I walk by a car in a driveway with a bumper sticker “Semper Fi United States Marines.” The U.S. Marine Corps flag is also flying from the house. Obviously, there is a former or current U.S. Marine living there. I stand up a little taller when I walk by and even feel like saluting. I know the Marines are one of the branches of service in this country. My father was in the U.S. Army in World War II. Unfortunately, that is the extent of my knowledge about American armed forces. I have always heard that the toughest branch of service is the Marines e.g., toughest basic training, toughest drill instructors, toughest duty, etc. I have great respect for all branches of the U.S. military. The men and women put their lives on the line to protect us. There is no nobler calling. Let’s find out more about the history and culture of the U.S. Marines Corps.
History
Foundation and American Revolutionary War
According to Wikipedia, the United States Marine Corps traces its roots to the Continental Marines of the American Revolutionary War, formed by Captain Samuel Nicholas by a resolution of the Second Continental Congress on November 10, 1775, to raise two battalions of Marines. This date is celebrated as the birthday of the Marine Corps. Nicholas was nominated to lead the Marines by future president John Adams. By December of that year, Nicholas raised one battalion of 300 men by recruitment in his home city of Philadelphia.
In January 1776, the Marines went to sea under the command of Commodore Esek Hopkins, and in March undertook their first amphibious landing — the Battle of Nassau in the Bahamas — occupying the British port of Nassau for two weeks. On January 3, 1777, the Marines arrived at the Battle of Princeton attached to General John Cadwalader’s brigade, where they had been assigned by General George Washington. By December 1776 Washington was retreating through New Jersey and "in desperate need of veteran soldiers;" he ordered Nicholas and the Marines to attach themselves to the Continental Army. The Battle of Princeton — where the Marines along with General Cadwalader's Brigade were personally rallied by Washington — was the first land combat engagement of the Marines; an estimated 130 Marines were present at the battle.
At the end of the American Revolution, both the Continental Navy and Continental Marines were disbanded in April 1783. The institution itself would not be resurrected until July 11, 1798. At that time, in preparation for the Quasi-War with France, Congress created the United States Marine Corps. Marines had been enlisted by the War Department as early as August 1797 for service in the new-build frigates authorized by the Congressional "Act to Provide a Naval Armament" of March 18, 1794, which specified the numbers of Marines to recruit for each frigate.
The Marines' most famous action of this period occurred during the First Barbary War (1801–1805) against the Barbary pirates, when William Eaton and First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon led eight Marines and 500 mercenaries in an effort to capture Tripoli. Though they only reached Derna, the action at Tripoli has been immortalized in the Marines’ hymn and the Mameluke sword carried by Marine officers.
War of 1812 and afterward
During the War of 1812, Marine detachments on Navy ships took part in some of the great frigate duels that characterized the war, which were the first and last engagements of the conflict. Their most significant contribution, however, was holding the center of General Jackson's defensive line at the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, the final major battle and one of the most one-sided engagements of the war. With widespread news of the battle and the capture of HMSCyane, HMS Levant and HMS Penguin — the final engagements between British and U.S. forces — the Marines had gained a reputation as expert marksmen, especially in defensive and ship-to-ship actions. They played a large role in the 1813 defense of Sacket’s Harbor, New York and Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, also taking part in the 1814 defense of Plattsburgh in the Champlain Valley during one of the final British offensives along the Canadian American border.
After the war, the Marine Corps fell into a malaise that ended with the appointment of Archibald Henderson as its fifth Commandant in 1820. Under his tenure, the Corps took on expeditionary duties in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, Key West, West Africa, the Falkland Islands, and Sumatra. Commandant Henderson is credited with thwarting President Jackson's attempts to combine and integrate the Marine Corps with the Army. Instead, Congress passed the “Act for the Better Organization of the Marine Corps” in 1834, stipulating that the Corps was part of the Department of the Navy as a sister service to the Navy. This would be the first of many times that the independent existence of the Corps was challenged.
Commandant Henderson volunteered the Marines for service in the Seminole Wars of 1835, personally leading nearly half of the entire Corps — two battalions — to war. A decade later, in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), the Marines made their famed assault on Chapultepec Palace in Mexico City, which would be later celebrated as the "Halls of Montezuma" in the Marines' hymn. In fairness to the U.S. Army, most of the troops who made the final assault at the Halls of Montezuma were soldiers and not Marines. The Americans forces led by Army Gen. Winfield Scott. Scott organized two storming parties of about 250 men each for 500 men total, including 40 Marines.
In the 1850s, the Marines would see further service in Panama and Asia, attached to Matthew Perry’s East India Squadron on its historic trip to the Far East.
American Civil War to World War I
The Marine Corps played a small role in the Civil War (1861–1865); their most prominent task was blockade duty. As more and more states seceded from the Union, about a third of the Corps's officers left the United States to join the Confederacy and form the Confederate States Marine Corps, which ultimately played little part in the war. The battalion of recruits formed for the First Battle of Bull Run performed poorly, retreating with the rest of the Union forces. Blockade duty included sea-based amphibious operations to secure forward bases. In late November 1861, Marines and sailors landed a reconnaissance force from the USS Flag at Tybee Island, Georgia, to occupy the Lighthouse and Martello Tower on the northern end of the island. It would later be the Army base for bombardment of Fort Pulaski. In April and May 1862, Union Marines participated in the capture and occupation of New Orleans and the occupation of Baton Rouge, Louisiana — signal events in the war that helped secure Union control of the lower Mississippi River basin and denied the Confederacy a major port and naval base on the Gulf coast.
The remainder of the 19th century was marked by declining strength and introspection about the mission of the Marine Corps. The Navy's transition from sail to steam put into question the need for Marines on naval ships. Meanwhile, Marines served as a convenient resource for interventions and landings to protect American interests overseas. The Corps was involved in over 28 separate interventions in the 30 years from the end of the American Civil War to the end of 19th century. They would be called upon to stem political and labor unrest within the United States. Under Commandant Jacob Zeilin's tenure, Marine customs and traditions took shape: the Corps adopted the Marine Corps emblem on November 19, 1868. It was during this time that "The Marines’ Hymn" was first heard. Around 1883, the Marines adopted their current motto "Semper Fidelis" or “Always Faithful.”
John Philip Sousa, the musician and composer, enlisted as a Marine apprentice at the age of 13, serving from 1867 until 1872, and again from 1880 to 1892 as the leader of the Marine Band. During the Spanish-American War (1898), Marines led American forces ashore in the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico, demonstrating their readiness for deployment. At Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Marines seized an advanced naval base that remains in use today. Between 1899 and 1916, the Corps continued its record of participation in foreign expeditions, including the Philippine-American War, the Boxer Rebellion in China (1899–1901), Panama, the Cuban Pacifications, the Perdicaris incident in Morocco, Veracruz, Santo Domingo and the Banana Wars in Haiti and Nicaragua; the experiences gained in counterinsurgency and guerrilla operations during this period were consolidated into the “Small Wars Manual.”
World War I
During World War I Marines served as a part of the American Expeditionary Force under General Pershing when America entered into the war on April 6, 1917. The Marine Corps had a deep pool of officers and NCOs with battle experience and experienced a large expansion. During the war, the Marines — fighting on the Western Front in France — fought at the battle at Belleau Wood in mid-1918. Though the Marines and U.S. media reported that Germans had nicknamed them “Teufel Hunden,” meaning "Devil Dogs," for their reputation as shock troops and marksmen at ranges up to 900 meters, there is no evidence of this in German records. Nevertheless, the name stuck in U.S. Marine lore.
The U.S. Marine Corps entered the war with 511 officers and 13,214 enlisted personnel, and by November 11, 1918 had reached a strength of 2,400 officers and 70,000 enlisted. African-Americans were entirely excluded from the Marine Corps during this conflict. Opha May Johnson was the first woman to enlist in the Marines; she joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 1918 during World War I, officially becoming the first female Marine. From then until the end of World War I, 305 women enlisted in the Corps.
Between the World Wars, the Marine Corps was headed by Commandant John A. Lejeune and under his leadership, the Corps studied and developed amphibious techniques that would be of great use in World War II. Many officers — including Lieutenant Colonel Earl Hancock “Pete” Ellis — foresaw a war in the Pacific with Japan and undertook preparations for such a conflict. Through 1941, as the prospect of war grew, the Corps pushed urgently for joint amphibious exercises with the Army and acquired amphibious equipment that would prove of great use in the upcoming conflict.
World War II
In World War II, the Marines performed a central role in the Pacific War, along with the U.S. Army. The battles of Guadalcanal, Bougainvill, Tarawa, Guam, Tinian, Cape Gloucester, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa saw fierce fighting between Marines and the Imperial Japanse Army. Some 600,000 Americans served in the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II.
The Battle of Iwo Jima, which began on February 19, 1945, was arguably the most famous Marine engagement of the war. The Japanese had learned from their defeats in the Marianas Campaign and prepared many fortified positions on the island including pillboxes and network of tunnels. The Japanese put up fierce resistance, but American forces reached the summit of Mount Suribachi on February 23. The mission was accomplished with high losses of 26,000 American casualties and 22,000 Japanese.
The Marines played a comparatively minor role in the European theater. Nonetheless, they did continue to provide security detachments to U.S. embassies and ships, contributed personnel to small, special ops teams dropped into Nazi-occupied Europe as part of Office of Strategic Services — or OSS, precursor to the CIA — missions, and acted as staff planners and trainers for U.S. Army amphibious operations, including the Normandy landings.
By the end of the war, the Corps expanded from two brigades to six divisions, five air wings and supporting troops, totaling about 485,000 Marines. In addition, 20 defense battalions and a parachute battalion were raised. Nearly 87,000 Marines were casualties during World War II — including nearly 20,000 killed, and 82 were awarded the Medal of Honor.
In 1942, the Navy Seabees were created with the Marine Corps providing their organization and military training. Many Seabee units were issued the USMC standard issue and were re-designated "Marine." Despite the Corps's giving them their military organization, military training, issuing them uniforms and redesignating their units, the Seabees remained Navy. USMC historian Gordon L. Rottmann wrote that one of the "Navy's biggest contributions to the Marine Corps during WWII was the creation of the Seabees."
Despite Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal's prediction that the Marine flag-raising at Iwo Jima meant "a Marine Corps for the next 500 years," the Corps faced an immediate institutional crisis following the war due to a suddenly shrunken budget. Army generals pushing for a strengthened and reorganized defense establishment attempted to fold the Marine mission and assets into the Navy and Army. Drawing on hastily assembled Congressional support — and with the assistance of the so-called "Revolt of the Admirals" — the Marine Corps rebuffed such efforts to dismantle the Corps, resulting in statutory protection of the Marine Corps in the National Security Act of 1947.
Shortly afterward, in 1952 the Douglas-Mansfield Act afforded the Commandant an equal voice with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on matters relating to the Marines and established the structure of three active divisions and air wings that remain today.
Korean War
The Korean War (1950–1953) saw the hastily formed Provisional Marine Brigade holding the defensive line at the Pusan Perimeter. To execute a flanking maneuver, General Douglas MacArthur called on United Nations forces, including U.S. Marines, to make an amphibious landing at Inchon. The successful landing resulted in the collapse of North Korean lines and the pursuit of North Korean forces north near the Yalu River until the entrance of the People's Republic of China into the war. Chinese troops surrounded, surprised and overwhelmed the overextended and outnumbered American forces. The U.S. Army's X Corps — which included the 1st Marine Division and the Army's 7th Infantry Division — regrouped and inflicted heavy casualties during their fighting withdrawal to the coast, known as the Battle of Chosin Reservoir.
The fighting calmed after the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, but late in March 1953, the relative quiet of the war was broken when the People's Liberation Army launched a massive offensive on three outposts manned by the 5th Marine Regiment. These outposts were codenamed "Reno," "Vegas" and "Carson." The campaign was collectively known as the Nevada Cities Campaign. There was brutal fighting on Reno hill, which was eventually captured by the Chinese. Although Reno was lost, the 5th Marines held both Vegas and Carson through the rest of the campaign. In this one campaign, the Marines suffered approximately 1,000 casualties and might have suffered much more without the U.S. Army's Task Force Faith. Marines would continue a battle of attrition around the 38th Parallel until the 1953 armistice.
The Korean War saw the Corps expand from 75,000 regulars to a force of 261,000 Marines, mostly reservists. 30,544 Marines were killed or wounded during the war and 42 were awarded the Medal of Honor.
Vietnam War
The Marine Corps served in the Vietnam War taking part in such battles as the Battle of Hue and the Battle of Khe Sanh in 1968. Individuals from the USMC generally operated in the Northern I Corps Regions of South Vietnam. While there, they were constantly engaged in a guerrilla war against the VietCong, along with an intermittent conventional war against the North Vietnamese Army.
Portions of the Corps were responsible for the less-known Combined Action Program that implemented unconventional techniques for counterinsurgency and worked as military advisers to the Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps. Marines were withdrawn in 1971 and returned briefly in 1975 to evacuate Saigon and attempt a rescue of the crew of the SS Mayaguez.
Vietnam was the longest war up to that time for Marines; by its end, 13,091 had been killed in action, 51,392 had been wounded and 57 Medals of Honor had been awarded. Due to policies concerning rotation, more Marines were deployed for service during Vietnam than World War II.
While recovering from Vietnam, the Corps hit a detrimental low point in its service history caused by court martials and non-judicial punishments related partially to increased unauthoried absences and desertions during the war. Overhauling of the Corps began in the late 1970s, discharging the most delinquent, and once the quality of new recruits improved, the Corps focused on reforming the NCO Corps, a vital functioning part of its forces.
Clockwise from top left: Aftermath of the September 11 attacks; American infantry in Afghanistan; an American soldier and Afghan interpreter in Zabul Province, Afghanistan; explosion of an Iraqi car bomb in Baghdad
Global War on Terrorism
Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush announced the Global War on Terrorism. The stated objective of the Global War on Terror is "the defeat of Al-Qaeda, other terrorist groups and any nation that supports or harbors terrorists". Since then, the Marine Corps — alongside the other military services — has engaged in global operations around the world in support of that mission.
In spring 2009, President Barack Obama's goal of reducing spending in the Defense Department was led by Secretary Robert Gates in a series of budget cuts that did not significantly change the Corps's budget and programs, cutting only the VH-71 Kestrel and resetting the VXX program. However, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform singled out the Corps for the brunt of a series of recommended cuts in late 2010. In light of budget sequestration in 2013, General Amos set a goal of a force of 174,000 Marines. He testified that this was the minimum number that would allow for an effective response to even a single contingency operation, but it would reduce the peacetime ratio of time at home bases to time deployed down to a historical low level.
Afghanistan Campaign (Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan)
Marines and other American forces began staging in Pakistan and Uzbekistan on the border of Afghanistan as early as October 2001 in preparation for Operation Enduring Freedom. The 15th and 26th Marine Expeditionary Units were some of the first conventional forces into Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in November 2001. The Marines first entered Afghanistan after Army paratroopers secured their entry.
Since then, Marine battalions and squadrons have been rotating through, engaging Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces. Marines of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit flooded into the Taliban-held town of Garmsir on April 29, 2008, in Helmand Province, in the first major American operation in the region in years. In June 2009, 7,000 Marines with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade deployed to Afghanistan in an effort to improve security and began Operation Strike of the Sword the next month. In February 2010, the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade launched the largest offensive of the Afghan Campaign since 2001, the Battle of Marjah, to clear the Taliban from their key stronghold in Helmand Province. After Marjah, Marines progressed north up the Helmand River and cleared the towns of Kajahki and Sangin. Marines remained in Helmand Province until 2014.
Iraq Campaign (Operations Iraqi Freedom, New Dawn, Inherent Resolve)
U.S. Marines served in the Iraq War, along with its sister services. The I Marine Expeditionary Force — along with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division — spearheaded Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Marines left Iraq in the summer of 2003, but returned in the beginning of 2004. They were given responsibility for the Al Anbar Province, the large desert region to the west of Baghdad. During this occupation, the Marines lead assaults on the city of Fallujah in April (Operation Valiant Resolve) and November 2004 (Operation Phantom Fury) and saw intense fighting in such places as Ramadi, Al-Qa’im and Hīt. Their time in Iraq has courted controversy with the Haditha killings and the Hamdania incident. The Anbar Awakening and 2007 surge reduced levels of violence. The Marine Corps officially ended its role in Iraq on January 23, 2010 when they handed over responsibility for Al Anbar Province to the U.S. Army. U.S. Marines would ultimately return to Iraq in the summer of 2014, in response to growing violence there.
Throughout the Global War on Terrorism, the U.S. Marines have supported operations in Africa to counter Islamic extremism and piracy in the Red Sea. In late 2002, Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa was stood up at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti to provide regional security. Despite transferring overall command to the Navy in 2006, the Marines continued to operate in the Horn of Africa into 2007.
From left to right: A U.S. Marine in a Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform with full combat load circa late 2003, a U.S. Marine in a full blue dress uniform, a U.S. Marine officer in a service uniform and a U.S. Marine general in an evening dress uniform
Uniforms
The Marine Corps has the most stable and most recognizable uniforms in the American military; the dress blues dates back to the early 19th century and the service uniform to the early 20th century. Only a handful of skills — parachutist, air crew, explosive ordnance disposal, etc. — warrant distinguishing badges, and rank insignia is not worn on uniform headgear — with the exception of an officer's garrison service cover. While other servicemembers commonly identify with a subgroup as much or more than their service — ranger, submariner, aircrew, etc. — Marine uniforms do not reflect such division.
Marines have four main uniforms: dress, service, utility and physical training. These uniforms have a few minor, but very distinct, variations from enlisted personnel to commissioned and non-commissioned officers. The Marine Corps dress uniform is the most elaborate, worn for formal or ceremonial occasions. There are four different forms of the dress uniform. The variations of the dress uniforms are known as "Alphas," "Bravos,","Charlies" or "Deltas." The most common being the "Blue Dress Alphas or Bravos," called "dress blues" or simply "blues." It is most often seen in recruiting advertisements and is equivalent to black tie. There is a "blue-white" dress for summer, and evening dress for formal or white tie occasions. Versions with a khaki shirt in lieu of the coat — blue dress Charlie/Delta — are worn as a daily working uniform by Marine recruiters and NROTC staff.
The service uniform was once the prescribed daily work attire in garrison; however, it has been largely superseded in this role by the utility uniform. Consisting of olive green and khaki colors, it is commonly referred to as "greens." It is roughly equivalent in function and composition to a business suit.
The utility uniform — currently the Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform — is a camouflage uniform intended for wear in the field or for dirty work in garrison, though it has been standardized for regular duty. It is rendered in MARPAT pixelated camouflage that breaks up the wearer's shape. In garrison, the woodland and desert uniforms are worn depending on the Marine's duty station. Marines consider the utilities a working uniform and do not permit their wear off-base, except in transit to and from their place of duty and in the event of an emergency.
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