Our buddy, Jeff Schogol, writes in the Marine Corps Times about the issues that consumed the Marines responding to the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate while those Marines sat on the runway 2000 miles away from their objective.
“We were told multiple times to change what we were wearing, to change from cammies into civilian attire, civilian attire into cammies, cammies into civilian attire,” the platoon commander, who was not identified, told the committee. “There was also some talk of whether or not we could carry our personal weapons.
“I was basically holding hard and fast to the point where we were carrying our personal weapons. Like, we’ve got a very violent thing going on the ground where we’re going, so we’re going to be carrying something that can protect ourselves. But as far as what the Marines were wearing, that continually changed, and we had to make those changes inside of the aircraft.”
Yeah, those types of issues, whether to wear uniforms, whether or not to be armed, those are the kinds of nutrolls that come from working with the State Department, typically.
“After the State Department request at the 7:30 p.m. White House meeting, the Defense Department began working the issue,” the report says. “Documents from the Defense Department show, and the FAST Platoon Commander testified it was well into the next afternoon on September 12th before the final decision was made. He testified further the Marines changed in and out of uniform and civilian clothes several times because the orders kept changing.”
I’m sure that if it happened now, they’d be deciding whether or not sleeves will be rolled up or down and insuring that a proportionate number of females were included in the force.
I hope Hillary and Obama swing for this.
THEY…. NEVER. … WILL, you know that. No one that high up is EVER held to the standards the rest of us plebs are.
Alas …
Amen, hang the bastards from the same tree on the white house lawn….and leave their worthless carcasses there for future despots to see!
You people need to “move on”!
At this point, what does it matter?
/sarc
Yeah, “what difference does it make?”
It makes a HELL OF A LOT OF DIFFERENCE to their families!!
Any word on whether they were required to wear reflective PT belts?
Nice.
They couldn’t make up their mind which color belt to wear. A new 2LT was sent all over the base looking for 3 different color belts and enough for everyone.
Can we air-drop BO & HC into the rural ‘Stan, sans chute?
*raises hand*
I vote Yay
Hand in air
“Me too!”
Me, three!
Need the input from our resident barracks lawyers, category is land warfare. If they carried weapons while not in uniform (indistinguishable civilian attire), would they lose any protection under The Geneva Convention?
Yes, they would actually lose the protection of that particular treaty at that point. Just like the Russian soldiers in Georgia. But what insurgents follow the treat anyway?
But we are the “good guys”, we play by the rules while everybody does whatever they want to whomever they want.
Waiting for a JAG to jump in here – not sure any Geneva/Hague type protections mean anything when you’re not fighting against a bona-fide nation-state so it’s probably a moot question anyway.
When they say “personal weapons” do they mean the weapons each Marine is issued from the arms room or do they mean a P.O.W. (Privately Owned Weapon?) I had thought that P.O.W.s were outlawed in combat zones since the 1980’s
(Side note: My dad carried his privately owned S&W revolver to Vietnam with him for his first tour in 1966. He was a 1LT in the 11th ACR and what he said was that the practice was actually encouraged for officers, presumably because it meant that if officers brought their own weapons, then the pistols in the arms room could be reserved for other users.)
Im sure they mean their issued small arms. That is the current venacular being used for that. Especially as I doubt they are even allowed to have POWs being stationed in Spain.
From the context as I understand it, they were going back and forth whether or not they would be armed when they hit the ground.
From the wording of it
That makes a lot more sense. I just found the term “personal weapons” to be odd. The Army term would be individual weapons (as distinguished from crew-served.)
All of the Marine Security Guard Dets have more small arms authorized than billets. Most often MSGs augmenters fly in on commercial air, so it eliminates having to deal with weapons transportation issues.
So the administration was contemplating sending a reactionary force into a hostile situation that would be in civilian attire AND unarmed? Just what the fuck would they do when they got there, get the hostiles to sign up for an allotment to Navy Relief?
Just what the fuck would they do when they got there, . . .
Die in place or become hostages, most likely.
MCMAP ?
Odd status. Marines assigned to Embassy Duty are not considered combat troops. When we are on assignment to an embassy we generally fall under the same rules anyone there does.
State Dept (you know who) typically has the ball, dropped, fumbled, or passed, its their call on most issues.
Special augmentation forces to an embassy fall into this abyss of political analysis. Its not like the bad guys give a shit.
Sleeves up Sleeves down? Ya, it literally gets that fucking stupid when civilians are in charge of a military operation.
“In support of” is a term used in official records. So to answer your question, nobody really knows.
The MSG (and any augmenters) don’t fall under the “equipped for combat” requirements of the War Powers Act.
Generally, that is true. On occasion…not so much. It really depends on the action.
For example, when we were having Soviets show up at the embassy in Iceland we augmented the force there with what I guess were called Marines not necessarily “equipped for combat”.
After the official end of operations for the Multinational Forces Beirut Lebanon, the embassy was augmented with the better part of an entire Battalion Landing Team. Most definitely equipped for combat but attached to the embassy none the less.
Egypt…that fell somewhere in between those two. There were operations outside of the embassy compound but less extensive than Beirut. Lots of security operations between Cairo and Alexandra.
Politicians play games with whatever they decide to designate us, usually after the mission is all over.
If nothing blows up in their political face they down play it all. If it does…they find someone to blame.
My understanding is that the new organizations set up to reinforce embassies are part of the MSG Higher HQ and are unlikely to trigger WPA . Mileage may vary… Depending on results.
The JAG that used to teach the law of land warfare class to my students talked about the SF guys in Afghanistan who didn’t have a “proper” uniform.
Basically, they all had an American flag on their clothes/kit and all of them had an American ball cap, so that legally became their “uniform” IAW the Geneva Convention. So that made them “protected” under it. Not that the Taliban cared, mind you.
Of course, when too many pictures of them showed up back in the US, some PC-pussy whined about them not shaving and they started getting orders to shave and look more prim and proper in pictures.
And more easy for the bad guys to pick out of a crowd.
A buddy of mine was on an exchange tour with the British Army in 2003. To meet the legal requirement of being “an American Combat soldier” he had to put a US Army tape and US flag on his British desert uniform.
“Of course, when too many pictures of them showed up back in the US, some PC-pussy whined about them not shaving …”
This NEVER ceases to amaze me.
Were they carrying job applications for the Jihadis?
Hugging in uniform was going to be too uncomfortable for the terror cells, so they wanted them in civvies.
Then they realized they needed to have plenty of pockets for all the job applications. Another reason it kept going back n’ forth.
How about Sharp classes for the troops. We don’t want the terrorists sexually abused. ?
The term fe-male is no longer acceptable.
They are non-peni people.
We could say ‘peni-less,’ but that’s generally the man who has a woman get hold of his wallet. Hmmm.
We can already use that term for Bill. Due to the 90s, Hillary isn’t taking anymore chances. Took his schlong and strapped it to herself. Why do you think she wears pant suits all the time? (Not because she had 30,000 emails about yoga, that’s for sure.)
I’m sure the main issue was that the Marines were wearing white shoes and someone pointed out that it was after Labor Day.
I realize that embassies and ambassadors fall under the security of the USMC, but wouldn’t the 173d have been the logical choice as a QRF in this instance? They are closer and could have jumped in much faster than the USMC could have gotten there I would assume.
Does the 173rd have a QRF on standby though?
Even if they didn’t you’d think they would being as they were the closest combat unit and QRF kinda goes with being Airborne.
Except that in the amount of time it would take to contact the unit, come up with a plan, figure out the logistics, identify the troops to be used, figure out transportation, etc, the crisis would be long over by then.
It would probably actually take less time to fly the DRF out of Fort Bragg than to get a unit out of Vicenza if they weren’t already on standby. The logistics alone would be a nightmare, to say nothing of the intelligence and operational aspects of such a mission.
Move to sound of gunfire and kill every one armed and not dressed like you.
Rules of the LGOPs.
THIS!!!
Charge to the Sound of the Guns.
An accredited freaking US Ambassador is under attack….That is a direct attack on the US.
Airdrop in everybody, saturate the area and sort it out in daylight.
Don’t know about now, but in ’73, the 1/509th stationed at Vicenza was the QRF for that whole AO.
Don’t see why that would have changed, but these days, who knows.
Yes for war and first line defense but not terrorist actions and Hostage rescue. The FAST team is designed for that action and is DOS first response. We deployed a Det from Spain to Albania and the QRF for that was the FAST team, as this was a state department mission. They received clearance for weapons no crew-served though and we worked out a reaction plan with the FAST element and also set up comes with them. Working operations with state can be touchy and complex. Theater defense QRF and DOS QRF response is two different animals.
There a couple differences here. 173rd full blown combat unit and is generally not trained in hostage recovery or rescue. FAST teams have that exact training usually in that AOR they are assigned and understand what they need to do to secure objective and rescue or recover personnel and assets. They are all ways ready and have all the kits set up to go. I don’t think 173rd would have been kitted up and ready to go before the FAST team who’s mission it is to do this. They also have standing agreements for hostage rescue meaning diplomatic type shit and the RSO understands how to communicate with locals on what this team is doing, if you put a combat element in, that does not do know how to do this, then you can have a bigger incident. We are all forgetting the RSO’s roll in this hole thing, have deployed many times doing work for embassies and in countries and there are good RSO’s with military experience and then there are political type cops with 0 military experience. I would assume that post had an experienced RSO but you never know. One more thing if your talking jumped in that is not a good thing vice coming on hello and roped in or coming in on vehicles. It is a hole different world when your dealing with state and working in other counties that do not have SOFA’S. sometimes WE TOOK WEAPONS BOX’s others we took them in and had to leave at consulates or the embassies them selves.
WTF difference does what you are wearing make when someone is shooting at you and you are shooting back other than to be able to identify your own. Heard something on one of the news channels the concern of Obama and Clinton was they did not want to offend the Libyans by sending in help. That probably is the closest to the truth we are going to hear.
I would say the biggest potential liability would be the possibility of friendly fire casualties if a bunch of guys in civvies and carrying guns start charging in to a hot combat zone.
Only a matter of time until Tim Gunn is in charge of such military uniform decisions. “Make it work, people!!”
Too all out here that say they will vote for Billary instead of trump here you go four more years of this is what we get
By not wanting to offend certain segments of a population demographic, you end up offending everyone.
Ido think that, in this sentence, there is a small mistake: I’m sure that if it happened now, they’d be deciding whether or not sleeves will be rolled up or down and insuring that a proportionate number of females were included in the force.
I believe that is a simple misspelling and the author actually meant to use ‘fArce’ instead.
Seriously, the Keystone Cops and Benny Hill combined could do a better job of putting out a fire in a wastebasket than this State Dept bunch of clowns.
If you’re going to put military assets in someone’s yard for any reason, then OWN it! Punk perfumed princely cowards keep skulking around, trying to sit on the fence about everything. Do or do not, but shove the ‘plausable deniability’ somewhere. And the Marines ain’t runway models!!
“If you’re going to put military assets in someone’s yard for any reason, then OWN it!”
Yes. I don’t understand why that concept is so difficult to understand by the drones in DC.
I realize that the State Department elevates government inefficiency to a high art form, but please explain to me WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF SENDING MARINES INTO A FUCKING COMBAT ZONE WITHOUT THEIR MOTHERFUCKING WEAPONS???!!! How was that even up for debate? Who the fuck on God’s green Earth came up with that idea?
Some non-hacking fucking POG no doubt…
It makes perfect sense to a Princeton alumni, limp wristed, metrosexual drone with a spine of over-cooked pasta.
The Mainstream Media had the headlines written before Trey Gowdy finished his press conference yesterday. I listened to the press conference questions, the biggest concern of the media was the “7 million dollars” of taxpayers money. I am wrestling with to read or not read the 900 page report. I know it will take less time than the firefight those guys had 0n 9-11-12 but my gut feeling tells me not more than a handful of people give a shit about Benghazi. Sad to say, but then I am still fucking pissed off over the Iran Hostage incident at the Embassy in the 70’s and the Pueblo incident.
As I watch the Killary supporters, I doubt that they have even heard of the Pueblo or the Iran Hostages held for 444 days. I am thinking that the old battle ax is going to get elected. Not enough fucking common sense left in this country I am thinking.
Hope you are wrong but fear that you are right.
Not sure when it was, but some years ago Hillary chilled my blood with her comment, “We prefer to be called Progressives,” when some media type called her a liberal. After decades of denying being who they were, that comment made me think that they finally had their agenda so successfully implemented that they could be honest about themselves. And that most people would not understand the implications of admitting to being a progressive.
Hang in there Cacti35- I’m still pissed about RVN ’66-’67 and ’68-’69. Get and stay strong, citizens- this could be the Final Fight. Semper Fi!