Category: Marine Corps

DVIDS reports about Marine Private First Class Amanda Issa who graduated from Marine Corps boot camp last week. She and her family came to the United States from a Turkish refugee camp after they escaped ISIS in Mosul, Iraq;

Amanda Issa, a teenager when she moved to the U.S., referred to the Marines she saw in Mosul as heroes. Now, a Marine private first class herself, she wears the same Eagle, Globe, and Anchor and has the potential to be a hero for another little girl. She graduated in the top 10 in her high school and went on to earn an associates degree in global studies from Oakland Community College before enlisting in the Marine Corps.

On Jan. 19, 2016, she stepped on Parris Island’s iconic yellow footprints only to be injured a month later on a conditioning hike. The injury was bad enough that doctors told her she could be medically separated. She fought that prospect and ended up returning to training and eventually graduating with Platoon 4034, Papa Company, 4th Recruit Training Battalion, on Sept. 30, 2016.

Thanks to SSG E for the tip.

The Marine Corps Times reports that special operators in the Marine Corps will be carrying Glock 19s in 9 millimeter from now on instead of the venerable 1911 in .45 ACP;

“We put our money behind the 9mm round fired by an extremely well-trained marksman carrying a Glock 19,” [Major Nick Mannweiler, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command] told Marine Corps Times.

Since last year, MARSOC has purchased and fielded 1,654 Glock 19s because Raiders needed a reliable secondary weapon “that could be used for both a concealed carry profile and a low-visibility profile,” and having one approved pistol for all special operators saves money, he said.

Of course, I disagree. They might as well go back to using the .38 Special. The 9mm performs better than the .38 but the bullet is about the same size – the .45 replaced the .38 during the Philippine Insurrection because doped-up Moros needed incentive to stay down and the .38 wasn’t doing it.

The low-visibility profile thing is bullshit – I have a Glock 30 (.45 cal double-stack 10 round magazine) that is one of my concealed carry weapons and it’s practically invisible in a waistband holster.

The .45-caliber round is also more expensive than its 9mm counterpart, Clapperton said.

Yeah, no one whose life depends on a weapon wants to hear that as a reason to get the other weapon.

AW1Ed sends us a link from Military.com that reports General Robert Neller, the commandant of the Marine Corps wants to create a position in infantry squads for a drone operator;

[Neller] told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. that he was interested in creating an assistant squad leader position with a primary focus on operating the unit’s UAVs.

The assistant squad leader concept and the idea of equipping small units with drones were both tested out in the recent Marine Air Ground Task Force Integrated Experiment 2016, held at Twentynine Palms, California in August. The exercise proved the operational value of these concepts, senior officials said Wednesday.

I could see one at platoon level, like a machinegunner or a sniper, but not at the squad. I think having a number of drones at the platoon to support the squads makes more sense than some guy in a squad trying to operate a drone under fire and in direct contact with the enemy.

Poetrooper sends us a link to the story of 91-year-old Junior Howell who was just awarded his Purple Heart 72 years after he was wounded on Peleliu in the Pacific as a 19-year-old Marine private;

“They were firing down — snipers,” Howell recalled during a recent interview. “I could see their faces as plain as I can see you. The drivers have both got their hatches closed. They didn’t know what was going on … I crawled up between — there’s a passageway next to the motor — I crawled past that, grabbed hold of them, and I said, ‘Back out, back out. They’re hitting us.’ ”

After the vehicle reversed and made a turn, it was struck by an armor-piercing shell. “It knocked the track off the drive sprocket,” Howell said. “We stopped just like that.”

The Marine Corps denied his request in 2003 for a Purple Heart award citing a lack of evidence – until medical records were uncovered;

[Nate Jones, veterans affairs service officer for Delaware County], who got to know Howell at weekly breakfast meetings at the Oasis Bar & Grill, discovered that Howell’s medical history had been overlooked during the previous Purple Heart application.

Dated Sept. 21, 1944, the history includes the following notes: “Howell, Junior Eugene,” DOB 6-18-25, “6th Amphib,” “Pacific,” “Diag: Wound Fragment Mortar Buttock,” “Not Misconduct,” “With Command,” “Work,” “Negligence not apparent,” “Wounded in action against organized enemy.”

Howell says that this award marks the end of World War II for him.

“I am happy to have served in the Marines, but it was a bad f—– time. The only good day I had was when I got out.”

DVIDS News tells the story of Marine Corps Sergeant Franklin M. Simmons, Force Reconnaissance Platoon, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He was awarded the Silver Star back in 2011, but it’s making the rounds on social media again, I guess. This is from his Silver Star citation;

[W]hile serving as Assistant Team Leader and Designated Marksman, Team 3, Force Reconnaissance Platoon, Second Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment, Marine Corps Forces Central Command (Forward) on 8 August 2008 in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Conducting clearing operations in the village of Shewan in Farah province, Afghanistan, Corporal Simmons’ platoon was ambushed by a numerically superior enemy force. Volleys of intense rocket propelled grenade and machine gun fire disabled one of the platoon’s vehicles and trapped several Marines in the kill zone. Without regard for his own safety, Corporal Simmons exposed himself to intense enemy rocket propelled grenade and machine gun fire as he crawled to the top of a berm to locate targets for his Mark 11 sniper rifle. He resolutely ignored enemy machine gun rounds impacting within a foot of his position as he calmly employed his weapon to kill the enemy firing at his fellow Marines in the kill zone. Remaining in this exposed position to get the necessary observation of his targets, he killed an estimated 18 enemy fighters and wounded at least two others. Corporal Simmons’ devastating fires during an eight hour battle in oppressive heat were critical in saving the lives of his fellow Marines.

MSN reports that a number of drill instructors at Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Training Center in South Carolina are being investigated for trainee abuse. One Islamic recruit charged that a DI repeatedly stuffed the recruit into an industrial-sized dryer and turned it on, burning him.

“You’re going to kill us all the first chance you get aren’t you, terrorist?” the drill instructor thundered at the recruit, the new Marine later alleged, according to the documents that have not been released publicly but were reviewed by The Washington Post. “What are your plans? Aren’t you a terrorist?”

If it happened, it was wrong. That sort of stuff doesn’t teach anything. That’s precisely the reason that I doubt that it even happened. The drill sergeants that I know wouldn’t engage in that sort of behavior. The Military services aren’t some sort of fraternal organization that hazes new members before letting them join in.

Last week, service officials announced that 20 members of Parris Island’s staff could face criminal charges or administrative discipline following the conclusion of three investigations into various abuse allegations. But the documents and an interview with a Marine official with knowledge of the investigations suggest dozens more Parris Island Marines could be implicated in the scandal.

I could be wrong, but, honestly, I’m in denial that NCOs would engage in that type of activity. Pushups in the pouring-ass rain I can believe, but not this.

Instinct sends us a link to the New York Times which reports the sad news that the first black Marine Corps general, Frank E. Peterson has passed at the age of 83 a year ago this week.

Frank E. Petersen Jr., who suffered bruising racial indignities as a military enlistee in the 1950s and was even arrested at an officers’ club on suspicion of impersonating a lieutenant, but who endured to become the first black aviator and the first black general in the Marine Corps, died on Tuesday at his home in Stevensville, Md., near Annapolis. He was 83.

The cause was lung cancer, his wife, Alicia, said.

[…]

[I]n 1952, Mr. Petersen…was commissioned as a second lieutenant and the Marines’ first black aviator. He would go on to fly 350 combat missions during two tours, in Korea and Vietnam (he safely bailed out after his F-4 Phantom was shot down in 1968), and to become the first of his race in the corps to command a fighter squadron (the famous Black Knights), an air group and a major base.

He retired in 1988 after 38 years of service as a Lieutenant General (3-stars) and as the senior aviator in the Department of the Navy. He was the commander of the Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va., and special assistant to the chief of staff.