This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Marine Corps

  • A Marine “Sergeant” Honored

    Yesterday, the Commandant of the Marine Corps honored a “Marine” from the “Forgotten War” – Korea.  A statue was dedicated in her honor at a park near the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

    Yes, you read that correctly – “her”.  The statue was of “Sgt. Reckless”.  She had four feet – or, more precisely, four hooves.

    “Sgt. Reckless” was a war horse.  Literally.

    Though not today particularly well-remembered, pack animals were used by the US military in both World War II and the Korean War.  They were at times literally lifesavers.

    For the Marines fighting near Outpost Vegas in March 1953, “Sgt. Reckless” was indeed a lifesaver.  (emphasis added)

    When the Chinese first attacked, lighting up the sky with tons of incoming fire, Reckless was frightened. She ran to a bunker, where the Marines found her covered with sweat. But the Marines calmed her and sent her on her mission.

    Reckless is credited with making 51 trips in a single day from the ammunition point to the recoilless rifles, which were firing continuously as Marines fought to push the Chinese back.

    She carried 386 rounds of ammunition totaling more than 9,000 pounds and walked over 35 miles. Most of the time she walked alone, knowing the route by instinct. “Her gun crew kept firing,” Wadley said.

    Outpost Vegas was retaken after a five-day battle.

    The Army Times has an excellent story on the dedication, giving additional background.  It’s well worth taking the time to read it.

    And in case you’re wondering:  yes, the USMC did indeed bring her back to the US at the end of the war.  She died at Camp Pendleton in 1968.

    Well done, “Sgt. Reckless”.  Damn well done.

  • Marines’ experimental unisex blues

    Unisex-blues

    Not my service, so it’s not my discussion. But, the MarineTimes says;

    Everyone recognizes the distinctive dress blues uniform worn by male Marines: the high mandarin collar, the broad belt, the round white cover. Well, female Marines may get to wear that uniform too if all goes well with a wear test taking place now down at Marine Barracks Washington.

    All female Marines stationed at 8th and I have been wearing the white dress cover this parade season, and a select number have also donned tailored versions of the men’s dress blues jacket instead of the traditional women’s lapel blazer with white-collared shirt and necktab underneath. At the end of the summer parade season, their feedback will be transmitted to Gen. James Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, to inform future uniform decisions or changes.

    I will add, however, that the last I knew, Army females at Fort Meyers were wearing male dress blues to ceremonies.

  • Urinating Marine; no regrets

    SGT Joseph Chamblin was court-martialed and pleaded guilty in December to urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban and dereliction of duty for not stopping junior marines from urinating on the bodies. A local news station in North Carolina interviewed him yesterday;

    “These were the same guys that were killing our family, killing our brothers,” he said.

    One of the brothers, Sgt. Mark Bradley, was killed by an IED blast days before the incident.

    “We’re human,” Chamblin said. “Who wouldn’t (want to get revenge) if you lost your brother or mother? Wouldn’t you want revenge?”

    After a gun battle in enemy territory, Chamblin said nearly a dozen Taliban insurgents were dead and he and his colleagues were ordered to recover the bodies, which is when the incident happened.

    “It’s not like it was a conscious thought or decision but one was like, ‘You know what, (urinate) on these guys.’ And some said, ‘Yeah, (urinate) on them,’” Chamblin said.

    Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called the actions” utterly deplorable” at the time and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed to hold the Marines involved accountable.

    “Do you want the Marine Corps to be a group of Boy Scout pretty boys or do you want guys that will go out and kill the people trying to take advantage of your country and kill Americans?” Chamblin said. “Which do you want? Because you can’t have both.”

    I would hope that the young Sergeant at least regrets that they made a video of their actions. While I don’t condone their actions, I certainly sympathize with what feelings led to the incident. I don’t agree that they needed to be court martialed over the whole thing – there are other tools in a commander’s tool box to handle things like this. This was a State Department prosecution with the media egging them on. There is a serious lack of real leadership in the DoD that should have prevented their persecution.

    I can’t see myself urinating on the bodies of my dead enemies or allowing anyone in my charge to do it. Young Sergeant Chamblin was wrong, but he didn’t deserve a court martial.

  • Daran Wankum; cancer can’t stop him from being a Marine

    Daran Wankum

    Photo By: Cpl. Mondo Lescaud

    Andy sends a link to the story of Daran Wankum who dreamed of being a Marine until he was diagnosed with brain cancer. While he went through surgery, the recruiters at the station where he was recruited stood guard outside his door and then got him to DC to become an “honorary Marine”.

    From the caption under the Marine Corps photo above;

    Arlington Va. U.S. – Daran Wankum, the 22nd honorary Marine in Marine Corps history, and 1st Sgt. Charles Peoples, Marine Barracks Washington, D.C., Guard Company first sergeant, march up to the Marine Corps War Memorial during a wreath-laying ceremony for Wankum in Arlington, Va., June 13. Wankum was named an honorary Marine on June 11….

  • Soliciting USMC Personnel and Historical Expertise

    I’ve received a FOIA that I could use some help in evaluating.  It concerns a Marine who served during the early days of the Vietnam War.

    The individual has made a couple of claims elsewhere that sound a bit odd – but it’s possible they’re legit.  I simply don’t have the USMC-specific expertise or historical background to evaluate either his claims or his FOIA well enough to determine if the guy is telling the truth.

    If any of our regular TAH readers are current or no-longer-active Marines with (1) a strong personnel background, (2) excellent knowledge of the USMC’s history in Vietnam, (3) excellent knowledge of the history of USMC Recon, and (4) would be willing to help, please leave a short comment below so advising.  I’d also ask that you put a contact e-mail in the appropriate comment box (the one below the website block) and give me explicit permission to contact you via e-mail.  I’ll be able to see the contact e-mail address, but will not disclose it to others without your explicit permission.

    Thanks in advance to any who are willing to help out.

  • XO to be court martialed for urination video

    Sam sends us a link to a Stars & Stripes article about how the Executive Officer of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, Capt. James V. Clement is being court martialed for dereliction of duty in the urination video case. A few months ago, SSG Edward W. Deptola pleaded guilty in his court martial, and last month Sgt. Robert Richards was charged.

    The officer accused of failing to stop a group of his Marines from urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters will be tried at a special court-martial, the Marine Corps announced Monday.

    My thoughts on it is that charges are all chickenshit. If that’s the worst thing that happens in this war, the Marine Corps should be thankful. I don’t see it rising beyond the Non-Judicial Punishment (NJP) level. But I guess they have to please their political masters.

  • 10 camouflaged patterns is nine too many

    When I left the military in 1994, there was one camouflaged pattern for all of the services – the “woodland” pattern, and we also had a desert uniform for people who were living in the desert. But as the Washington Post reports, the Pentagon has ten different patterns that it’s paying for with tax payer dollars;

    Today, there is one camouflage pattern just for Marines in the desert. There is another just for Navy personnel in the desert. The Army has its own “universal” camouflage pattern, which is designed to work anywhere. It also has another one just for Afghanistan, where the first one doesn’t work.

    Even the Air Force has its own unique camouflage, used in a new Airman Battle Uniform. But it has flaws. So in Afghanistan, airmen are told not to wear it in battle.

    In just 11 years, two kinds of camouflage have turned into 10. And a simple aspect of the U.S. government has emerged as a complicated and expensive case study in federal duplication.

    Somehow, people think that their uniform is an essential part of fighting wars. It really isn’t. Especially if you look at the Navy’s and Air Force’s uniforms which don’t hide anyone from anything. The Stars & Stripes has a chart which tracks the uniform changes over the last few years;

    The U.S. military's changing camouflage

    The Pentagon has spent billions of dollars going through the motions of picking “the best” pattern for their purposes and then changing their minds. But it’s all so much mental masturbation, since most of the wars we fought, the troops didn’t wear any camouflaged pattern and they still won the actual battles. The services are like a bunch of teenagers fretting over what cool new clothes they want to wear for the first day of school. But in the end, troops’ uniforms in combat all end up the same color – whatever color the dirt is in their particular area of operations. So all of that exercise that the pogues at Natick Labs go through has no real impact on the battlefield, but their jobs are secure for the next billion-dollar “back-to-school” shopping spree.

  • Marine Commander relieved over mortar accident

    The Marine Corps Times reports that LTC Andrew McNulty, commanding officer of 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, at Camp Lejeune, NC was relieved along with two other officers by BG James Lukeman, commanding general of 2nd Marine Division for the explosion during a mortar live fire exercise in Utah several weeks back which claimed the lives of CPL Aaron J. Ripperda, 26, 19; LCPL David P. Fenn II, 20; LCPL Roger W. Muchnick Jr., 23; LCPL Joshua C. Taylor, 21; LCPL Mason J. Vanderwork, 21; LCPL William T. Wild IV, 21; and PFC Joshua M. Martino.

    McNulty, who assumed command of the battalion less than a year ago, was relieved due to a “loss of confidence in his ability to continue to lead the battalion,” Koerner said. The battalion’s executive officer, Maj. Thomas Siverts, will oversee the unit until a new commander is selected, Koerner said. That is expected to take several weeks, he added.

    The battalion is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan at the end of this year. The leadership shakeup is not expected to affect those plans, Koerner said.

    Unless they found a systemic maintenance issue in the battalion, I don’t know what the commander could have done to prevent the accident.

    But there have been a lot of firings of officers in recent weeks. For example, 17 Air Force officers were relieved at Minot Air Force Base for “rot” in the nuclear force says WDAZ, and there’s no explanation of those firings either.

    The tip-off to trouble was a March inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which earned the equivalent of a “D’ grade when tested on its mastery of Minuteman III missile launch operations. In other areas, the officers tested much better, but the group’s overall fitness was deemed so tenuous that senior officers at Minot decided, after probing further, that an immediate crackdown was called for.

    The Air Force publicly called the inspection a “success.”

    But in April it quietly removed 17 officers at Minot from the highly sensitive duty of standing 24-hour watch over the Air Force’s most powerful nuclear missiles, the intercontinental ballistic missiles that can strike targets across the globe. Inside each underground launch control capsule, two officers stand “alert” at all times, ready to launch an ICBM upon presidential order.

    How hard is it to pass a readiness test? Do fingers fit red button. Check. Can officer push the red button? Check. Pass.

    Thanks to SJ for the link to the USMC story.