The “magic” of a few good men
November 3, 2014
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Decades ago I spent 13 long weeks living within the closest thing to a monastery I will ever know. It was a Spartan all-male environment full of ritual. Those who struggled to measure-up were given a chance to prove themselves. But the weak were expelled without mercy. Instant, willing obedience-to-orders was demanded. Standards were high. Discipline was harsh. We showered with our rifles and spoke only in third-person. It was a wholly unique, strangely wonderful experience that today I fear is dying.
As I write this well over 30 years later and less than a week away from the 239th birthday of my beloved Marines, I remember the so-called “monastery” – the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C. – with great affection for both the place and time. And I recall this odd affection for it even then.
Why? Because I knew it was to be a transformation; not so much in terms of turning a boy into a man. The boy-to-man experience would take place over a longer period of time during the ensuing six years (four active, two Reserve) and beyond. But boot camp (long before the term, “boot camp,” was hijacked by fitness centers and youth programs) was a transformation in terms of responsibility, leadership, life lessons, and simply surviving.
The affection I had stemmed from being grafted into a somewhat exclusive institution that was very old and had a reputation for producing men that were (still are) feared, admired, and sometimes emulated (though never with the same alchemy) the world over.
The drill instructors were larger than life; unquestionably men’s men. Everything had purpose. From the difference between a commissioned officer’s and non-commissioned officer’s sword, to the nautical terms (a reflection of our Naval origins), to the fact that even the seven belt-loops on our trousers represented the seven seas; everything was steeped in tradition.
Then there was the rifle, the heart and soul of the Marine. The rifle was everything. If you could not shoot – and shoot well – you could not be a Marine. Simple as that. “My rifle is my best friend. It is my life,” stated our creed in part. “I must master “it [the rifle] as I must master my life.”
MARINES HAVE “MAGIC”
So just what is a Marine Corps? In the simplest definition, Naval infantry. It is for most seafaring nations. It was for us in the 18th and 19th centuries, and for the first two decades of the 20th. We still are. But our mission today is far broader, and such that a more accurate definition might be; an extremely flexible, always-deployed combined-arms expeditionary force capable of conducting the full spectrum of conventional and unconventional (special) operations. A mouthful? You bet!
The late Tom Clancy – the famed bestselling author who wrote all those great military techno-thrillers – once referred to Marines as “mystical.” He wrote, “They have magic … [a magic that] may well frighten potential opponents more than the actual violence Marines can generate in combat.” In other words, the sheer presence – or threat – of Marines is a strategic force-multiplier.
Granted, all of the U.S. armed forces have their gifts and are (and have always been) unique in their own way, and they have proven individually to be the best in their class in the world.
But being a Marine was and is exceptionally different. We’ve always had to fight to survive, both on the battlefield and in the Beltway. As the smallest kid on the block with both the fewest numbers and the fewest resources, elements within the bigger services have frequently tried to knock us down, put us in our place, dismiss us as cult-like and unnecessary, and at times attempt to absorb us into their own ranks or disband us entirely.
TRUTH IN STONE
An example was Army Gen. Frank Armstrong, who in the late 1940’s – even after the Corps’ stunning performance in World War II – proposed absorbing Marines into the Army, and referred to us as “a small b****ed-up army talking Navy lingo.”
Decades later, in 1997, Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister proclaimed before a Harvard University audience, “I think the Army is much more connected to society than the Marines are. Marines are extremists. Wherever you have extremists, you’ve got some risks of total disconnection with society. And that’s a little dangerous.”
How have we survived? Innovation.
“The thing that’s unique about a small force – and sort of being the stepchild in many respects – is the fact that you always have to be innovative,” said Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston (USMC, Ret.), recipient of the Medal of Honor, in an interview for the Pritzker Military Library. “I say this, not because I’m a Marine, but if you go back and search the history of warfare in this country from amphibious to expeditionary doctrine to the helicopter to the Osprey to close air support to Naval gunfire – not that I’m picking on my good Army friends – but we [Marines] were on the leading edge of those things.”
Livingston adds, “We had to be, because – and this is a unique feature of the Corps – we’ve always had to prove ourselves as being just a little bit different. And I think that’s inculcated in the culture of being a Marine. We have to be out there on that leading edge.”
Marines have, however, always had supporters among the sister services who heap praise on us because they are secure enough in their own skins, and apparently (to them) we are so good at what we do that it would be insincere to deny us that praise.
Let’s look at some of that subjective praise based on pure observation.
FRIENDLIES
“The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle.” — U.S. Army Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing
“The safest place in Korea was right behind a platoon of Marines. Lord, how they could fight!” — U.S. Army Maj. Frank Lowe
“Marines have it [pride] and benefit from it. They are tough, cocky, sure of themselves and their buddies. They can fight, and they know it.” — U.S. Army Gen. Mark Clark
“Marines I see as two breeds, Rottweilers or Dobermans, because Marines come in two varieties, big and mean, or skinny and mean. They’re aggressive on the attack and tenacious on defense. They’ve got really short hair and they always go for the throat.” — Rear Admiral J.R. Stark, U.S. Navy
Even our foreign allies recognize – as stated in a British military observer’s report – that “U.S. Marines have the swagger, confidence, and hardness that must have been in Stonewall Jackson’s Army of the Shenandoah.”
ENEMIES
Perhaps the highest form of praise has been from America’s enemies.
During the Korean War, Chinese premier Mao Tse Tung was so concerned about the combat prowess of the 1st Marine Division that he published a death contract on the entire division, which he stated, “has the highest combat effectiveness” of any division in the U.S. armed forces. “It seems not enough for our four divisions to surround and annihilate [the 1st Marine Division’s] two regiments,” Mao said in orders to the commander of the 9th Chinese Army Group. “You should have one or two more divisions as a reserve force.”
During the same war, a captured North Korean officer confessed, “Panic sweeps my men when they are facing the American Marines.”
Years later during the first Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers nicknamed their U.S. Marine foes, “Angels of Death.”
Then there is the intercepted radio-transmission from a panic-stricken Al Qaeda insurgent to his commander during the 2004 U.S. assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah – “We are fighting, but the Marines keep coming. We are shooting, but the Marines won’t stop!”
We never will. After all, once minted, Marines never stop being Marines.
– W. Thomas Smith Jr. – a former U.S. Marine rifleman – is a military analyst and partner with NATIONAL DEFENSE CONSULTANTS, LLC. Visit him at http://uswriter.com.
