Been a while since I’ve posted. It’s good to come back and post again. So much has happened since I’ve posted last. Too much to even recap. Today is September 11, 2006…..’nuff said. Time to move forward.
February 28, 2006
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YUP…WE’RE BACK ! AND BETTER THAN EVER !!
The Corps, in keeping with it’s philosophy of always growing and adapting to any given scenario, has taken a step forward in this war against a global enemy -Terrorism.
Semper Fi !
…and lets not forget what we already have at our disposal :
Exisiting Antiterrorism Battalion
SemperFi !
October 29, 2005
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Navy SEALS Rules:
1. Look very cool in sunglasses.
2. Try to drown one another for training
3. Adjust speedo.
4. Check hair in mirror.
US Army Rangers Rules:
1. Walk in 50 miles wearing 75 pound rucksack while starving.
2. Locate individuals requiring killing.
3. Request permission via radio from “Higher” to perform killing.
4. Curse bitterly when mission is aborted.
5. Walk out 50 miles wearing a 75 pound rucksack while starving.
US Army Rules:
1. Select a new beret to wear.
2. Sew patches on right shoulder.
3. Change the color of beret you decide to wear.
US Air Force Rules:
1. Have a cocktail.
2. Adjust temperature on air-conditioner.
3. See what’s on HBO.
4. Ask, “what is a gunfight?”
5. Request more funding from Congress with a “killer” PowerPoint presentation.
6. Wine & dine ‘key’ Congressmen, invite DOD & defense industry executives.
7. Receive funding, set up new command and assemble assets.
8. Declare the assets “strategic” and never deploy them operationally.
9. Hurry to make 1345 tee-time.
US Marine Corps Rules:
1. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
2. Decide to be aggressive enough, quickly enough.
3. Have a plan.
4. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won’t work.
5. Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
6. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start with a “4.”
7. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
8. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral &
diagonal preferred.)
9. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
10. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
13. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating your intention to shoot.
US Navy Rules:
1. Go to Sea.
2. Drink Coffee.
3. Watch porn.
4. Deploy the Marines.
September 5, 2005
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O.K. so you see me over there in the profile pic with my old C.O. Capt. Gifford . I was with Fox Co 2/25 4th Mar.Div back in the day (’82 – ’88). While I have my own pics from amphib assaults, I figure that it would be better to present good pics of the whole process of an amphib assault. Kinda like a birds eye view from start to finish (“take the beach”). I present these images compliments of the Navy/USMC PR folks and press.
I hope these images give you a better understanding of what it means to be the “spearhead” or “Tip of the Spear“of the Corps. Just call this an informative post.
As for me..it’s alot more than that…and I am sure that I speak for all who were in and are in today.
Semper Fi !
050622-N-1397H-004 Pacific Ocean (June 22, 2005) – U.S. Marines assigned to 3rd Amphibious Assault Battalion practice room-clearing techniques aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu (LHA 5) as part of Enhanced Marksmanship Program (EMP) training. Marines conduct EMP training to become proficient wartime fighters in urban combat situations. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Prince A. Hughes III (RELEASED).
..and here are some views from inside the “Gator Fleet”….yeah…the Navy’s view:
Ahh….free room and “Board”….or was it “Bored”….heh..
….I see that this is today’s CORPS and is much more modern than twenty years ago…HOWEVER…..the amphib process is still the same and THAT hasn’t changed…still exactly the same as back in my day. I know that the clock is ticking and I am eager to see the new advances to this age old way of amphib assault. Who knows what’s in store for the next generation of MARINES ? …just as long as they stay as sharp as the TIP OF THE SPEAR should be.
Semper Fi !
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Very hairy down in the “Big Easy”. So the Gov’t, finally waking up, has decided to unscrew itsellf and come to its senses…the Corps. In all fairness, hats off to the rest of the services…starting with the Coast Guard..for a job well done…and…even before them….those front line folks. The police and firemen and EMT. Well done to you all for something that is well beyond any scope of imagination. You have all our support !
Semper Fi to you all !
September 1, 2005
August 24, 2005
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On the 22nd of July, Admiral Mike Mullin became the Chief of Naval Operations. Below is the speech he delivered that day.
America’s military can win wars. We’ve done it in the past, and I
have absolute confidence that we’ll continue to do it in the future.
We’ve won fights in which we possessed overwhelming technological
superiority (Desert Storm), as well as conflicts in which we were the
technical underdogs (the American Revolution). We’ve crossed swords with numerically superior foes, and with militaries a fraction of the size of our own.We’vebattled on our own soil, and on the soil of foreign lands — on the sea, under the sea, and in the skies. We’ve even engaged in a bit of cyber-combat, way out there on the electronic frontier. At one time or another, we’ve done battle under just about every circumstance Imaginable, armed with everything from muskets to cruise missiles.
And, somehow, we’ve managed to do it all with the wrong Army.
That’s right, America has the wrong Army. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. We have the wrong Army. It’s too small; it’s not deployed properly; it’s inadequately trained, and it doesn’t have the right sort of logistical support. It’s a shambles. I have no idea how those guys even manage to fight. Now, before my brothers and sisters of the OD green persuasion get their fur up, I have another revelation for you.
We also have the wrong Navy. And if you want to get down to brass
tacks, we’ve got the wrong Air Force, the wrong Marine Corps, and the wrong Coast Guard. Don’t believe me? Pick up a newspaper or turn on our television.
In the past week, I’ve watched or read at least a dozen commentaries on the strength, size, and deployment of our military forces. All of our uniform services get called on the carpet for different reasons, but our critics unanimously agree that we’re doing pretty much everything wrong. I think it’s sort of a game. The critics won’t tell you what the game is called, so I’ve taken the liberty of naming it myself. I call it the ‘No Right Answer’ game. It’s easy to play, and it must be a lot of fun because politicos and journalists can’t stop playing it.
I’ll teach you the rules. Here’s Rule #1: No matter how the U.S. military is organized, it’s the wrong force. Actually, that’s the only rule in this game. We don’t really need any other rules, because that one applies in all possible situations. Allow me to demonstrate… If the Air Force’s fighter jets are showing their age, critics will tell us that Air Force leaders are mismanaging their assets, and endangering the safety of their personnel. If the Air Force attempts to procure new fighter jets, they are shopping for toys and that money could be spent better elsewhere. Are you getting the hang of the game yet? It’s easy; keeping old planes is the wrong answer, but getting new planes is also the wrong answer. There is no right answer, not ever.
Isn’t that fun?
It works everywhere. When the Army is small, it’s TOO small. Then we start to hear phrases like ‘over-extended’ or ‘spread too thin,’ and the integrity of our national defense is called into question. When the Army is large, it’s TOO large, and it’s an unnecessary drain on our
economy. Terms like ‘dead weight,’ and ‘dead wood’ get thrown around.
I know what you’re thinking. We could build a medium-sized Army, and everyone would be happy. Think again. A medium-sized Army is too small to deal with large scale conflicts, and too large to keep
military spending properly muzzled. The naysayers will attack any
middle of the road solution anyway, on the grounds that it lacks a
coherent strategy. So small is wrong, large is wrong, and medium-sized is also wrong. Now you’re starting to understand the game.
Is this fun, or what?
No branch of the military is exempt. When the Navy builds aircraft
carriers, we are told that we really need small, fast multipurpose ships. When the Navy builds small, fast multi-mission ships (aka the Arleigh Burke class), we’re told that blue water ships are poorly suited for littoral combat, and we really need brown water combat ships. The Navy’s answer, the Littoral Combat, isn’t even off the drawing boards yet, and the critics are already calling it pork barrel politics and questioning the need for such technology. Now I’ve gone nose-to-nose with hostiles in the littoral waters of the Persian Gulf, and I can’t recall that pork or politics ever entered into the conversation. In fact, I’d have to say that the people trying to kill me and my shipmates were positively disinterested in the internal wranglings of our military procurement process. But, had they been aware of our organizational folly, they could have hurled a few well-timed criticisms our way, to go along with the mines we were trying to dodge. The fun never stops when we play the ‘No Right Answer’ game. If we centralize our military infrastructure, the experts tell us that we are vulnerable to attack. We’re inviting another Pearl Harbor. If we decentralize our infrastructure, we’re sloppy and overbuilt, and the BRAC experts break out the calculators and start dismantling what they call our excess physical capacity. If we leave our infrastructure unchanged, we are accused of becoming stagnant in a dynamic world environment.
Even the lessons of history are not sacrosanct. When we learn from
the mistakes we made in past wars, we are accused of failing to adapt
to emerging realities. When we shift our eyes toward the future, the critics quickly tell us that we’ve forgotten our history and we are therefore doomed to repeat it. If we somehow manage to assimilate both past lessons and emerging threats, we’re informed that we lack focus.
Where does it come from?
This default assumption that we are doing the wrong thing, no matter what we happen to be doing? How did our military wind up in a zero-sum game? We can prevail on the field of battle, but we can’t win a war of words where the overriding assumption is that we are always in the wrong.
I can’t think of a single point in history where our forces were of
the correct size, the correct composition, correctly deployed, and
appropriately trained all at the same time. Pick a war, any war. (For that matter, pick any period of peace.) Then dig up as many official and unofficial historical documents, reports, reconstructions, and commentaries as you can. For every unbiased account you uncover, you’ll find three commentaries by revisionist historians who cannot wait to tell you how badly the U.S. military bungled things.To hear the naysayers tell it, we could take lessons in organization and leadership from the Keystone Cops.
We really only have one defense against this sort of mudslinging. Success.
When we fight, we win, and that’s got to count for something. When
asked to comment on Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. Army’s Lieutenant General Tom Kelly reportedly said, “Iraq went from the fourth-largest army in the world, to the second-largest army in Iraq in 100 hours.”
In my opinion, it’s hard to argue with that kind of success, but
critics weren’t phased by it. Because no matter how well we fought, we did it with the wrong Army.
I’d like to close with an invitation to those journalists, analysts,
experts and politicians who sit up at night dreaming up new ways to
criticize our armed forces. The next time you see a man or woman in
uniform, stop for ten seconds and reflect upon how much you owe that person, and his or her fellow Sailors, Marines, Soldiers, and Airmen.
Then say, “Thank you.” I’m betting you won’t even have to explain the reason. Our Service members are not blind or stupid. They know what they’re risking. They know what they’re sacrificing. They’ve weighed their wants, their needs, and their personal safety against the needs of their nation, and made the decision to serve. They know that they deserve our gratitude, even if they rarely receive it.
Two words – that’s all I ask. “Thank you.” If that’s too hard, if you
can’t bring yourself to acknowledge the dedication, sincerity and sacrifice of your defenders, then I have a backup plan for you. Put on a uniform and show us how to do it right.
August 23, 2005
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An atheist was taking a walk through the woods. “What majestic trees!
What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!” he said to himself.
As he continued walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the
bushes. Turning to look, he saw a 7 foot grizzly charging towards him.
He ran as fast as he could up the path. Looking over his shoulder he
saw that the bear was closing in on him. His heart was pumping
frantically and he tried to run even faster. He tripped and fell on
the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear raising
his paw to take a swipe at him.
At that instant the atheist cried out: “Oh my God!…”
Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent. It was then
that bright light shone upon the man and a voice came out of the sky saying:
“You deny my existence for all of these years, teach others I don’t
exist and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me
to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?”
The atheist looked directly into the light, “It would be hypocritical
of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps,
could you make the BEAR a Christian?”
Very well,” said the voice.
The light went out. And the sounds of the forest resumed.
And then the bear lowered his paw, bowed his head and spoke, “Lord,
bless this food which I am about to receive and for which I am truly thankful.”
Not long ago, one of you explained to me why road clearing operations
were so much more different and difficult in Iraq, compared to
Vietnam.
Michael Yon, in his “Online Magazine” had a good article in last
Wednesday’s dispatch about how a unit detected an impending IED
detonation/ambush in the vicinity of Yarmuk Traffic Circle in Mosul.
Below is an excerpt of one of Yon’s dispatches about the
“Dirty Tricks” operations used against the insurgents.
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Like the time when some ISF were driving and got blasted by
an IED, causing numerous casualties and preventing them from
recovering the vehicle. The terrorists came out and did their
pumping in the air thing, shooting AKs, dancing around like monkeys,
Videos went ’round the world,’ making it appear the terrorists were
running Mosul, which was pretty much what was being reported at the
time.
But, that wasn’t the whole story. In the Yarmuk neighborhood,
only terrorists openly carry AK-47s. Lawyers call this Hostile
intent; The soldiers call it “Dead man walking.”
Deuce-Four (2nd Bn, 24th Infantry) is an overwhelmingly
aggressive and effective unit, and they believe that the “best
defense is a dead enemy.”
They are constantly thinking innovative, unique, and
effective ways to kill or capture the enemy; proactive- not reactive.
They planned an operation with snipers, making it appear that an ISF
vehicle had been attacked, complete with explosives and flash-bang
grenades to simulate the IED. The simulated casualty evacuation of
sand dummies completed the ruse.
The Deuce-Four soldiers left quickly with the “casualties,”
and “abandoning” the truck in the traffic circle. The enemy took the bait.
The terrorists came out and started the AK rifle-monkey-pump,
shooting into the truck, their own video crews recording this moment
of glory. That is when the American snipers opened fire and killed
everyone with a weapon.
Until now, only insiders know about the AK-Monkey-Pumpers-
Smack-Down.
by: Michael Yon, Wednesday, August 10, 2005
SEMPER FI !
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