Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
I may be revealing a vast ignorance, but what is that picture at the bottom from?
“Apocalypse Now.” S’a movie, chere.
That is PBR Streetgang, if I’m not mistaken.
PBR Streetgang, I think.
You mean “Apocalypse Now” is a movie?!> Wow. I always thought it was a broadway musical…
Thanks for the info, though.
I know a bit about the characters/storyline, but I’ve never seen more than snippets of it. So, I didn’t recognize that scene.
Riverine warfare is a concept that is being heavily explored by the Navy. It turns out that something like 80% of the world’s population live by a water body accessible to the world’s oceans. If the U.S. Navy wants to extend power to these areas they must be able to field these kinds of crew.
As far as “staying in the boat” what? You think the Navy guys can’t fight with the same ferocity as the Marines or Army? Think again… your recent fencing experience might be useful…
Just like LCS, etc. more of a return to the “Sand Pebbles” Navy of the 1920′s…
Super-shoes get “CO” tours as JOs..all that. ooH-RA!
B2
My first Ops Boss, when I was but a wet behind the ears Ensign was LCDR Frank Mueller. He wore a purple heart with e “V.” He rarely discussed the incident, other than to say it was when he was first “in country” and he, as the OIC, decided they should go ashore and follow the enemy. The rest of the abbreviated story did not talk of bravery, of capturing VC, weapons and rice caches, but rather a blunt statement something like “Boy, was I ever stupid. I never did that again.” I surmised that he did what he set ashore to do, but it was not the element he was trained for, and deferred to the experts from then on.
Wow, what a typo. Frank had the Bronze Star with V, and…didn’t have a Purple Heart (even if he served a full tour in Vietnam, by the way).
More coffee please!
Did someone maintain a riverine patrol force in Panama until we left?
One area of debate ought to be why do we have an Air Force. Two hundred years of sucessful opperation of the Navy/Marine Corps team stands in stark contract to the Army’s lack of Air Power, or at least, lack of control over air power assets.
Don’t mess with my Air Force, hippy.
I’m in NO mood to be messed with today. Ask around. You’ll see.
The Army doesn’t need to maintain control over the Air Force’s assets- we’re doing just fine on our own, thank you.
Sounds like the Navy is trying to encroach on a Coast Guard mission.
Coast Guard……don’t think so.
There were lots of Coasties patroling the offshore waters of Vietnam. I believe it was the cutter Rush that assisted my old gunboat the Antelope in sinking a North Vietnamese trawler. There were any number of times that the Brownwater Navy types went ashore. There was one group of sailors where I was who had the job of planting some of McNamara’s Wall (sensors) along the infiltration routes. Hey, if you can train Marines to perform shipboard duty (and I have,) you can train a sailor to be a “slogger.”
AFSister,
The Air Force is a waste and needs to be folded into the Army where it belongs. One of the lessons of Vietnam, which we ignored, was the superiority of the Navy/Marine Corps team in supporting troops on the ground. An Army officer who needed air support would rely his request up his chain of command to the Air Force. The Air Force would then pass the request through its chain of command, piling an extra layer of bureaucracy on the process. A Marine would make the same request, but there was no bureaucracy, air support was controlled at the same level.
The Navy and Marine Corps are a team. The Army and the Air Force are competing branches. To the naval aviator providing air support to marines, he is aiding his brothers; to the Air Force pilot it is an abstraction. There is no mission which the Air Force does which the Department of the Navy does not do cheaper, faster and better. Our nation would be stronger if the Air Force was part of the Army.
74,
Functionally, Marines are Sailors with guns. Historically, there have been Marines associated with naval ships at least since the time of Henry VIII. As longs as there are warships at sea, there will be an need for sea-based infantry. Sure you could train a Marine to UNREP and a boatswain to lay out machine gun placements, but why? The establishment of the Fleet Marine Force in 1933 was a sound idea.
The reason that sometimes a Marine will be playing sailor and vice versa is that in the micro environment, sometimes you just don’t have the other guy handy. Sure, there is always a Marine detachment on a carrier, but not on a patrol boat (no room.) I had been using Marines in my radio shack because an early deployment left me extremely short of Radiomen billets that the Navy couldn’t fill on short order, and the Marines had some comm types on Okinawa that were in excess at the time. Sure, its not the perfect solution, but what is? Using a sailor who knows enough about fighting ashore to get the job done, is better than blowing an opportunity because the nearest Marine is too far away. In Vietnam, we didn’t usually have ground pounders aboard the PBRs. If people went ashore, it was for some temporary purpose like examining a weapons cache or looking for some intel. With only 4-5 men aboard, you sure weren’t looking for any fire fights.
I’m with you, brother. I’m thinking, in an actual fight? You play to your strengths…
Do they still keep out of print copies of the Landing Party Manual on ships, or have the directives to throw them all away finally had their effect?
If you want to go anywhere in modern war, in the air, on the sea, on the land, you must have command of the air.
Long live the Brown Water Navy
Tried
Tested
Proven
SBU 11