Don't believe the survey!

via Marine Times.

Under Defense Department guidance, women are banned from serving in specialties whose primary function is to close with and destroy the enemy. But that could change. In a historic first, the Marine Corps is now planning to send women to the Infantry Officers School as part of a comprehensive research program that looks at whether opening more fields to women is a possibility. Enlisted women could get a shot, too, at one of the Infantry Training Battalions. Also part of the possible plan are gender-neutral physical fitness standards that would apply to men and women and a Corps-wide survey so you can sound off on the matter.

Wow.

Another survey.

Don't you believe the findings.

The current leadership of the Marine Corps is not to be trusted to give real information on the outcome of this and any other survey.  The reason why?  Because the powers that be have determined a course of action and they will do any and everything to reach the desired outcome.

Don't you find it interesting that in the same year that Gays in the military was suddenly and forcifully passed into law we now face the issue of women in combat?

Don't you find it interesting that Marine Corps heroes like Colonel Ripley and General Barrow gave guidance that is at odds with current leadership?

Isn't it strange that not one retired Marine Corps General has come out in favor of these intitiatives?

But that's ok.  They'll get their desired end state.  Women from middle and lower class families will see their daughters legs snapping like twigs....see their bodies destroyed from carrying heavy packs...and they will learn to hate the Marine Corps.

All so that a few Generals and DoD officials can be wined and dined at DC and New York parties.  All so that a few feminist with delusions of grandeur can subject someone else's daughter to dangers that they would never subject themselves or their daughters to.

It would be funny if it wasn't actually happening.

F-35C Formation Flight

For those who understand...

If you understand, no explanation is necessary;  For those who don't understand, no explanation is possible.

You either get it or you don't.  For those that don't get it, they attack it.  Attempt to weaken it. 

The assault on Marine Corps Values has been ongoing.  Some attack those values by stating that our mission is obsolete.  Some attack it by demanding gender norming so that our Combat Arms becomes ordinary.  Some attack it by demanding jointness for no other reason than claiming fictional cooperation.

But for those that have the internal fortitude, the mental toughness and devotion to duty ...Those people will never yield to those that want the Marine Corps to become ordinary.

We aren't and the Marine Corps isn't.

I just wish those in power (civilian and military) understood that fact.  There was a survey on institutions that the American public still believes in.  The military topped that list.  Not because it changed like the times--chasing the latest "hot thing", but because the US military in general and the Marine Corps in particular represent old fashioned values.

But if you've read this far then you understand and no explanation is necessary....

This just ain't right!

Thanks six_ten!

That's just what I needed to start my day.

An insect that look like its a freaking face hugger from the movie Aliens chowing down on a bird.

That's crazy in a handbag.   

Yeah, no doubt about it...Australia is pretty fucked up.

Oh and this was shot in some guys backyard too.  I wonder what you'll see when you get deep off in the back woods down there?  They probably still have dinosaurs roaming that continent.  Read the story here.

Marines are different.

I chose to be a US Marine because I reject the norms of society.  I wanted a different path...and I wanted to be surrounded by people who shared my beliefs.

I found it.

But its in danger.  Read these words from an Army Colonel about the US Marine Corps I want to be associated with....

By Col. Daniel F. Bolger, USA
 (Excerpt from DEATH GROUND: 

TODAY'S AMERICAN INFANTRY IN BATTLE

 "What makes Marine infantry special? Asking the question that way misses the most fundamental point about the United States Marine Corps. In the Marines, everyone--sergeant, mechanic, cannoneer, supply man, clerk, aviator, cook--is a rifleman first. The entire corps, all 170,000 or so on the active rolls, plus the reserves, are all infantry. All speak the language of the rifle and bayonet, of muddy boots and long, hot marches. It's never us and them, only us. That is the secret of the Corps." 

"If Army infantry amounts to a stern monastic order standing apart, on the edge of the wider secular soldier world, Marine infantry more resembles the central totem worshiped by the entire tribe. Marines have specialized, as have all modern military organizations. And despite the all-too-real rigors of boot camp, annual rifle qualification, and high physical standards, a Marine aircraft crew chief or radio repairman wouldn't make a good 0311 on a squad assault. But those Marine technical types know that they serve the humble grunt, the man who will look the enemy in the eye within close to belly-ripping range. Moreover, all Marines think of themselves as grunts at heart, just a bit out of practice at the moment. That connections creates a great strength throughout the Corps."

 "It explains why Marine commanders routinely, even casually, combine widely disparate kinds of capabilities into small units.... Marines send junior officers and NCOs out from their line rifle companies and expect results. They get them, too."

 "Even a single Marine has on call the firepower of the air wing, the Navy, and all of the United States. Or at least he thinks he does. A Marine acts accordingly. He is expected to take charge, to improvise, to adapt, to overcome. A Marine gets by with ancient aircraft (the ratty C-46E Frog, for example), hand-me-down weapons (such as the old M-60 tanks used in the Gulf War), and whatever else he can bum off the Army or cajole out of the Navy. Marines get the job done regardless, because they are Marines. They make a virtue out of necessity. The men, not the gear, make the difference. Now and again, the Marines want to send men, not bullets."

 "This leads to a self-assurance that sometimes comes across as disregard for detailed staff-college quality planning and short shrift for high-level supervision. Senior Army officers in particular sometimes find the Marines amateurish, cavalier, and overly trusting in just wading in and letting the junior leaders sort it out. In the extreme, a few soldiers have looked at the Corps as some weird, inferior, ersatz ground war establishment, a bad knockoff of the real thing. 'A small, bitched-up army talking Navy lingo,' opined Army Brigadier General Frank Armstrong in one of the most brutal interservice assessments. That was going too far. But deep down, many Army professionals tended to wonder about the Marines. Grab a defended beach? Definitely. Seize a hill? Sure, if you don't mind paying a little. But take charge of a really big land operation? Not if we can help it."

 "Anyone who has watched an amphibious landing unfold would be careful with that kind of thinking. The Marines actually have a lot in common with their elite Army infantry brothers, if not with all the various Army headquarters and service echelons. True, Marine orders do tend to be, well...brief. But so do those of the airborne, the air assault, the light-fighters, and the Rangers, for the same good reason: Hard, realistic training teaches soldiers how to fight by doing, over and over, so they need not keep  writing about it, regurgitating basics every time. More enlightened soldiers consider that goodness. A three-inch thick order, a big CP, and lots of meetings do not victory make. The Marines consciously reject all that. And why not? Despite the occasional Tarawa or Beirut, it works."

 "A Corps infused with a rifleman ethos has few barriers to intra-service cooperation. The Army talks a great deal about combined arms and does it down to about battalion level, often with great wailing and gnashing of  teeth. Marines do it all the way down to the individual Marine. Soldiers have defined military occupational specialties and guard their prerogatives like union shop stewards. Finance clerks don't do machine guns. Mechanics skip foot marches to fix trucks. Intell analysts work in air-conditioned trailers; they don't patrol. Marines, though, are just Marines. They all consider themselves trigger pullers. They even like it, as might be expected of an elite body."

Rant on.

I've recieved a number of e-mails telling me that I'm taking it too far when it comes to criticizing the current Commandant.

My response is that I haven't taken it far enough.

Everything that makes the Marine Corps an elite is under assault---from within and without.

Read that passage again and ask yourself one question.  Is our current leadership upholding the values that are cited above?  If you hesitate even one second then the truthful answer is 'no'...no they aren't.

That's what my bitching is about.

Assault Craft Unit 4 in Morocco

120412-N-QM601-065 CAP DRAA, MOROCCO (April 12, 2012) A landing craft air cushion (LCAC) from Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 4 lands on the Moroccan beach of Cap Draa after departing the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7). Iwo Jima is the flagship of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group with the embarked elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU). Iwo Jima is deployed participating in Exercise African Lion 2012, a bi-lateral exercise between U.S. and Moroccan forces in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Scott Youngblood/Released)

120412-N-QM601-076 CAP DRAA, MOROCCO (April 12, 2012) A Landing craft air cushion (LCAC) from Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 4 lands on the Moroccan beach of Cap Draa after departing the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7). Iwo Jima is the flagship of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group with the embarked 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU). Iwo Jima is deployed participating in Exercise African Lion 2012, a bi-lateral exercise between U.S. and Moroccan forces in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Scott Youngblood/Released)

SOCOM vessel collides with fishing boat.

via Navy Times.

Authorities in the southern Philippines are investigating a collision involving a Navy special operations boat that left a local fisherman dead, according to reports.
A Philippine army official told the Mindanao Examiner that a Mark V special operations craft collided with a fisherman’s boat on Wednesday night near a coastal town in Basilan. The Mark V gunboat was operating with the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, based in nearby Zamboanga at the time.
The 82-foot Mark V is operated by Navy special warfare combatant-craft crewmen with naval special warfare units, and often is used in training and operations with Navy SEALs. It can travel more than 55 miles per hour.
Officials at Naval Special Warfare Command headquarters in Coronado had no information on the incident Friday and referred questions to U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii. PACOM officials had no immediate comment.
Another Philippine army official told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the fishing boat had no lights on when it was struck by the Mark V. The son of the fisherman was on the boat at the time but wasn’t seriously hurt, the official said.
The joint U.S.-Filipino spec-ops task force, with about 600 U.S. service members, has been operating in the southern Philippines for more than 10 years, providing counterterrorism training.
The incident comes as more than 4,400 U.S. troops are in the Philippines for the Balikatan joint exercise.

I find a couple of things interesting here.

First.   Notice how Naval Special Warfare ducked behind Pacific Command?

Next.  Notice how everyone defaults to it being operated by Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines instead of identifying the unit involved. 

Last.  This has historically been a Special Forces tasking.  SOCOM is becoming as bureaucratic as the other services.  Not a good sign.  I wonder (because I truly don't know) if they gained anything by taking them out of the lead and making this a joint posting.

Lockheed Martin - Small Tactical Craft

Hat Tip to Lee for the info on this boat.  Thanks.