea -- where it was proven; no reason to believe it would not be again.

Army picking fights with Marines – fights is plural, you listed one. : )

Actually, I wrote that the Army picked fights with Congress, not the Marines: ""the Marines try to keep Congress happy; the Army goes out of its way to pick fights with them over inconsequential issues."" Them being Congress, the last entity mentioned prior to the pronoun.

Army size – The Army provides it’s own support. The Marines do not e.g. Marines rely on the Navy for all medical care

And more as well as on the Army for much support in many cases. Still IMO way too large a tail in both cases. Doesn't change the fact that the Marines could -- and have -- deployed many more than 30K (DS/DS, OIF, OEF Surge) but the 30K afloat is hull and underway time limited.

Rotation issues - Army home station rotation policy has changed drastically since 911. Most Marine units deployed to OIF, OEF were deployed via air just like the Army. Float times were not an issue.

They are or were for those Marines that had to float while others were in the Stan or Iraq...

The Corps, like the Army has to cope with other things than the war at hand.

Marine over Army quality – Marine reserve tankers deployed. You mean the reserve tankers that had to be reinforced by Army AC mechanized forces? : )

As the Marines at the time had no mech forces to support those Tanks, yeah, them. How many RC tanks did the Army deploy for anyone to support?

Point is the Army could have and elected to not do so; the Marines elected -- for good political if not military reasons to put a lot of money and effort into forcing that deployment. That's yet another example of the Marines acceding to Congressional desires and the Army refusing to do so -- by stalling.

Marine vs. Army commitment to training reserve units. I commanded the nine man AC training detachment for a guard separate infantry BN in 2000. I was backstopped by another 40 man Army detachment to assist on drill weekends. That would make the Army density of AC to guard an even higher proportion of five per unit. That is on top of Active component soldiers selected to serve full time in reserve components and in effect transfer to the Guard.

Things change and I'm glad to hear that. That was pretty much getting started when I retired from civil service in 1995. Glad it worked out. Is it still going?

Granted my Air Assault example may apply to OIF OEF (but it none-the less applies).

It does; how much of the reason for that is due to capability and how much is due to perception bias or other factors neither of us can know.

Bob’s observation “60 days and can’t tell the difference” has yet to prove itself out . The last time we deployed Guard units to a mid or big size fight and they did well was WWII and they trained as active duty units for over a year with huge influxes of active troops. You saw it in Korea? Where and when? I’d like to look at how much time they had to train up and record of performance.

First, not huge influxes of active troops, there weren't that many active troops -- huge influxes of Draftees and rapidly promoted ROTC Officers called up for the duration -- very different thing.

Second, re: Korea. The 40th (CA ArNG) and 45th Inf Divs (OK ArNG) and the 65th RCT (PR ArNG) all served on the line in Korea, I saw elements of the 65th and of the 45th several times each -- couldn't tell the difference between the 65th and the rest of 3d ID. There were numerous CS/CSS units -- ArNG Arty was particularly good, some of those NCOs had been Chiefs of Section for 8 or 10 years. One I recall was the 623d FA Bn (155 T) Ky ArNG) they were GS to 1st Mar Div for a while. All that's available on Google as I'm sure are reports of relative performance. Here's some Guard propaganda -- I have no reason to believe it is inaccurate; (LINK) and here's more from California (LINK).

Here's the Wiki on the 45th. Scroll down to Korea. I witnessed much of the Old Baldy fight; the 45th took it and held it, turned it over to 2d ID who promptly lost it and had a hard time getting it back. Couldn't really see much difference in the two Divisions...

BTW, I categorically reject your characterization of me as “AC uber alles”. Let’s refrain from simplistic attacks when we don’t have evidence to support our anecdotal positions? Having served shoulder to shoulder with Guardsman I can tell you they have my deepest respect and there are certain missions where Guard units are superior to their AC peer. Pulling a 40 hour week and trying to meet the unrealistic expectations { * } the Army has for Guard units one weekend a month is an incredibly difficult row to hoe. There is ZERO doubt they are patriots. Let’s separate ego from capability?

Yes, lets. Heres' what I wrote: "The only hubris in this exchange is your apparent AC uber alles attitude." (emphasis added / kw). Note the apparent. I have no reason to believe it is more than "apparent" due to your choice of words and phrasing but the word 'hubris' implies that either Bob or I were / are deluded. Neither of us is -- we may differ from you in our opinions and some matters -- and Bob and I differ on some also -- but there's no hubris involved. So let's indeed refrain from simplistic attacks. Sounds like a plan...

Interesting aside. After DS/DS and not too long after Congress passed the laws that resulted in formation of your and the other RC Training Detachments and the revamp of Readiness Groups et.al., I was in his office when the then CG of then Second Army who had earlier been at OCLL called a Congressional Staffer he knew on Steven's staff and asked him why on earth they passed such an expensive in many ways scheme that was certain to make no significant improvement in RC mobilization capability. The answer was "We wanted to make sure the next time the Army went to war, they took the Guard." The CG's response was appropriate -- "Why didn't you just pass a law that said that."

Few things are as simple as they seem...

* Perceptions again -- and not just the Army but also the Guard itself, the Politicians at both Federal and State level. Sadly, there's plenty of blame to go around for unrealistic expectations. Good news is that they still beat recruiting from scratch...