As I was driving up I-75 on the way to Perrysburg, I began to wonder why the Marine Corps has been so successful, both as a fighting force and as a Washington constituency. Some of it is doubtless attributable to the heroic deeds for which the Corps is famed: Belleau Wood, Tripoli, Guadalcanal, Khe Sanh. Some of it is thanks to the Corps’ legendary esprit de corps. Some is undoubtedly due to Marines’ genius for self-promotion, whether intentional or otherwise. After the battle for Okinawa, James Forrestal (Secretary of the Navy) is reputed to have said “The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five
hundred years”. [thanks to Michael Wellman for correcting my quote error!]
I think it’s more than that, though– I think the major portion of the Corps’ success has come from its focus. You don’t see Marines lobbying to be the lead agency for theater missile defense, like the Navy and Army. You don’t see them trying to take over strategic deterrence or control of space, like the Air Force. (Note to my blue-suited friends: the Air Force should own both of these missions, but the sight of zoomies back-stabbing the Navy is, shall we say, unseemly.) You don’t see mixed-gender basic training. The Marines focus on doing what they do: expeditionary combat, mixing infantry units with organic air and logistics. It’s worked well since 1775, although I admit that the Marines could learn some procurement lessons from the other services.
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