http://www.virtualwall.org

Now We Are The “Old Corps!”

Remember when…

Everyone was issued dress blues.

You kept your rifle in the barracks.

Your 782 gear did not wear out.

Mess halls were mess halls (NOT dining facilities).

No vandalism wrecked the barracks.

Everyone was a Marine and his ethnic background was unimportant.

We had heroes.

Chaplains didn’t teach leadership to the experts.

Getting high meant getting drunk.

Beer was 25 cents at the slopchute.

Skivvies had tie-ties.

We starched our khakis and looked like hell after sitting down the first time.

We wore the short green battle jacket with the winter uniform.

We wore Sam Browne belts and sharpened one edge of the buckle for the bad fights.

We kept our packs made up and hanging on the edge of the rack.

We spit shined shoes.

Brownbaggers’ first concern was the Marine Corps.

Generals cussed.

Generals paid more attention to the Marine Corps than to politics.

UA meant being a few minutes late from a great liberty, and only happened

once per career.

Brigs were truly “correctional” facilities.

Sergeants were gods.

The tips of the index and middle fingers of one hand were constantly black

from Kiwi shoe polish.

We scrubbed the wooden decks of the barracks with creosol.

We had wooden barracks.

Privates made less than $100.00 a month.

Privates always had money.

You weren’t transported to war by Trans World or Pan American airlines.

Barracks violence was a fight between two buddies who were buddies

when it was over.

Larceny was a civilian crime.

Every Marine had all his gear.

Marines had more uniforms than civilian clothes.

Country and western music did not start race riots in the clubs.

We had no race riots because we had no recognition of races.

Marine Corps birthdays were celebrated on 10 November no matter what day

of the week it may have been (except Sunday).

Support units supported.

The supply tail did not wag the maintenance dog.

The 734 form was the only supply document.

You did your own laundry, including ironing.

You aired bedding.

Daily police of outside areas was held although they were always clean.

Field stripping of cigarette butts was required.

Everyone helped at field day.

A tour as Duty NCO was an honor.

Everyone got up a reveille.

We had live bugle calls inside the barrack, sometimes at the foot of your rack.

Movies were free.

PX items were bargains.

Parking was the least of problems because troops couldn’t afford cars.

You weren’t married unless you could afford it.

Courts-martial orders were read in battalion formations.

A bum didn’t have a BCD awarded more than once before he actually got it.

We had the “Rocks and Shoals.”

Courts-martial were a rarity.

People receiving BCD’s were drummed out the gate.

NCOs and officers were not required to be psychologists.

The mission was the most important thing.

Marines could shoot.

Marines had a decent rifle.

The BAR was the mainstay of the fire team.

Machine gunnery was an art.

Maggie’s drawers meant a miss and was considered demeaning as hell to

the dignity of the shooter.

Carbide lamps blackened sights.

We wore leggings and herringbone utilities.

We had machine gun carts.

We mixed target paste in the butts.

We had to take and pass promotion tests to get promoted, plus have the

required cutting score.

We really had equal opportunity.

Sickbays gave APCs for all ailments.

We had short-arm inspections.

The flame tank was in the arsenal of weapons.

We had unit parties overseas with warm beer and no drugs.

Marines got haircuts.

Non-judicial punishment was non-judicial.

The squad bay rich guy was the only one with a radio.

If a Marine couldn’t make it on a hike, his buddies carried his gear and helped

him stumble along so that he wouldn’t have to fall out.

The base legal section was one or two clerks and a lawyer.

We had oval dog tags.

Marines wore dog tags all the time.

We spit shined shoes and BRUSH shined boots.

We wore boondockers.

We starched field scarves.

We worked a five and one half day week.

Everyone attended unit parties.

In the field we used straddle trenches instead of “Porta-Potties.”

Hitchhiking was an offense.

We used Morse Code for difficult transmissions.

The oil burning tent stove was the center of social activity in the tent.

We had unit mail call.

We carried swagger sticks.

We had Chesty Puller.

Greater privileges for NCOs were not a “right.”

EM Clubs were where you felt at home — and safe.

We sailed on troop ships and we rode troop trains.

Sentries had some authority.

Warrant Officers were not in their teens.

Mess hall “Southern cooking” was not called “soul food.”

Marines went to chapel on Sundays.

Weekend liberty to a distant place was a rarity.

The color of a Marine’s skin was of no consequence.

The Marine Corps was a big team made up of thousands of little teams.

We debarked from ship by means of nets over the side, landed in LCVPs and

always got wet.

We had platoon virgins.

We had parades.

We had pride.

We had Esprit de Corps.

http://www.nragive.com/ringoffreedom/nr_j0199_landing.html

I attended the the MSOB Warrior/Raider Dayin September at Camp Pendleton.   It was glorious to shoot shoulder to shoulder again with real warriors after so many years….a real geezer’s late-life treat. I made a creditable showing even with their spectacular new weapons.  A young Gunny jokingly wanted me to re-enlist when he handed me my MP5 target…….all 30 rounds in the black !!!.  I told him that I would not make the PT……..but would be able to lay down one Hell of a base of fire for him with that neat-o killing machine.

Semper Fidelis.

Beginning this month, leathernecks from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
will return to Iraq, replacing elements of the Army’s 82nd Airborne
Division. The return of the Marines is surely bad news for those desperate
to undermine the liberation of Iraq.

Not to take anything away from the U.S. Army — its soldiers have performed
magnificently, and will no doubt continue to do so — but America’s enemies
have a particular fear of U.S. Marines. During the first Gulf War in 1991,
over 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were deployed along the Iraqi-Kuwaiti coastline
in anticipation of a landing by some 17,000 U.S. Marines. Terrified by what
they had been taught about the combat prowess of Marines, the Iraqi soldiers
had nicknamed them “Angels of Death.”

The moniker — first published by Pulitzer-winner Rick Atkinson in his
best-selling Crusade — carried over into the second Gulf war, last year, as
the 1st Marine Division swept across the Iraqi plains. Attacking American
forces were unsettling enough, but reports of the seaborne “Angels of Death”
being among the lead elements were paralyzing to many Iraqi combatants.
Despite less armor than other American ground forces, the Marines were among
the first to fight their way into Baghdad. And when intelligence indicated
that foreign troops were coming to the aid of Iraqi diehards, Marine Brig.
Gen. John Kelly stated, “we want all Jihad fighters to come here. That way
we can kill them all before they get bus tickets to New York City.”

Typical Marine bravado, some say. But it works. Best-selling author Tom
Clancy once wrote, “Marines are mystical. They have magic.” It is this same
magic, Clancy added, that “may well frighten potential opponents more than
the actual violence Marines can generate in combat.”

Fear of Marines is not a new phenomenon, nor is it unique to Iraqi soldiers.
Established in 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps came of age in World War I during
the 1918 Chateau Thierry campaign near the French village of Bouresches.
There, Marines assaulted a line of German machine-gun nests on an old
hunting preserve known as Belleau Wood. The fighting was terrible. Those
Marines who weren’t cut down by the enemy guns captured the nests in a
grisly close-quarters slugfest.

The shocked Germans nicknamed their foes, teufelhunden (devil dogs).
“Marines are considered a sort of elite Corps designed to go into action
outside the United States,” read a German intelligence report following the
battle. “They consider their membership in the Marine Corps to be something
of an honor. They proudly resent any attempts to place their regiments on a
par with other infantry regiments.”

Twenty-four years later as the 1st Marine Division was steaming toward
Guadalcanal, a Japanese radio propagandist taunted that which the Japanese
soldiers feared most. “Where are the famous United States Marines hiding?”
the announcer asked. “The Marines are supposed to be the finest soldiers in
the world, but no one has seen them yet?”
Over the next three years, Marines would further their reputation at places
with names like Tarawa, Saipan, and Iwo Jima.

That reputation carried over into the Korean War. “Panic sweeps my men when
they are facing the American Marines,” confessed a captured North Korean
major. It was a fear echoed by his Chinese allies. In late 1950, Chinese
premier Mao Tse Tung put out a contract on the 1st Marine Division. The
Marine division, according to Mao in written orders to the commander of the
Chinese 9th Army Group, “has the highest combat effectiveness in the
American armed forces. It seems not enough for our four divisions to
surround and annihilate its two regiments. You should have one or two more
divisions as a reserve force.” Though costly for both sides, the subsequent
Chinese trap failed to destroy the 1st Marine Division.

U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Frank Lowe later admitted, “The safest place in Korea
was right behind a platoon of Marines. Lord, how they could fight!”

Over a decade later, Marines were the first major ground combat force in
Vietnam. Army Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded all American
military forces in that country, conservatively stated he “admired the élan
of Marines.” But despite the admiration, some Army leaders found their
equally proficient units wanting for similar respect.

In 1982, during the invasion of Grenada, Army General John Vesey, then
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, telephoned one of his officers and
demanded to know why there were “two companies of Marines running all over
the island and thousands of Army troops doing nothing. What the hell is
going on?”

The reputation of Marines stems from a variety of factors: The Marine Corps
is the smallest, most unique branch of the U.S armed forces. Though it is
organized as a separate armed service, it is officially a Naval
infantry/combined-arms force overseen by the secretary of the Navy. The
Corps’ philosophical approach to training and combat differs from other
branches. Marine boot camp — more of a rite-of-passage than a training
program — is the longest and toughest recruit indoctrination program of any
of the military services. Men and women train separately. All Marines from
private to Commandant are considered to be first-and-foremost riflemen. And
special-operations units in the Marines are not accorded the same respect as
they are in other branches. The Marines view special operations as simply
another realm of warfighting. Marines are Marines, and no individual Marine
or Marine unit is considered more elite than the other.

Consequently, newly minted Marines believe themselves to be superior to
other soldiers, spawning understandable resentment from other branches. But
do Marines actually fight better than other soldiers? Rivals argue it’s not
so much their ability to fight — though that’s never been a question — but
that Marines are simply masters in the art of public relations.
President Harry Truman once stated that Marines “have a propaganda machine
that is almost equal to Stalin’s.” Fact is, while other armed services have
lured recruits with promises of money for college, “a great way of life,” or
“being all you can be;” the Marines have asked only “for a few good men [and
today, women]” with the mettle to join their ranks.

Not surprisingly, there have been numerous unsuccessful efforts — primarily
on the part of some Army and Navy officers — to have the Corps either
disbanded or absorbed into the Army or Navy. Most of those efforts took
place in the first half of the 20th Century But even after the Marines’
stellar performance in World War II, Army General Frank Armstrong proposed
bringing them into the Army fold and condescendingly referring to the Corps
as “a small bitched-up army talking Navy lingo.”

As late as 1997, Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister took aim at the
Marines. “I think the Army is much more connected to society than the
Marines are.” Lister said before an audience at Harvard University. “Marines
are extremists. Wherever you have extremists, you’ve got some risks of total
disconnection with society. And that’s a little dangerous.”

Of course, the Commandant of the Marine Corps demanded an apology. Lister
was fired. And Marines secretly said among themselves, “Yes we are
extremists. We are dangerous. That’s why we win wars and are feared
throughout the world.”

Despite its detractors, the Marines have become a wholly American
institution — like baseball players, cowboys, and astronauts — in the eyes
of most Americans. Marines indeed may be extreme, but America loves them,
extremism and all. And fortunately for America, her enemies in the war
against terror will continue to shudder upon hearing, “the Marines have
landed.”

— A former U.S. Marine infantry leader, W. Thomas Smith Jr. is a freelance
journalist whose work has appeared in a variety of national and
international publications. His third book, Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to
American Airborne Forces, has just been published.

SEMPER FI…AND MAY GOD CONTINUE TO BLESS THE US MARINE CORPS