I was under the impression that those new weapons more “concept models” for new technologies than actual weapons that will ever see combat. IANAS, but I can’t imagine soldiers feeling good about carting around a home entertainment system into battle with them.
“Hey sarge! My weapon won’t fire!”
“Did you press CTRL-ALT-DEL”
“Yes”
“Did you jiggle the cable?”
“Yes!!”
“Are you using the M16A2.1 or M16A2.2?”
“I’m using the newest version!!!”
“I.T. GUY!!! I.T. GUY!!! LETS GET SOME I.T. SUPPORT UP HERE!”
It’s been 12 years since I went to Boot Camp, so things have probably changed, but here’s how it went:
Everyone is trained in basic as a rifleman. That’s one of the reasons Marine basic training is so much longer than the other services (13 weeks when I went). THEN we went to a month long training program called MCT (Marine Combat Training) to further reinforce your combat/infantry skills. It’s only then you go and get trained as a Combat Engineer or truck driver or whatever. The Marines who are going to be Infantry by trade do go on to SOI (School Of Infantry) after MCT for even more extensive training, but EVERY Marine from Cook to Fighter Pilot is fully trained as an Infantry Rifleman.
I would disagree with you, Sgt. J. Yes, every Marine is trained in infantry tactics to a certain point (which is admittedly higher than the point that the other services train to). But saying that all Marines can function as Infantry is an insult to those that actually do. In essence, you’re saying that you could take one of those cooks or pilots, put them in an infantry squad, and they’d be just as good.
Fully trained for combat, I can go with. But not everyone in combat is an infantryman.
I’m saying you can pull any Marine administration clerk off his typewriter and plug him in an infantry squad. He’s fully trained and knows how to do the job. Is he as good as someone who does it 24/7? No, but I wouldn’t try that in the Army, and I’ve been in the Army. The Army has some world class combat soldiers, but most of the support MOS personnel would be lost in an infantry unit. Marines are all fully trained in that MOS first, then whatever their support roll is.
I gotta call “Bullshit” on this one, J. I think that your average Marine admin clerk would be just as lost as your average Army admin clerk if they were both put into infantry squads. For one thing, which job? I can’t speak for the Marines, but there are six different jobs in an Army line infantry squad. You’re telling me that any Marine admin clerk will know how to handle the SAW, assist the guy handling the SAW, handle the grenade launcher, lead a fire team and/or the squad, as well as being a rifleman?
Unless you can show me a citation for when this was done on a large scale (large as in “more than one guy”), I simply cannot believe it.
And I continue to maintain that saying “All Marines are fully trained to be infantrymen” is an insult to the infantrymen.
Remember Bastonge, the Germans had the town surrounded and it was lady dady everyone on the line.
The command would not have the pencil pushers doing assaults or patrolling, but they would go on the line for defense of a possition if the fecal matter impacts the rotating air distributation device. BTW I’m one of those pencile pushers (ok money mover)
True, Alibey. However, I’ve found that the possibly majority of troops in non-combat roles are doing what they’re doing because of medical reasons, be they shortsightedness, asthma, leg problems, allergies or a variety of other minor but persistant prublems. These are people who can’t finish a four-month Basic Training, no matter how hard they tried, and it would be a shame to pass them by just because their skills aren’t strictly physical ones.
As a Marine, I think that the most important aspect of this subject is being missed. It is true that all Marines are trained to be infantrymen and at certain times it may come up that a cook may grab a rifle to fight off an attack. What is important to the Marines though is the fact that they all know what the infantryman is going up against. They feel a comradeship to the infantryman and give him mental as well as physical support. It is not an insult to the infantrymen. It is rather a system that makes the whole Marine Corps a brotherhood. We are all proud to say we are a Marine and think of ourselves as “grunts”.
It is not true that only the Marines can do what the Marines do. It is true that in the US forces, we already have the Marines, so we don’t need to have someone else do it. Esprit de Corps is an important part of the ineffable thing called morale. Marines like being Marines. They don’t want to be in the Army, or Navy, or (God help us all) in the Air Force.
Initial invasion forces, by sea, or land have a far different tactical environment and vastly different tactical goals than do “major force” engagement units operating from established positions. Strategic operations must include the use of both types of essentially infantry forces. Keep in mind, even the Marines have some areas of small force operation that are left to other types of units. Special Forces, SEALs, and Air Recon assets provide essential support to invasion and occupation forces.
But you can’t fight an air war from the other hemisphere for long. Taking an enemy airfield intact is a reasonable case where a Marine unit would be an obvious choice. If you want to hold it, you will need Heavy Infantry, Artillery, and Air Force units on the ground pretty fast. If the engagement is likely to lead to long term large formation fighting, you will need a port, too. That means more Marines, and then a lot of Squids. Offshore Air support is a wonderful thing, when you are the guy in the bushes pinned down by enemy troops.
If we didn’t have the Marines, we would need to train up a couple of divisions of rapid deployment medium infantry units in the army, and then equip them with air support, and logistical divisions, along with a regular liaison command with dedicated Naval assets. In a few years we could establish the training and unit tactical operation infrastructure that would allow us to begin to create the thing we need: Marines. Oh, yeah, then there are all those embassies. (I am sure it is just a coincidence that all those foreign soil compounds are currently guarded by forward elements of our most experienced rapid invasion force.)
Tris
“For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” ~ Sun-tzu ~
That’s different. Saying “All Marines are trained for combat” is fine. Saying “All Marines are grunts” is fine. But saying “All Marines are infantrymen” is not only not fine, it’s not true. “Infantryman” does not equal “combatant.” It does not equal “Marine” or “soldier” or “warrior.” The infantry is a distinct subset of each of those things, and its role in the battle is a distinct one, and its training is different from the training received by everyone else in boot camp.
Even if you as a Marine think you’re an infantryman, if you haven’t been through the appropriate training, you’re not one. No more than I’m a pilot just because I went to the same officer training as a bunch of pilots I know and scored higher on flight aptitude tests than they did.
No, but if you were trained to fly the plane from A to B and launch the missiles, then you are a pilot, even if you didn’t go to dogfighting school. No one would recognize you as a pilot of the same calibre as a fully trained and practiced combat pilot, but it wouldn’t be an insult to them to call you one.
I’m in the middle of the book Blackhawk Down, and when things went straight to hell after the choppers crashed, they were grabbing cooks and clerks who’d been trained as Rangers and sent them out on a rescue convoy. That’s the benefit of fully training everyone, even for a job they probably won’t have to do.
But what I’m saying is that not all Marines have the same training as Marine infantrymen. Do they have a certain level of combat training? Yes. Is it in many of the tasks that infantrymen perform? Yes. But unless Marines go to infantry units WITH NO FURTHER TRAINING THAN EVERYONE ELSE GETS, then not everyone is trained to the same standards. This is not presently the case.
I’m not arguing that Marines are highly trained. Nor am I arguing that they’d do well in combat even if they weren’t in a combat specialty. What I am arguing is that they are not “all 0311 infantry first and their actual MOS second,” unless they have received all of the same training that the 0311 infantry-type Marines have received.
With very few exceptions*, that statement is entirely wrong. In boot camp everyone is trained exactly the same. Everyone is taught how to dismantle and assemble their weapon. Everyone has to qualify on the rifle range. Everyone has to make the same marches and run the same obstacle courses. Part of this is training (which seems to be your interest), but part of it is creating a mind-set about what being a Marine is all about. This continues on into Officer’s Training, which runs for 6 months. There are no distinctions made about what your speciality is going to be. The fact is you are not given an MOS, until after you’ve finished the coarse. The biggest exception is for pilots, who can go directly into training without Officer’s School, but if they are dropped they go to Officer’s Training like everyone else. Much of the training in Officer’s School is “03” training and again with the exception of those who say they want to fly, it is to your advantage to become as close to being “03” material as possible.
Saying that “every Marine is a rifleman” (which is how I remember it being said) is not something that some Jarheads made up some night sitting around a campfire. It isn’t just something that someone, sometime thought would be a good motto. It is as offical as the Marine Corps Insignia.
That part about “spending the rest of your life”, well I was active for 3 years, 40 years ago but I’m still a Marine.
*there is a saying that “the exceptions make the rule.”
If the following statement is true, then I will accept the statement that “Every Marine is 0311 Infantry first.” Those Marines whose primary MOS is 0311 receive no training that every other Marine receives.
Everyone who finishes Medical school is a doctor. Some doctors receive training after that time. Everyone who gets a license to fly is pilot. Many of them receive addional training after that. Semantically, your objection is wrong, as well as pointless.
Now the United States Marine Corps feels that everyone who finishes basic training is a Marine. They also feel that every Marine is a rifleman, and that the name of that particular military specialty is infantryman. Every Marine receives infantry training after basic, by the way, even Master Gunnery Sargeants, with twenty nine years of service to the Corps.
Are some Marines more highly trained than others? Of course, some doctors are more highly trained than others, too, as are some teachers, some bankers, and some ditchdiggers. That doesn’t change the fact that anyone in a ditch, using a shovel is a ditchdigger.
A pointless nit-pick is only a pointless nit-pick if it is correct. Yours is just a pointless yammering.
Tris
The rule of reason: If no one uses it, there’s a reason.
What can I say: I’m glad I wasn’t a Marine. At times, the fact that I knew I was better than all those cooks and drivers and clerks was the only thing that kept me going. They had better living conditions, they slept longer, they had better leaves, they didn’t tear their asses up and down hills all day long… but I was a Warrior, and they weren’t, and that made it worth it. We were doing the hard jobs was because we were higher quality material.
Sgt. J said that all Marines were 0311. I do not argue with the fact that all Marines receive combat training. But saying “Any MOS you have is secondary to 0311” is equivalent to saying “Any medical specialty you have is secondary to neurosurgery.” It is untrue.
You may think I’m nit-picking or making a pointless semantic argument, but he overstated the case, and that’s what I took issue with. “Marine” is not the same thing as “infantryman,” any more than “soldier” is the same thing as “infantryman.” The infantry has a proud and well-deserved heritage, as does the Marine Corps. But the two are not the same.
It’s funny that you’re arguing that a member of a corps that prides itself on “every marine is a rifleman first” isn’t really a rifleman first. Are you saying that the marines are self-deluding?
