First to Fight | Marines land in Vietnam (vid) & Modest Proposal for a name change.

In today's military the "expeditionary" is applied to every damn thing.  It's been co-opted by every branch to such a point that even the USAF calls its air wing's "expeditionary".

The term has lost its flavor and is no longer distinctive.

I propose a name change that is in keeping with our history and yet will once again set USMC units apart from others.

Dump "expeditionary" and go to the Vietnam standard "amphibious"!

What do I mean?  During the Vietnam War the USMC changed the name of its MEU's to MAU...Marine Amphibious Units.  The name change was to prevent form offending the locals that had a bad experience with French expeditionary units (if I'm remembering my history....correct me if I'm wrong, I'm tossing this up on the fly).

So in essence we went from MEU, MEB, MEF to MAU, MAB and MAF.  Marine Amphibious Units instead of Marine Expeditionary Units might seem contrary to Marine Corps history but we've used it before and it would be in keeping with the idea of the Corps returning to the sea.

Either way its just an idea and if it costs too much to change the letterhead then it should be rejected on those grounds alone.