 |
|
April 21, 2014
April 18, 2014
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Clarifying one of the greatest philosophical conundrums in theology
John Ericson: Trying hard to be 'positive' but never succeeding? Blame Your Brain
The Kosher Gourmet by Julie Rothman Almondy, flourless torta del re (Italian king's cake), has royal roots, is simple to make, . . . but devour it because it's simply delicious
April 14, 2014
Rabbi Dr Naftali Brawer: Passover frees us from the tyranny of time
Eric Schulzke: First degree: How America really recovered from a murder epidemic
Georgia Lee: When love is not enough: Teaching your kids about the realities of adult relationships
Gordon Pape: How you can tell if your financial adviser is setting you up for potential ruin
Dana Dovey: Up to 500,000 people die each year from hepatitis C-related liver disease. New Treatment Has Over 90% Success Rate
Justin Caba: Eating Watermelon Can Help Control High Blood Pressure
April 11, 2014
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Silence is much more than golden
Susan Swann: How to value a child for who he is, not just what he does
Susan Scutti: A Simple Blood Test Might Soon Diagnose Cancer
Chris Weller: Have A Slow Metabolism? Let Science Speed It Up For You
April 9, 2014
Jonathan Tobin: Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?
Samuel G. Freedman: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau
Jessica Ivins: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau
Matthew Mientka: How Beans, Peas, And Chickpeas Cleanse Bad Cholesterol and Lowers Risk of Heart Disease
April 8, 2014
Dana Dovey: Coffee Drinkers Rejoice! Your Cup Of Joe Can Prevent Death From Liver Disease
Chris Weller: Electric 'Thinking Cap' Puts Your Brain Power Into High Gear
April 4, 2014
Amy Peterson: A life of love: How to build lasting relationships with your children
John Ericson: Older Women: Save Your Heart, Prevent Stroke Don't Drink Diet
John Ericson: Why 50 million Americans will still have spring allergies after taking meds
Sarah Boesveld: Teacher keeps promise to mail thousands of former students letters written by their past selves
April 2, 2014
Dan Barry: Should South Carolina Jews be forced to maintain this chimney built by Germans serving the Nazis?
Frank Clayton: Get happy: 20 scientifically proven happiness activities
Susan Scutti: It's Genetic! Obesity and the 'Carb Breakdown' Gene
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 24, 2007
/ 12 Tishrei 5768
Marines in search of a mission
By
George Will
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
QUANTICO, Va. — Here at "the crossroads of the Marine Corps," some officers are uneasily pondering a paradox: No service was better prepared than the Marines for the challenges of post-invasion Iraq, yet no service has found its mission there more unsettling to its sense of itself.
When asked in 1997 to describe the kind of conflict for which Marines were training, Gen. Charles Krulak, then the Corps' commandant, replied with one word: "Chechnya." He meant ethnic and sectarian conflict in an urban context. He spoke of "the three-block war" in which a Marine wraps a child in a blanket, then is a buffer between warring factions, then engages in combat, all within three city blocks.
For Marines, however, fighting such a war for more than four years jeopardizes the skills essential to their core mission — combat as an expeditionary force. Marines have not conducted a major amphibious landing since Inchon in Korea, but the Corps, which specializes in operational maneuver from the sea, remains, in theory, a force that penetrates, performs, then departs. Marines say: The nation needs the Army, Navy and Air Force, but it wants the Marine Corps as an expeditionary power, more than just a miniaturized Army.
Marines have an institutional memory of "small wars," from the Philippines to Central America, and this competence serves them well in Iraq, which is, an officer here says, "a thousand microcosms." But the exigencies of the protracted Iraq commitment have forced the Marines to adopt vehicles that are heavier and bigger than can easily travel with an expeditionary force on ships. And there is tension between the "nation-building" dimension of the Marines' Iraq mission and the Corps' distinctive warrior esprit, which is integral to why the nation wants the Corps.
Officers studying here at the Marine Corps University after tours in Iraq dutifully say they understand that they serve their combat mission — destroying the enemy — when they increase the host nation's capacity for governance. Besides, says one officer, when his units are helping with garbage collection, they know that "garbage collection is a matter of life and death because there are IEDs [improvised explosive devices] hidden under that garbage."
| FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO INFLUENTIAL NEWSLETTER |
| Every weekday NewsAndOpinion.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here. |
|
Still, no one becomes a Marine to collect garbage or otherwise nurture civil societies. And as one officer here notes with some asperity, there is "no Goldwater-Nichols Act for the rest of the government." That act required "jointness" — collaborative operations — by the services. Civilian agencies that do not play well together have fumbled the ball in Iraq, and the military has been forced to pick it up. This draws the military deeper into the sensitive responsibility for tutoring civilians who assign the forces nonmilitary tasks.
The political dimension of leadership training remains, however, secondary to instruction in military valor. The other services tend to teach leadership prescriptively, with rules. The Marines teach descriptively, with storytelling about what happened on the sea wall at Tarawa (1943), at Korea's Chosin Reservoir (1950), in Vietnam's Hue city (1968). But there is another story pertinent to providing military advice that can ensure civilian comprehension of military functions.
Early in the Kennedy administration, when there was talk about a U.S. invasion of Cuba, Gen. David M. Shoup, Marine commandant, gave President John Kennedy and his advisers a tutorial. David Halberstam wrote in "The Best and the Brightest":
"First he took an overlay of Cuba and placed it over the map of the United States. To everybody's surprise, Cuba was not a small island along the lines of, say, Long Island at best. It was about 800 miles long and seemed to stretch from New York to Chicago. Then he took another overlay, with a red dot, and placed it over the map of Cuba. 'What's that?' someone asked him. 'That, gentlemen, represents the size of the island of Tarawa,' said Shoup, who had won a Medal of Honor there, 'and it took us three days and 18,000 Marines to take it.' "
Because of the dispersed battlefield in Iraq, company commanders must make instantaneous decisions that battalion commanders used to make, and corporals are making decisions that officers used to make reflecting — and affecting — the Marine Corps' ethics and core values.
Still, "it's a beautiful thing being in Iraq," says one officer, "because you aren't worrying about Corporal Jones stateside getting a DUI." That is the durable voice of the Marine Corps, which is "first to fight," and is happier when doing so than when dealing with garrison duties stateside or chores properly belonging to civilian agencies abroad.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
George Will's latest book is "With a Happy Eye but: America and the World, 1997-2002" to purchase a copy, click here. Comment on this column by clicking here.
Archives
© 2006 WPWG
|
|
Columnists
Toons
Lifestyles
|
