God bless the Marines involved in the AAV accident but I fear that worse is coming.

By now you've heard of the accident off the California coast with 1 Marine confirmed dead and eight others missing.

This isn't going to be a "slam the concept" type blog post.

It isn't going to try and guess the cause of the accident.

No.  This blog post is a warning to Marines and the Marine Corps about trouble, big trouble coming our way.

The very nature of how the Marine Corps transports its personnel from ship to shore is going to lead to a mass tragedy at sea one day.  Quite honestly I'm more than a bit surprised we haven't seen it yet.

Think about it.

We transport large numbers of Marines (relatively large) by CH-53K, MV-22, AAV/ACV, C-130 and landing craft.

With operations getting pushed further out to sea, independent ship operations etc...then we can expect an airplane/helo to go down or an AAV/ACV/Landing Craft to sink.

Sorry men but that's the sad reality of things.  What can we do to mitigate the risk?  Unfortunately it would take totally revamping our way of doing things (which I don't deem feasible).  We would have to reduce the number of people per transport, and stop practicing as we will fight.  Like I said it just ain't feasible.

Unfortunately that danger will only increase in the future.  Imagine this.  A C-130 is dispatched to establish a FARP on a remote island.  That C-130 suffers engine trouble at 200 miles from land.  Suddenly it goes down with 50 Marines onboard.  The nearest rescue is 5 hours away.  Except for the pilots/aircrew no one is wearing locator beacons.  It isn't storm conditions but the seas are high.

Oh and let me add that the water temp is 60 degrees.

We'll be lucky to save 10 of these Marines.

Military service is inherently dangerous.  The Marine Corps needs to reaffirm that fact, do everything possible to mitigate risk and accept the sad fact that unfortunately Marines will die.

That is the future I unfortunately see (and that's just training, not open warfare against a capable foe).

Having said all that let me get to the important part.

May the memories of the Marines be a blessing to their families.  God Bless.