Thread: Interesting article about Marines and thier expansion

I am just passing this along as it was forwarded to me.

Marine Takeover of Johnson Valley exposed as Boondoggle by Associated Press Article

In an article published today in newspapers around the country, writer Robert Burns of the Associated Press quotes Marine Corp Commandant General James F. Amos stating that the future of the Marine Corps lies in a smaller, versatile sea-based fighting force based primarily around the Pacific, including bases in Okinawa and Australia; "....but not in Iraq or Afghanistan."

Since Marine representatives have repeatedly stated that the sole reason for the very expensive and widely criticized takeover of the Johnson Valley area is to prepare Marines for land-based battles in Iraq and Afghanistan, General Amos has confirmed that this proposed expansion is no longer necessary or even critical to the future of the Marine Corps.

Local residents and communities, including the thousands of yearly visitors to Johnson Valley, have been braced for severe financial hardships due to the proposed takeover. Now the Marines are called upon to withdraw their plans for Johnson Valley, following the lead of General Amos while saving the American taxpayer millions of dollars.

We call on everyone concerned by the proposed Marine expansion in Johnson Valley to let their local, state and federal politicians know that we support the Marines, and we support Marine Commandant John F. Amos' vision for a strong fighting force trained to protect our country. Distribute the Associated Press article to all your networks.

News from The Associated Press

Please for once let the Maines prepare for the "next" war (China) and not the last war (desert fighting). Win Win for us if they figure this out. Thanks for sharing Adam.

interesting read.

Losing battle! You cant talk common sense to these people they dont care. The only way to fix them is FORCE or MONEY! I think everyone might be a little low on both.

Very interesting

so is JV safe for now?

nope. they still want the land. article basically says our next fight wont be in the deserts but via the ocean... So why take the desert land....

they will flood it lol

make themselves an ocean

Originally Posted by hxckidd

nope. they still want the land. article basically says our next fight wont be in the deserts but via the ocean... So why take the desert land....

Well the Marine Corps has always trained to fight from ship. What the Commandant was talking about is we (Marine Corps) need to get back to our routes and our primary mission of why we exist. And that is conventional amphibious warfare. We have been so caught up in the war in Iraq and Afghan that Marines are forgetting the conventional side. So over the last 3 years they have been really pushing the training towards that. But at the same time 2004 Iraq was a big wake up to what we were lacking. That we did not focus enough on training for the unconventional fight. So this means even though I would deploy on a MEU (sit on ship with all my gear and travel around the world as a 911 force ready to fight) I am still going to train for the hearts and minds fight. Which means we need the big MOUT (military operations in urban terrain) towns but at the same time we need terrain to train for the conventional fight with maneuvering large units on a large enemy force. So....... the ground we gave up to build the two large towns and several smaller ones in Twentynine Palms. Well that gives us less ground to move large units on. Also they would like to be able to move a regiment size force which is 3 battalions of infantry. Right now we can only move two in the space we have. With training with a large maneuver force it does not matter about terrain. Desert, jungle, mountains, ect. Because that training is going to be more for the company commanders and up and the command and control centers. The good training for the platoon level will come at a different time in the training cycle for deployment. That's when we will do fire team, squad, platoon assault ranges. Bridgeport for mountain training. Go off the coast of Pendleton and take beaches or objectives feather inland. Go to Twentynine Palms and get desert training. But this is all done in the first like 2/3's of the train cycle. Then the higher have to train and we do a big Twentynine Palms package. Anyways I kind of rambled on. Maybe that cleared something up some. If anybody has any questions feel free to ask me. But the short answer to what was said is that the Marine Corps needs to stop focusing 95% of its training to the unconventional Iraq/Afghan fight and go back to its routes and train with ships. Do more of a 50/50.