Would you suggest that the Army train all soldiers as riflemen first and foremost? And should the US Army increase its period of training? I read somewhere that the British Army have the same length of training as the Marines....
Secondly are there units within the US Army the more accurately replicate the spirit, and ingenuity of the Marine Corp? And if there are, should the Army to try to replicate such a spirit within its general infantry units?
Interested to hear your thoughts GySgt and what the US Army should be doing. :twocents:
The Marine Corps gets a basic training on how to be a Marine in Boot Camp. There is some training on field and combat, but this is a basic introduction. The Marine receives greater combat training afterwards at a different echelon of his initial training. It's at MCT that he learns about obstacles, convoys, patrols, assault formations, retrograde procedures, medevacs, weapons training and employment, movements, mapping, communications, call for support, Combined Arms, etc. And if he is an 0300 (Grunt) he goes right to his primary infantry school. If he is not an 0300, he goes onto his MOS school. From here he receives annual training for the rest of his/her career on combat. All leadership courses center around combat through the ranks (along with customs and courtesies, of course.) All missions and field work revolve around combat. In the field, the supply clerk and the Motor T mech goes on patrols to keep these basic skills current and fresh. But even the Marine Corps is not satisfied with our system, which is why we continually approach it as if it is broke. The Marine Corps has no problem at all with looking at things and finding ways to either improve or to declare broken. This is how we get better and better every decade. And though the Marines of old may grumble over this......today's Marines are smarter and quicker - toughness is about the same. Whether that is because of the technological age or not, this is the truth and it is so because we constantly look to improve and evolve. A history of being dropped in the fire...Barbary Pirates War, Belleau Wood, Island hopping campains of WWII, Frozen Chosen in Korea, a humanitarian mission in Somalia, restoring governance in Haiti, to urban warfare and terrorist hunting in Iraq....tends to create a culture of learning quickly and on the fly. Marines have continuously been dropped into situations they were ill trained for but expected to come out victorious.
The Army does a fine job dedicating combat training upon its infantry, but neglects the overwhelming majority in uniform because they are a part of the "other" units. This worked just fine in the past just as long as there was a "front" in war such as WWI or WWII or Korea or Vietnam, especially when the Marine Corps was actively present in the area. But today, we exist in a world where there are no fronts. Soldiers and Marines of all walks of life are on convoys througout what used to be able to be labeled as a "front." It is very common to see non-Grunt Marines on the patrols. In 2004, the Marine Corps took a beating in numbers and the combat replacements were still forthcoming (thank the Bush/Kerry campaigns for that). In the mean time, Marines were taken from the airwing and support units to actively patrol with the Grunts. Obviously, they weren't duty experts, but the basic and annual training they received make them comfortable and reliable.
The Army has a habit of reaching to the past to define its future. In the 90s, while the Marine Corps was building combat towns after experienceing the future that Somalia represented, the Army was focusing on big box wars insisting that our future conflicts were going to be just like they were in the Gulf War. It's this dangerous inability to accept that all things change that ensures that soldiers are ill prepared for what lies ahead.
As far as the attitude, I really don't know what makes a Marine charge beach after beach after beach as if he is superhuman. It may be that obedience to orders in Boot Camp that makes Marines question "how high?" and not "why?" It may be that our history is so glorified that the individual wants to do his part to continue it. There's also a sense of adventure that Marines are looking for. Marines tend to run towards the sound of gunfire. This is something we constantly have to control. The attitude is also infectious. The two soldiers (PsyOps) that traveled with us on the way to Baghdad were constantly asking us to go on patrols with us or to help clear buildings. Eventually we let them, but we had to teach them how and what to do. The drive is there. But because they are a part of one of those "other" units in the Army, they never received training for this. But here they were dropped in a war towards the front (the only time there was a "front") with infantry Marines. On a closer note, one of the problems the Navy Corpsmen have is not knowing when to run out into the open to do his job. Marines constantly have to yank them down, because they will run directly into enemy fire. For some reason they turn into machines, while at the same time looking to pick up a gun and throw led. It's infectious.
I detest that people will take this as a sort of "bashing" because it tends to make me want to shut up. Unfortunately, the entire system is afraid to criticize the imperfections and such criticism is simply dismissed. But the entire military system ignores these truths and this is why we continue to see soldiers ambushed and taken prisoner. Another thing I have noticed from Somalia to Bosnia to Iraq is that while the Army has an outstanding script written for the conduct of warfare, they tend to go numb when that script doesn't provide for the one contingency they encounter. For example: When the Marines and the soldiers outran their supply routes in the push to Baghdad (thanks to the technology of the SMART-T), even though the Army convoys were outside the battle areas on the West, it was them that petitioned General Frank for a "21 day" time out even as Marine convoys protected themselves (again the difference in training). But in the mean time, Marines were ordered to stand still and dig in (March 28 - April 1) for a few days until the General finally declared that "there are no time outs in war." But in the mean time Marines were hand-to-hand in Nazariya and 7th Marine Regiment was not allowed to maneuver into a flanking position to relieve and destroy the enemy's path to them because of the order to cease all advancements and aggressions.
There are many fundamental issues within the Army that is never addressed despite their own Generals pointing fingers. Of course, the Marine attitude to "circle the wagons" whenever the Army comes around doesn't help either. But as Army Lt.Col. Ralph Peters has stated....."The Army will dismiss the Marine's way of thinking and planning until it proves to work. Then they will take it as their own."