thedrifter
08-15-06, 08:42 AM
While the war on terror is being fought all across American society and throughout the American government, it is the American military that wages its most prominent battles. FSM Contributing Editor W. Thomas Smith, Jr. continues his exploration of America's warrior culture and how this contributes to the most effective fighting force in the world, bringing our nation closer to victory every day.
The American warrior – Part II
Why American warriors will defeat the terrorists
W. Thomas Smith Jr.
August 15, 2006
A recent page-one photograph in The New York Times shows a handful of weary, rugged-looking Israeli soldiers returning from the frontlines in Southern Lebanon where they had been engaged in some of the heaviest fighting of the recent Israeli-Hezbollah war.
I noticed however they were smiling and apparently singing, as if returning from some party or a ballgame. I then read the cutline and realized they were not just ordinary Israeli soldiers (if there is such thing). They were Israeli paratroopers – some of the finest soldiers in the modern world – and their smiling and singing was indicative of the personalities of any elite soldiers coming and going on the battlefield. It’s simply the behavior of well-trained, confident men who know how to fight and who relish the chance of closing with the enemy.
The retreating French experienced it in 1918 when they passed a column of U.S. Marines heartily singing and laughing as they advanced toward the sound of the guns. One of the French soldiers shouted, “Turn back. Retreat. The Germans are coming!” To which Marine Captain Lloyd Williams responded, “Retreat Hell! We just got here!”
A quarter century later, General George S. Patton Jr. stood before his Third Army and said, “Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.”
Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when intelligence indicated foreign troops were moving into that country, Marine Brig. Gen. John Kelly stated, “We want all Jihad fighters to come here. That way we can kill them all before they get bus tickets to New York City.”
For someone who has never served in an elite unit, laughing and singing in the face of death, boasting about wanting to fight and welcoming the sting of battle, might seem like the behavior of disturbed, socially disconnected people.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
THE WARRIOR CULTURE
Last month in The American Warrior – Part I, we examined the warrior culture and the warrior class that exists within the overall American society: Both the culture and the class might be considered something of an anomaly to a society such as ours, because we are a nation with an institutional aversion to militarism and large standing armies. Our nation was set up this way. We have a civilian commander in chief of the armed forces, a civilian secretary of a defense department, civilian heads of the defense sub-departments, and civilian congressional oversight of the same. Moreover, throughout most of our history, our national defense emergencies have been met by rapidly mobilizing (what were prior to those emergencies) marginally trained forces. These facts combined would not normally be considered conducive to a rich military heritage.
Nevertheless, the fact that almost every American generation from the Colonial era through the beginning of the 21st century has experienced war; has led us to a uniquely American military tradition that today serves as a model for many foreign armies, navies, and air forces; and is in many ways the envy of the world.
“Many of America’s heroes have been military men,” wrote the late Professor Briton Cooper Busch in his book, Bunker Hill to Bastogne. It’s something many Americans take for granted, assuming that all nations and cultures have traditionally held their professional soldiers and sailors in as high a regard as they would their greatest scientists, philosophers, and non-military champions.
Of course there was a period during the Vietnam War era – and for close to a decade following – when American military men were publicly scorned. But that disdain was expressed by only a segment of the population, angry over American foreign policy decision-making, but who displaced their anger on soldiers who weren’t responsible for policy making. Fortunately, the scorn was short-lived.
Busch also writes, “America’s roster of heroic images has long included esteemed elites, variously defined, from Rogers’ Rangers at Fort Ticonderoga to the paratroopers at Normandy and the Marines at Iwo Jima.”
This military heritage (based on generations of war), a publicly favorable perception of military heroes, and a tradition of “elites,” continues, and is the primary reason today we are defeating the terrorists in every corner of the globe.
What is truly amazing, however, is that we are winning today on a variety of fronts with a non-draftee, all volunteer (much smaller than a draftee army) professional force, which is in many ways being infused with the ethos of modern “elites” and special operations forces.
Standards today for both modern American conventional and special operations forces are exacting. Training is demanding. The post-training danger is real. Yet recruiting is up, which baffles the cut-and-run crowd.
WHAT THE NUMBERS ACTUALLY SAY
Military recruiting numbers were high prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and have continued to be high post-9/11, usually exceeding goals in any given month, quarter, or fiscal year. And during those rare months or quarters where numbers have been down, the military has still been meeting goals in the 90-plus percentile.
There are a variety of reasons why, not the least of which is a sense of patriotism and a sincere desire to do one’s part in thwarting terrorism. This is particularly reflected among members of elite units – like Marines, Army Rangers, and the various special operations units, including Army Special Forces, Air Force Special Tactics units, Navy SEALs, and Marine Recon – whose members fully expect to be deployed in combat theaters overseas as soon as they’ve completed training. I know this for a fact, and not because of published statistics and press releases, but because I talk to these folks regularly, one-on-one.
But let’s consider the latest numbers from the Pentagon: In July 2006, the Army met 104 percent of its recruiting goals. The Air Force was at 100. The Navy was at 100. And the Marine Corps was at a whopping 112 percent.
Fiscal year percentages from October 1, 2005 to July 31, 2006 were also high: The Army was at 104. The Air Force was at 100. The Navy was at 100. And the Marines were at 101.
So who are these young men and women who consistently volunteer for service? The cut-and-runners would have us believe they are the most impoverished, illiterate, aimless, and so perhaps exploited members of our society.
THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST
In the modern American military, between 93 and 95 percent of current recruits have high school diplomas, compared with 75 to 85 percent of their military-age civilian counterparts. And according to a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) document, Who is Volunteering for Today's Military, “nearly two-thirds of today’s recruits are drawn from the top-half of America in math and verbal aptitudes.”
Soldiers and sailors in today’s armed forces have to be smart. They are all taught to lead if their own leaders are killed or incapacitated, to operate independently if separated from their units, and to think outside of the box under conditions of extreme stress and fatigue.
Then there are the criminal background checks for new recruits and officer candidates, and the psychological evaluations (initial moral character screening followed by moral character, ethics, and values training). There also is the fact that nearly half of all young people who try to enlist are rejected because of “health-related issues, with obesity being the leading reason for rejection,” according to DoD. Then there are the young people who are in basically good health, but are ultimately rejected because they cannot meet the basic physical fitness test requirements – push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and running.
The Navy SEALs, for instance, have a particularly tough time finding young hopefuls who can swim and run well enough just to be accepted into the program. Then comes the hard part. Eighty percent of those entering SEAL training don’t make it. Lots of young men want to be SEALs. Few have what it takes to become SEALs.
Truth be known, each of the American armed forces needs the best people, and they do not accept less.
WHO’S ACTUALLY CLOSING WITH THE ENEMY
There are also the politically motivated myths about who’s doing the fighting and why.
Multiple myths have been publicly perpetuated – and never publicly corrected – about women having to fight because there aren't enough men. Or that minorities and young people from urban areas are over-represented in the combat arms branches.
G.I. JANE
We’ve all heard the congressmen and congresswomen on the House floor talking about our men and women fighting in Iraq, as if to suggest that every single soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine, regardless of gender or job description is actually FIGHTING. Politicians love to suggest that everyone is fighting, because it sounds fair and inclusive, and most of their constituents truly do not know any better.
Granted, the battle lines are certainly blurred in the modern world. Some women have certainly been flying aircraft in-and-over battle spaces; and some women on the ground have had to squeeze the triggers of their weapons in self-defense and while defending others. This has in fact happened several times involving women who serve in military police units. And all have performed magnificently in a variety of critical roles: An example being Army Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, whose remarkable leadership and heroic performance in action against an insurgent ambush on March 20, 2005 I reported in a Scripps Howard piece.
But percentage-wise, female soldiers are not fighting (in the pure sense of the word) on a par with their male counterparts. And in terms of “offensive ground combat,” females do not serve in those units designated for that kind of fighting.
Females are not kicking in doors and fighting alongside the Marines in Ramadi. They did not storm Fallujah. They don't suit up for counter-terror missions and other special operations. Nor do they go out on infantry patrols. And according to Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness (CMR), they should not.
“Women have always served in the armed forces with courage and distinction,” Donnelly writes in a 2006 CMR article, Grim toll of women lost in war. “But there is no military necessity to send young women and mothers to fight in close combat areas where they do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive.”
Granted, women have been killed and wounded in Iraq, but not because they were personally engaged in “offensive ground combat.” Most by far have been the victims of ambush, as have American civilian construction workers and truck-drivers, none of whom are combatants either.
But those who disagree with Donnelly seem to look for any opportunity to perpetuate the myth because they see the military as beneficial in a way in which it was not designed to be (and I’ll get to that in a moment).
MINORITY REPRESENTATION
Then there is the suggestion that American minorities (and those from lower income urban areas) are being over-represented among the front-line combat troops. But according to Who is Volunteering for Today's Military, “Urban areas are actually underrepresented among new recruits. Suburban and rural areas are overrepresented.”
The report states that African American troops, who represent roughly 17 percent of the overall military force, have suffered approximately 11 percent of those killed in Iraq. Whereas, white Americans who comprise 67 percent of the force have suffered 74 percent of those killed in Iraq. And Hispanic Americans, nine percent of the overall force, have suffered 11 percent deaths.
All have performed well, and distinguished themselves in combat. But the higher white and Hispanic casualty percentages reflect the fact that those two groups, for whatever reasons, overwhelming enlist for service in frontline infantry and special operations units.
So the idea that minorities (except in the case of Hispanics) or those from the inner city are disproportionately fighting and dying in Iraq is simply not so.
“This pattern results from occupational choices young people make,” according to DoD. “For example, African American youth choose to serve in support occupations such as the health care field, which tend to feature valuable job training over bonuses or education incentives. These are the choices young volunteers make.”
THE PURPOSE OF THE MILITARY
Some might ask, why bring a discussion of gender and race into a discussion of the American warrior culture? The answer lies in the fact that gender and race issues are key components of American military culture, just as they are of American society. There is indeed a history of discrimination in the American military. But in the sense of rectifying any forms of past discrimination, the American military has in many ways proven to be more progressive than American society.
Additionally, though men and women of all races and ethnicities serve and have served in the military with great honor and distinction, there are those Americans with a political aversion to our military culture who would prefer to use the military for social experimentation rather than for what the military was designed to do: Fight and win wars. And they have used and twisted the gender and race variables for their own benefit (as discussed in who’s actually doing the fighting, and who is – and is not – being over-represented).
TOO ELITE?
Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the more “elite” a military organization might be, the less connected it is to American society, thus a threat to society.
In 1997, for instance, Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister – obviously not thrilled with the fact that Marines, placing great focus on preparation for combat, and training their male and female recruits separately, took aim at Marine culture. “I think the Army is much more connected to society than the Marines are,” she said before a Harvard University audience. “Marines are extremists. Wherever you have extremists, you've got some risks of total disconnection with society. And that's a little dangerous.”
Of course, it was a ridiculous comment. The Marine Commandant demanded an apology, and Lister was quickly canned. But I can assure you we Marines (active, Reserve, retired, and former) laughed about it, because, “Yes we are extremists, and we are dangerous. That’s why we win wars and are feared throughout the world.”
Despite the Listers of the world, the American military culture and class have survived because of our “heroes” and “elites,” and will no doubt continue to do so. It hearkens back to the things I discussed last month about our being descended from cavaliers, cowboys, Indians, and frontiersmen: We are genetically and spiritually the same. Or as Professor Busch said, “America’s love of the fabled hunter/rifleman has seldom dwindled, and never died, even though in the twenty-first century he may wear a green beret rather than a coonskin cap.”
FROM ‘ACHILLES HEEL’ TO ‘A FORMULA’
Despite our stellar military heritage, there is still no getting around our ill-preparedness at the outset of hostilities throughout most of our history.
“We have tried since the birth of our nation to promote our love of peace by a display of weakness,” wrote Gen.George C. Marshall in 1945. “This course has failed us utterly.”
Nearly 40 years later, former chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Gen. David C. Jones, said, “Although most history books glorify our military accomplishments, a closer examination reveals a disconcerting pattern: unpreparedness at the start of a war; initial failures; reorganizing while fighting; cranking up our industrial base; and ultimately prevailing by wearing down the enemy--by being bigger, not smarter.”
Indeed. Fortunately, it seems we have finally figured it out, and today are waging one of our most desperate struggles against evil with one of the finest sets of armed forces our nation has ever fielded. But it’s not only because we’ve figured it out, but also that we’re now modeling our conventional forces and our citizen soldiery on our professional elites. It’s a formula for building warriors wherein we teach our new recruits not only how to fight, but that they are – in so many words – born of a warrior class; and that no matter their job description, they are each and every one combat soldiers first.
My own service, the Marine Corps, discovered this formula a long time ago. As the late Gen. Leonard F. Chapman Jr., former Marine commandant, once said, “The basic secret of the Marine Corps is that every Marine is trained as a rifleman or a platoon leader.”
Sounds simple, but it is a philosophy that is infused into every Marine from day-one in boot camp. Every Marine knows – whether he is a cook or an administrative clerk – his first responsibility is as a Marine infantryman.
It’s a philosophy drawing on the Marine’s warrior culture and his warrior class. The other branches have adopted similar approaches to it, and it is one of the primary reasons why America is winning today, and will ultimately survive and win in the war against the terrorists.
— W. Thomas Smith Jr. is director of the Counterterrorism Research Center of the Family Security Foundation and a Contributing Editor to FamilySecurityMatters.org. A former U.S. Marine infantry leader and shipboard counterterrorism instructor, Smith writes about military/defense issues and has covered conflict in the Balkans and on the West Bank. He is the author of five books, and his articles have appeared in USA Today, George, U.S. News & World Report, BusinessWeek, National Review Online, CBS News, The Washington Times, and others.
(c)2003-2006 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. online at uswriter.com
Ellie
The American warrior – Part II
Why American warriors will defeat the terrorists
W. Thomas Smith Jr.
August 15, 2006
A recent page-one photograph in The New York Times shows a handful of weary, rugged-looking Israeli soldiers returning from the frontlines in Southern Lebanon where they had been engaged in some of the heaviest fighting of the recent Israeli-Hezbollah war.
I noticed however they were smiling and apparently singing, as if returning from some party or a ballgame. I then read the cutline and realized they were not just ordinary Israeli soldiers (if there is such thing). They were Israeli paratroopers – some of the finest soldiers in the modern world – and their smiling and singing was indicative of the personalities of any elite soldiers coming and going on the battlefield. It’s simply the behavior of well-trained, confident men who know how to fight and who relish the chance of closing with the enemy.
The retreating French experienced it in 1918 when they passed a column of U.S. Marines heartily singing and laughing as they advanced toward the sound of the guns. One of the French soldiers shouted, “Turn back. Retreat. The Germans are coming!” To which Marine Captain Lloyd Williams responded, “Retreat Hell! We just got here!”
A quarter century later, General George S. Patton Jr. stood before his Third Army and said, “Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.”
Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when intelligence indicated foreign troops were moving into that country, Marine Brig. Gen. John Kelly stated, “We want all Jihad fighters to come here. That way we can kill them all before they get bus tickets to New York City.”
For someone who has never served in an elite unit, laughing and singing in the face of death, boasting about wanting to fight and welcoming the sting of battle, might seem like the behavior of disturbed, socially disconnected people.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
THE WARRIOR CULTURE
Last month in The American Warrior – Part I, we examined the warrior culture and the warrior class that exists within the overall American society: Both the culture and the class might be considered something of an anomaly to a society such as ours, because we are a nation with an institutional aversion to militarism and large standing armies. Our nation was set up this way. We have a civilian commander in chief of the armed forces, a civilian secretary of a defense department, civilian heads of the defense sub-departments, and civilian congressional oversight of the same. Moreover, throughout most of our history, our national defense emergencies have been met by rapidly mobilizing (what were prior to those emergencies) marginally trained forces. These facts combined would not normally be considered conducive to a rich military heritage.
Nevertheless, the fact that almost every American generation from the Colonial era through the beginning of the 21st century has experienced war; has led us to a uniquely American military tradition that today serves as a model for many foreign armies, navies, and air forces; and is in many ways the envy of the world.
“Many of America’s heroes have been military men,” wrote the late Professor Briton Cooper Busch in his book, Bunker Hill to Bastogne. It’s something many Americans take for granted, assuming that all nations and cultures have traditionally held their professional soldiers and sailors in as high a regard as they would their greatest scientists, philosophers, and non-military champions.
Of course there was a period during the Vietnam War era – and for close to a decade following – when American military men were publicly scorned. But that disdain was expressed by only a segment of the population, angry over American foreign policy decision-making, but who displaced their anger on soldiers who weren’t responsible for policy making. Fortunately, the scorn was short-lived.
Busch also writes, “America’s roster of heroic images has long included esteemed elites, variously defined, from Rogers’ Rangers at Fort Ticonderoga to the paratroopers at Normandy and the Marines at Iwo Jima.”
This military heritage (based on generations of war), a publicly favorable perception of military heroes, and a tradition of “elites,” continues, and is the primary reason today we are defeating the terrorists in every corner of the globe.
What is truly amazing, however, is that we are winning today on a variety of fronts with a non-draftee, all volunteer (much smaller than a draftee army) professional force, which is in many ways being infused with the ethos of modern “elites” and special operations forces.
Standards today for both modern American conventional and special operations forces are exacting. Training is demanding. The post-training danger is real. Yet recruiting is up, which baffles the cut-and-run crowd.
WHAT THE NUMBERS ACTUALLY SAY
Military recruiting numbers were high prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and have continued to be high post-9/11, usually exceeding goals in any given month, quarter, or fiscal year. And during those rare months or quarters where numbers have been down, the military has still been meeting goals in the 90-plus percentile.
There are a variety of reasons why, not the least of which is a sense of patriotism and a sincere desire to do one’s part in thwarting terrorism. This is particularly reflected among members of elite units – like Marines, Army Rangers, and the various special operations units, including Army Special Forces, Air Force Special Tactics units, Navy SEALs, and Marine Recon – whose members fully expect to be deployed in combat theaters overseas as soon as they’ve completed training. I know this for a fact, and not because of published statistics and press releases, but because I talk to these folks regularly, one-on-one.
But let’s consider the latest numbers from the Pentagon: In July 2006, the Army met 104 percent of its recruiting goals. The Air Force was at 100. The Navy was at 100. And the Marine Corps was at a whopping 112 percent.
Fiscal year percentages from October 1, 2005 to July 31, 2006 were also high: The Army was at 104. The Air Force was at 100. The Navy was at 100. And the Marines were at 101.
So who are these young men and women who consistently volunteer for service? The cut-and-runners would have us believe they are the most impoverished, illiterate, aimless, and so perhaps exploited members of our society.
THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST
In the modern American military, between 93 and 95 percent of current recruits have high school diplomas, compared with 75 to 85 percent of their military-age civilian counterparts. And according to a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) document, Who is Volunteering for Today's Military, “nearly two-thirds of today’s recruits are drawn from the top-half of America in math and verbal aptitudes.”
Soldiers and sailors in today’s armed forces have to be smart. They are all taught to lead if their own leaders are killed or incapacitated, to operate independently if separated from their units, and to think outside of the box under conditions of extreme stress and fatigue.
Then there are the criminal background checks for new recruits and officer candidates, and the psychological evaluations (initial moral character screening followed by moral character, ethics, and values training). There also is the fact that nearly half of all young people who try to enlist are rejected because of “health-related issues, with obesity being the leading reason for rejection,” according to DoD. Then there are the young people who are in basically good health, but are ultimately rejected because they cannot meet the basic physical fitness test requirements – push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and running.
The Navy SEALs, for instance, have a particularly tough time finding young hopefuls who can swim and run well enough just to be accepted into the program. Then comes the hard part. Eighty percent of those entering SEAL training don’t make it. Lots of young men want to be SEALs. Few have what it takes to become SEALs.
Truth be known, each of the American armed forces needs the best people, and they do not accept less.
WHO’S ACTUALLY CLOSING WITH THE ENEMY
There are also the politically motivated myths about who’s doing the fighting and why.
Multiple myths have been publicly perpetuated – and never publicly corrected – about women having to fight because there aren't enough men. Or that minorities and young people from urban areas are over-represented in the combat arms branches.
G.I. JANE
We’ve all heard the congressmen and congresswomen on the House floor talking about our men and women fighting in Iraq, as if to suggest that every single soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine, regardless of gender or job description is actually FIGHTING. Politicians love to suggest that everyone is fighting, because it sounds fair and inclusive, and most of their constituents truly do not know any better.
Granted, the battle lines are certainly blurred in the modern world. Some women have certainly been flying aircraft in-and-over battle spaces; and some women on the ground have had to squeeze the triggers of their weapons in self-defense and while defending others. This has in fact happened several times involving women who serve in military police units. And all have performed magnificently in a variety of critical roles: An example being Army Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, whose remarkable leadership and heroic performance in action against an insurgent ambush on March 20, 2005 I reported in a Scripps Howard piece.
But percentage-wise, female soldiers are not fighting (in the pure sense of the word) on a par with their male counterparts. And in terms of “offensive ground combat,” females do not serve in those units designated for that kind of fighting.
Females are not kicking in doors and fighting alongside the Marines in Ramadi. They did not storm Fallujah. They don't suit up for counter-terror missions and other special operations. Nor do they go out on infantry patrols. And according to Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness (CMR), they should not.
“Women have always served in the armed forces with courage and distinction,” Donnelly writes in a 2006 CMR article, Grim toll of women lost in war. “But there is no military necessity to send young women and mothers to fight in close combat areas where they do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive.”
Granted, women have been killed and wounded in Iraq, but not because they were personally engaged in “offensive ground combat.” Most by far have been the victims of ambush, as have American civilian construction workers and truck-drivers, none of whom are combatants either.
But those who disagree with Donnelly seem to look for any opportunity to perpetuate the myth because they see the military as beneficial in a way in which it was not designed to be (and I’ll get to that in a moment).
MINORITY REPRESENTATION
Then there is the suggestion that American minorities (and those from lower income urban areas) are being over-represented among the front-line combat troops. But according to Who is Volunteering for Today's Military, “Urban areas are actually underrepresented among new recruits. Suburban and rural areas are overrepresented.”
The report states that African American troops, who represent roughly 17 percent of the overall military force, have suffered approximately 11 percent of those killed in Iraq. Whereas, white Americans who comprise 67 percent of the force have suffered 74 percent of those killed in Iraq. And Hispanic Americans, nine percent of the overall force, have suffered 11 percent deaths.
All have performed well, and distinguished themselves in combat. But the higher white and Hispanic casualty percentages reflect the fact that those two groups, for whatever reasons, overwhelming enlist for service in frontline infantry and special operations units.
So the idea that minorities (except in the case of Hispanics) or those from the inner city are disproportionately fighting and dying in Iraq is simply not so.
“This pattern results from occupational choices young people make,” according to DoD. “For example, African American youth choose to serve in support occupations such as the health care field, which tend to feature valuable job training over bonuses or education incentives. These are the choices young volunteers make.”
THE PURPOSE OF THE MILITARY
Some might ask, why bring a discussion of gender and race into a discussion of the American warrior culture? The answer lies in the fact that gender and race issues are key components of American military culture, just as they are of American society. There is indeed a history of discrimination in the American military. But in the sense of rectifying any forms of past discrimination, the American military has in many ways proven to be more progressive than American society.
Additionally, though men and women of all races and ethnicities serve and have served in the military with great honor and distinction, there are those Americans with a political aversion to our military culture who would prefer to use the military for social experimentation rather than for what the military was designed to do: Fight and win wars. And they have used and twisted the gender and race variables for their own benefit (as discussed in who’s actually doing the fighting, and who is – and is not – being over-represented).
TOO ELITE?
Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the more “elite” a military organization might be, the less connected it is to American society, thus a threat to society.
In 1997, for instance, Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister – obviously not thrilled with the fact that Marines, placing great focus on preparation for combat, and training their male and female recruits separately, took aim at Marine culture. “I think the Army is much more connected to society than the Marines are,” she said before a Harvard University audience. “Marines are extremists. Wherever you have extremists, you've got some risks of total disconnection with society. And that's a little dangerous.”
Of course, it was a ridiculous comment. The Marine Commandant demanded an apology, and Lister was quickly canned. But I can assure you we Marines (active, Reserve, retired, and former) laughed about it, because, “Yes we are extremists, and we are dangerous. That’s why we win wars and are feared throughout the world.”
Despite the Listers of the world, the American military culture and class have survived because of our “heroes” and “elites,” and will no doubt continue to do so. It hearkens back to the things I discussed last month about our being descended from cavaliers, cowboys, Indians, and frontiersmen: We are genetically and spiritually the same. Or as Professor Busch said, “America’s love of the fabled hunter/rifleman has seldom dwindled, and never died, even though in the twenty-first century he may wear a green beret rather than a coonskin cap.”
FROM ‘ACHILLES HEEL’ TO ‘A FORMULA’
Despite our stellar military heritage, there is still no getting around our ill-preparedness at the outset of hostilities throughout most of our history.
“We have tried since the birth of our nation to promote our love of peace by a display of weakness,” wrote Gen.George C. Marshall in 1945. “This course has failed us utterly.”
Nearly 40 years later, former chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Gen. David C. Jones, said, “Although most history books glorify our military accomplishments, a closer examination reveals a disconcerting pattern: unpreparedness at the start of a war; initial failures; reorganizing while fighting; cranking up our industrial base; and ultimately prevailing by wearing down the enemy--by being bigger, not smarter.”
Indeed. Fortunately, it seems we have finally figured it out, and today are waging one of our most desperate struggles against evil with one of the finest sets of armed forces our nation has ever fielded. But it’s not only because we’ve figured it out, but also that we’re now modeling our conventional forces and our citizen soldiery on our professional elites. It’s a formula for building warriors wherein we teach our new recruits not only how to fight, but that they are – in so many words – born of a warrior class; and that no matter their job description, they are each and every one combat soldiers first.
My own service, the Marine Corps, discovered this formula a long time ago. As the late Gen. Leonard F. Chapman Jr., former Marine commandant, once said, “The basic secret of the Marine Corps is that every Marine is trained as a rifleman or a platoon leader.”
Sounds simple, but it is a philosophy that is infused into every Marine from day-one in boot camp. Every Marine knows – whether he is a cook or an administrative clerk – his first responsibility is as a Marine infantryman.
It’s a philosophy drawing on the Marine’s warrior culture and his warrior class. The other branches have adopted similar approaches to it, and it is one of the primary reasons why America is winning today, and will ultimately survive and win in the war against the terrorists.
— W. Thomas Smith Jr. is director of the Counterterrorism Research Center of the Family Security Foundation and a Contributing Editor to FamilySecurityMatters.org. A former U.S. Marine infantry leader and shipboard counterterrorism instructor, Smith writes about military/defense issues and has covered conflict in the Balkans and on the West Bank. He is the author of five books, and his articles have appeared in USA Today, George, U.S. News & World Report, BusinessWeek, National Review Online, CBS News, The Washington Times, and others.
(c)2003-2006 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. online at uswriter.com
Ellie