Category: Marine Corps

The Sacramento Bee reports on the posthumous award of a Navy Cross to Marine Sergeant Sky Mote for his actions in Afghanistan on August 10, 2012 when a rogue Afghan policeman opened fire on Mote’s fellow Marines;

Mote and his colleagues were conducting village stability operations in Helmand province when they came under automatic small-arms fire from a rogue Afghan uniformed policeman who attacked from inside the center’s perimeter, according to the citation issued by the secretary of the Navy. Working in an adjoining room, Mote had not been seen by the attacker and could have left the building and escaped to safety.

“He instead grabbed his M4 rifle and entered the operations room, courageously exposing himself to a hail of gunfire in order to protect his fellow Marines,” reads the citation. “In his final act of bravery, he boldly engaged the gunman, now less than five meters in front of him, until falling mortally wounded.”

Mote’s actions assisted in halting the assault and forcing the attacker to withdraw, according to the citation, and enabled other Marines to make it to cover and survive.

I heard about this earlier today, but the only link was at TMZ, and screw them. But now Stars & Stripes has picked up some of the story about photos of Marines burning corpses supposedly in Fallujah in 2004;

The pictures show Marines pouring accelerant on and burning what appear to be Iraqi corpses; at least one shows a Marine looking at the camera in what could be a posed photograph.

Stars and Stripes was unable to determine the Marines’ intent or any other context, and will not run the photos until more can be learned.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told Stars and Stripes that he has seen the photos, confirmed that they appear to show U.S. servicemembers, and alerted U.S. Central Command, which had not seen the photos.

The U.S. Marine Corps is investigating, Warren said.

Of course, the media’s interest is piqued because it has some of the magic formula for reporting on the troops “Marines” and “corpses”. You have to scroll pretty far down the story to read;

“On the burning, you know, it’s hard to tell [whether it’s a violation],” Warren said. “While we don’t routinely burn human remains, there are circumstances when that might be necessary for hygiene, health — things like that.”

Yeah, so let’s all jump to conclusions and get General Amos all riled up again so he starts throwing people under the bus like he did last time.

Yeah, delete those photos if you haven’t already. And for those of you over there, put your cameras away. Like I said, this is TMZ-the same folks who tried to defend Tim Poe against TSO, then stole TSO’s research and called it their “exclusive” story. If they told me water is wet, I’d go take a shower to make sure.

The Marines found out that pull ups are too hard for female boots, so the commandant, John Amos, decided that, despite the USMC’s announcement that they’d make women do three (F’n) pull ups to graduate from Boot Camp this year, they won’t change the requirement from the “flex arm hang” because they don’t want to discourage female boots, says Stars & Stripes;

The Marine Corps announced in December 2012 its intent to require pull-ups for women, and added pull-up specific training to boot camp, and posted a workout program online for Marines to follow, said Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine spokesman.

Fifty-five percent of female recruits were unable to do the minimum of three pull-ups, but there will be no change.

“Current physical training of recruits has demonstrated positive results and is continuing as currently structured,” he said.

Marine Corps Training and Education Command will also “continue to gather data and ensure that female Marines are provided with the best opportunity to succeed,” Gibson said.

Amos pushed back the requirement because he was concerned that an unacceptable number of female recruits, officer candidates and Marines would fail the test or leave the Corps because of it, Gibson said.

Like I said before, they’re training women incorrectly if, after eight weeks of physical training, they still can’t do three (F’n) pull ups (FFS). They just don’t want to – by “they” I mean either the Marine Corps or the women, whichever is failing the commandant.

The Stars & Stripes reports that Marine Major Robb McDonald was awarded the Silver Star for his actions at Camp Bastion on Sept. 14, 2012 during an attack by Taliban insurgents when they slipped through the wire around the camp in Afghanistan waking Major MacDonald from a sound sleep;

Though McDonald is a Harrier pilot, he had ground combat experience in Afghanistan with a Marine Special Operations Command unit. He ran downstairs to the area where the rest of the squadron was staying, then he and two other Marines began their dangerous run to the Harrier line.

Armed only with pistols, the men had to be wary of possible friendly fire as they bound from squadron to squadron for more than a mile, running toward the explosions. McDonald said he could see that multiple jets were on fire.

MacDonald discovered that his squadron commander had been killed in the attack and took immediate command of his Marines;

McDonald led the Marines six at a time over about 100 yards of open ground to their headquarters building, which was reinforced with concrete barriers. Then, he said, he borrowed a rifle and extra magazines and moved toward the flight line with three other men.

McDonald soon found himself looking at four Taliban fighters in a line, with the first looking directly at him, holding a machine gun. McDonald shot that man, then shot at the other three, knocking them down.

After a brief firefight in which McDonald took some shrapnel in the face, he and the other Marines went back to the headquarters building and called in an airstrike on the remaining fighters, he said. Later, when the quick reaction force arrived, McDonald killed another Taliban fighter who was attempting to use his grenade.

McDonald’s award citation notes that his “decisive leadership and tactical expertise inspired his Marines to vigorously repel the enemy, thereby preventing additional friendly casualties and further destruction of aircraft and facilities.”