Listen Up Marines, We Belong at Sea

[Ken White]

Ken – I’ll have to respectfully disagree with the force structure argument. I don’t discount your point. There are political issues but they are not the determining force.

They are not necessarily so now so far as I know -- they were then and I was peripherally involved. At that time (1978-84 -- and I was in the AC at the time or had just Retired and gone to work as a DAC) force structure decisions were made on AC and RC whims as well as on force requirements, recruiting capability and other factors. The 'one half' issue was designed to reduce the size of the Guard and it was budget driven. The fact that 'studies' and processes were and are used to 'justify' that is typical Army blast and cover. The Army is pretty good at feeding perceptions.

One may use AC prejudice to explain the over 90 days it took to certify the 48th. The fact remains the balloon went up in Sep 90 and four months later the 48th wasn’t ready. The fight was over FIVE months later.

Bayonet Brant answered this and did so accurately. Wes Clark kept screwing with the Bde at the NTC and the OCs insisted on a very unusual number of re-dos. The AC deliberately stalled to preclude the deployment. Your "fact" is predicated on that stacking of the deck.

Parochailism and budget battles aren’t the sole causes of the Guard’s inability to be ready to execute across the spectrum as an AC unit does...Leaders and staff just can’t master the skills in 60 days of training. Blaming budget and parochialism for a lack of time is just hubris.

You missed the point -- I essentially agreed with that paragraph. My point was just that PLUS the FACT that you can still deploy a Guard or Reserve unit faster than you can recruit a similar force off the street. One gets what one pays for. The design factor is adequate but the limitations are known and have been accepted. The only hubris in this exchange is your apparent AC uber alles attitude. No question that a Guard combat arms Battalion or above isn't equal to most AC Battalions or above most days -- but 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...

“The 'fact' that Saudi oil is needed by the rest of the world does not give the US reason to insure its provision except for US domestic political reasons.” Uh what do we run our factories/cars on? Water? Japan was forced to initiate WWII for very similar reasons. It’s simply not a war of choice when a nation is facing financial ruin and the subsequent turmoil.

We can disagree on that -- as well as on the 'fact' that "Japan was forced to initiate WWII for very similar reasons." Forced -- or elected. FDR gave them an excuse to do what they'd planned to do all along...

Not to mention that had we pursued Jimmy Carter's idea to achieve energy self sufficiency -- had he not been distracted by his own poor handling of the Tehran hostage action -- we'd have had fallbacks. We always have had, we just elect to take the easy and politically expedient way out. You're quite right in the avoiding financial difficulties and (political) turmoil, that always drives our train.

Ref the Marine size, “the Army goes out of its way to pick fights with them over inconsequential issues” Examples and how does that impact the size issue? The size of the Corps was written into law in 1952.

I'm well aware of the size requirements statute, I was in the Corps at the time. It was enacted due to Omar Bradley's efforts to get the Corps amalgamated into the Army -- Truman was supportive; Congress was not.

Inconsequential issues: Amalgamate the Marines. Size of the Guard and Reserve.

Consequential issues poorly handled: The replacement for the M4 Carbine issue (Barry McCaffrey owes the Army big time for that weapon...). MRAPs.

More importantly, why do we have a force of 250K marines when we can only float 30K?

Probably for the same reason we need an Active Army of 450-540K to field a force of 100+K -- and of course, the Army also is not dependent upon the Navy's provision of hulls and underway time to float folks...

I don’t understand the rapid rotation of key players comment...

Our terribly flawed 1918 personnel system (with 1945, 1950, 1065 and recent overlays...) now insists that we rotate everyone at two to four year intervals and that people must rotate through many jobs -- thus we develop a crew of Generalists who are jacks of all trades and masters of none. The problem is affecting the Army at all levels but my specific comment was directed at the senior leaders who interface with the Congress, one will start the battle in a fashion, his replacement picks up the Baton and changes tack while his replacement virtually does a 180 on the previous two -- lack of continuity in the fight is not helpful

We have deployed units for almost twice the amount of time that their Marine counterparts deploy for over the last decade.

That's a separate issue and a policy issue. The Marines have to cope with that Afloat issue and Navy steaming time, the Army does not. The important thing is that neither service obtains decent continuity in combat operations due to those short tours -- and a year is a short tour just as seven months is...

The Marines field generally better trained units? By what measure?

The Marines deployed Reserve Tanks and Tankers in M1s to DS/DS. What was it you said about the 48th?

The Marines deploy more active duty troops to train? Example? I’m pretty familiar with what the Army does in this regard. What’s the Marine model?

The Marine Corps assigns active duty Marines, Typically an Officer in the same rank as the Reserve unit Commander and a few Staff NCOs -- used to be about five per Company sized unit -- to assist in training and adminstration (a huge time and effort waster in Army RC units...) as well as to insure quality (The I-I Staff also gets inspected to make sure they're performing well). That's probably changed a bit (as has the Army in regard to RC training support) but I suspect the Marines still put more effort and more active folks on a per capita basis into it.

I’d like to see your numbers also when it comes to money.

No money numbers, purely anecdotal but based on over 50 years of close contact.

BTW, Reserve Marines also train for less than 30 days a year.

True -- but, as you know, in training for combat, quality counts. The Army suffers from that terrible Task, Condition, Standard BTMS foolishness...

IOW, the Army has a systemic problem that inhibit good training -- that's changing but far too slowly.

I know you addressed this to Bob but:

1.A few months in combat does not prepare you to execute missions the same as an AC unit. A simple example would be if you are doing route security or base security you aren’t training to conduct an air assault or the priorities or work to stand up a COP.

You're using Afghanistan / Iraq as models. Bad mistake. To quote Major Rod:

I also reject the common assumption that the next war is going to be like the last one.

Bob meant in medium or high intensity combat, not in the current environment.

2.Conflict of choice. Using your standard declaring war on Nazi Germany was a conflict of choice.

Well, yeah...

4.90 days isn’t arbitrary. OPLANS rely on synchronized deployment schedules and the enemy landing on our beaches isn’t the only threat we need to be prepared for unless you’re a Ron Paul isolationist.

True on that last item and I, for one, ain't a Ron Paulite -- but Brant's got that right also, the 90 days AND the synchronized deployments are arbitrary both have varied over the years depending upon the exigencies and can and will be again changed. Bet on it.