Semper Fi, Marine.

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Semper Fi.

And I think you might enjoy this one.

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Too bad it isn't Veteran's day, memorial day, Labor day or some/any other day the fucking REMFS get the day off. They pay homage on those days. They usually invest at LEAST a full whole minute on those days in honor to the service these (real) men provide them.

Thanks, bro.

One week in the Corps. We are aboard the USS Hermitage, an LSD. The President says we shall provide the security on the perimeter while the US Navy sweeps the SUEZ to eliminate the mines laid by the Israelis. That's 120 miles out, and 120 miles back. That's in that desert. I had befriended a sailor over the months, PN3 Rudy Galloway, a personnel-man. He asked me to feel what it was like to deploy as a Marine Infantryman while we were standing on the flight deck. (Sometimes those sailors cry for us- no bull, it's not a good motivational tool- they know what may or may not come back to that ship) He wanted my shit on his back. I gave it to him. He buckled under the weight, right there on that flight deck. I pumped that shit that full 240 miles, while being shot at, by both sides. . One week in my Marines. PN3 Galloway was awarded a campaign medal for his service in that action, for sitting and waiting on his frigging boat on the southern edge of the Med for us to return. I was awarded the same campaign medal.

Oh, btw, the GD Navy even fucked that mission up. We Marines did not, however. Those squids were SAFE, under OUR watch, all 120 miles of some of the most dangerous real estate on this planet, at the time. Marines on the ground, Marines in the air providing the CAP. The whole world knew what would happen to either side if we got messed with. Your President made a STATEMENT THAT WEEK. Not in b.s. words, in action. You can possibly destroy a Marine force, but chances are quite decent that America goes Nuke, next, and the despots and cranks know this. So did the Egyptians and Israelis. They didn't like it, but they backed the fuck down, both sides. The Israelis, not all that much, on the "line" level, but that was kinda cool, also, in retrospect. I respected that. The IDF and US Marines still have issues to this day, as we don't like being shot at when both sides know we are very reluctant to return fire. I especially did not like it when sitting in a bar being laughed at by IDF soldiers in Tel Aviv. I was drinking, and I have some recollection of now advising that I would kill everyone in that bar that served on that mission, right where they stand.

About 7 years later those same sort of individuals damn near got me killed, and they surely contributed in a big time way to getting 241 of my fellow Marines killed.
You ever seen 241 stacked Americans?
Not a fan of the IDF, but I respect what they have to do.

I definitely remember being thrown out of that bar, lol


Damn, sorry, I can't tell the story without including what I included. I am NOT a war story teller. It's in your history books, this Marine was there.





We're noisy, but we know.


Some soldiers may possibly do the same damn thing, but I'm loathe to admit it, lol That Army we got I call unreliable. They really should consider taking funds from them and giving it to my Corps. Makes sense, but I think the doggies have a union, or something, lol lol lol



WE got America's back. TO THE DEATH. The few, the proud, the Marines. You can bank that. You go look at the pics Wade posted if you doubt my word.

Oohrah, my United States Marines!

That young man makes me proud. I've known so many that deserved the same recognition he got. I'd say more, actually, but I'm not a politician.

On net, I don't like the award. It has become political, and the heroism has not stopped. This award should be given to the sec def to decide. They can call it anything they want, but this country keeps calling it the Congressional Medal of Honor.


My Marines hate that. When a Marine is awarded the Medal of Honor, he knows it came from the President of the United States. There is no congressional medal of honor,
Congress has NOTHING to do with it....
there is a medal of honor. Congressmen have got that wrong, a few Presidents, etc. The Marines do not. It's a tradition thing, since 1775.


HE WAS AWARDED THE MEDAL OF HONOR Where were the congressmen? Did they vote?




NOT




The Congressional medal of honor


These young men represent the sacrifices of their comrades to a degree beyond most imaginations. I want it 100% correct, That Marine got the Medal Of Honor.



Marines do not work under acts of Congress, that would be quite slow. and quite doggie-like. The Marines work under the direction of the President. We go that day.

I don't know how many of you have read or heard full Medal of Honor citations. I imagine Foster has, more than once.

I recommend it to any of you who might feel tempted to be critical out of your own ignorance.

Here is an example. (Sorry, Dave, this one isn't a Marine. At this level of courage and willingness to sacrifice, I don't think the branch of service makes much of a difference. )



What I don't understand is why this award didn't get awarded until Reagan's presidency. Is this the example of "politics" involved, Dave?

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I do know much more than most readers. I will say this again... OF COURSE I AM EXTRAORDINARILY BIASED towards my Marines. Please do not confuse that with my concurrent absolute respect for the soldiers, sailors and airmen... Coastguardsmen too, for that matter. I talk smack, as all Marines do, but I would submit that we are also uniquely qualified to recognize the contributions of our fellow service members. You get on the shit-end of America's stick, and get in trouble, you will worship whatever help comes your way.

Branch of service isn't even in the picture, on those days. WE don't take to REMFS. There are non- REMFS in all branches of the service, mosly in the Army. There are just SO MANY REMFS in the Army that I RAG on the Army as a whole. The same with the Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. THEY KNOW, as individuals, if some former Marine grunt is ragging generally if it applies to them on a personal level. Over 80% of the Marines are REMFS. The Marines are streamlined, comparative to the rest of the services. What if you are not in that 80%, but rather in that 20%?

You feel like you fight all the battles that this United States military takes credit for. That's what you feel like, and you let them know, as you know, (as a grunt) they know.

I'm sure some career soldier would tell you the exact same thing, about his soldiers, the only difference, of course, is that he would be completely wrong and I would be completely right.


😛

We have REMF-like objects in the academy, too. We call them "deans" and "vice presidents" and "offices of [insert politically correct noun]".

We don't have the aircraft carrier or the feelings while waiting for the helicopter to leave, of course. All we have to worry about is the whining of ourselves, our colleagues, and our students.

I didn't mean to disparage those who serve elsewhere in the US military. IMO I have no qualification for judging between the different parts or in defining what positions are more REMF-like (REMF-ish? REMPFy?). I might have something worthwhile to say about what kinds of military action constitute "national defense" and which constitute "the projection of imperial power" or other functions that warriors and soldiers perhaps should not be asked to serve.

But to judge those who fulfill the requests we make of them, I feel wholly incompetent. I tend to believe the ultimate responsibility for military action lies with civilians who vote and make policy (which is why it may need to be civilians who make the Nuremberg sort of decisions and why it was the decision of Truman to relieve MacArthur rather than the other way around). But save for those rare cases that rise to the level of Nuremberg or Pol Pot or Rwanda (or, perhaps, Calley and his superiors), I think there's a reason we have soldiers tried by courts-martial rather than civilian courts, a reason there is a separate Code of Military Justice. And the reason is that "we, the people" are not your peers. We do not know. We cannot know.

No, I did not mean to suggest one service was superior to the others, or even that I can judge your REMFs. That would be an insult to my father who enlisted in the Army Air Corps "for the duration" in 1941 and didn't get home until sometime in 1946, a person who, despite being what some might have/would have called a REMF (he kept the sheet metal parts of B-25s in working order in North Africa, Corsica, and, I think, Sicily), he managed to come home with a Bronze Star with "V".

(Through the day he died, he refused to say what he did to get it. And, when we tried to find out later, we discovered that all the records had been destroyed in a records depository fire in, I think, Kansas City.0

No, it's just that, for me, it's the Marines, like the legionnaires of Rome or the pikemen of Gustavus Adolphus, who define that honorable/essential character that distinguishes you (plural) from those of us who have been lifetime civilians.

But I don't claim the Marines are sufficient to provide for the common defense. Only that someone who does what they do is a substantial necessity.

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Just to clarify, a REMF to a US Marine Infantryman is any man or woman more than 50 yards behind him unwilling or unable to help when he is being personally shot at.

[wasntme]

That distance has been known to narrow to less than one yard behind that Infantryman.


WE hold that line. Mentally and physically when it gets real tough. You are not moving us. That REMF could be 1 ft. or 1000 miles behind. We MIGHT be able to keep him standing his ground, also. We are not moving. That is one of the differences, which borders on the inexplicable, because just because THEY all cut and run, we will not, unless ordered, period. You ought to see what that looks like in practice, as they didn't just take off for the hell of it, I'd submit. We don't move, at least I don't and nor have my men. We are all arrogant assholes, just like me, because all logic dictated that we should have, but here we stand, we held, and plan to, in the future.

It is a distance, but it is a mental one. We stand. The REMFS may or may not. They may refuse to accept the importance of it. "Hey man, this is not my fucking job, I didn't sign up for this bull shit", or somesuch.

Well, we did. Who we gonna bitch at... God? It ain't like they can send in the Marines to rescue our asses....

Not to mention those REMFS are in the rear with the gear and our chow and water, but it's just babble...