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By Bing West

Following 9/11, a bit of wreckage from the Twin Towers was buried at the American embassy in Kabul, with the inscription: “Never Again.” Now Again has come.  On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Taliban flag will fly over the abandoned American embassy and al-Qaeda will be operating inside Afghanistan. Fifty years from now, Americans will stare in sad disbelief at the photo of an American Marine plucking a baby to safety over barbed wire at Kabul airport. What a shameful, wretched way to quit a war.

The root cause was extreme partisanship in Congress. By default, this bequeathed to the presidency the powers of a medieval king. The Afghanistan tragedy unfolded in four phases, culminating in the whimsy of one man consigning millions to misery.

Phase One. 2001–2007. After 9/11, America unleashed a swift aerial blitzkrieg that shattered the Taliban forces. Inside three months, al-Qaeda’s core unit was trapped inside the Tora Bora caves in the snowbound Speen Ghar mountains. A force of American Marines and multinational special forces commanded by Brigadier General James Mattis (later secretary of defense) was poised to cut off the mountain passes and systematically destroy al-Qaeda. Instead, General Tommy Franks, the overall commander, sent in the undisciplined troops of Afghan warlords, who allowed al-Qaeda to escape into Pakistan. Thus was lost the golden opportunity to win a fast, decisive war and leave.

Acting upon his Evangelical beliefs, President George W. Bush then made the fateful decision to change the mission from killing terrorists to creating a democratic nation comprising 40 million mostly illiterate tribesmen. Nation-building was a White House decision made without gaining true congressional commitment. Worse, there was no strategy specifying the time horizon, resources, and security measures. This off-handed smugness was expressed by Vice President Dick Cheney early in 2002 when he remarked, “The Taliban is out of business, permanently.”

On the assumption that there was no threat, a scant 5,000 Afghan soldiers were trained each year. But the fractured Taliban could not be tracked down and defeated in detail because their sponsor, Pakistan, was sheltering them. Pakistan was also providing the U.S.–NATO supply line into landlocked Afghanistan, thus limiting our leverage to object to the sanctuary extended to the Taliban.

In 2003, the Bush administration, concerned about the threat of Saddam’s presumed weapons of mass destruction, invaded Iraq. This sparked a bitter insurgency, provoked by Islamist terrorists, that required heavy U.S. military resources. Iraq stabilized in 2007, but by that time the Taliban had regrouped inside Pakistan and were attacking in eastern Afghanistan, where the dominant tribe was Pashtun, their own.

Phase Two. 2008–2013. For years, the Democratic leadership had been battering the Republicans about the Iraq War, claiming that it was unnecessary. By default, Afghanistan became the “right war” for the Democrats. Once elected, President Obama, who said that Afghanistan was the war we could not afford to lose, had no way out. With manifest reluctance, in 2010 he ordered a “surge” of 30,000 U.S. troops, bringing the total to 100,000 U.S. soldiers plus 30,000 allied soldiers. The goal was to implement a counterinsurgency strategy, yet Obama pledged to begin withdrawing troops in 2011, an impossibly short time frame.

The strategy aimed to clear villages of the Taliban, then leave Afghan soldiers — askaris — to hold them and to build infrastructure and governance linked to the Kabul central government. In a 2011 book titled “The Wrong War,” I described why this strategy could not succeed. In Vietnam, I had served in a combined-action platoon of 15 Marines and 40 local Vietnamese. It had taken 385 days of constant patrolling to bring security to one village of 5,000. In Afghanistan, there were 7,000 Pashtun villages to be cleared by fewer than a thousand U.S. platoons, an insurmountable mismatch. Counterinsurgency would have required dedicated troops inserted for years. President Obama offered a political gesture, not a credible strategy.

Admiral James Stavridis was the supreme Allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during the surge period. He recently wrote, “We trained the wrong kind of army for Afghanistan. . . . A decade ago, we debated all this at senior levels but kept coming back to a firmly held belief that we could succeed best by modeling what we knew and found comfortable: ducks like ducks, in the end.” According to the admiral, our top command knew they were creating “the wrong kind of army.” Yet they did so regardless.

My experience was different. In trips to Afghanistan over ten years, I embedded with dozens of U.S. platoons. When accompanying our grunts, the askaris did indeed fight. But ten years later, it remains a mystery to me why our generals refused to acknowledge what our grunts knew: namely, that the Afghan soldiers would not hold the villages once our troops left.

This wasn’t due to the structure of their army. The fault went deeper. The askaris lacked faith in the steadfastness of their own chain of command. Afghan president Hamid Karzai reigned erratically from 2004 through 2014, ranting against the American government while treating the Taliban with deference. His successor, Ashraf Ghani, a technocrat devoid of leadership skills, antagonized both his political partners and tribal chieftains. Neither man instituted promotion based upon merit or imbued confidence in the security forces. Familial and tribal patronage pervaded.

From the Kabul capital to province to district, from an Afghan general to a lieutenant, positions and rank depended upon paying bribes upward and extorting payments downward. We were caught on the horns of a dilemma caused by our political philosophy. Because we wanted to create a democracy, we chose not to impose slates of our preferred leaders. On the other hand, the askaris had no faith in the durability or tenacity of their own chain of command.

In contrast, the Taliban promoted upward from the subtribes in the different provinces. While decentralized, they were united in a blazing belief in their Islamist cause and encouraged by Pakistan. The Afghan army and district, provincial, and Kabul officials lacked a comparable spirit and vision of victory.

Phase Three. 2014–2020. From 2001 to 2013, one group of generals — many of them household names — held sway in the corridors of power, convinced they could succeed in counterinsurgency and nation-building. That effort, while laudable, failed.

But that did not mean that a Taliban victory was inevitable. Quite the opposite. A second group of generals came forward, beginning with General Joseph Dunford. The mission changed from counterinsurgency to supporting the Afghan army with intelligence, air assets, and trainers. President Obama lowered expectations about the end state, saying Afghanistan was “not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again.” U.S. troop strength dropped from 100,000 in 2011 to 16,000 in 2014. With the exception of Special Forces raids, we were not in ground combat, so there were few American casualties.

Battlefield tactics shifted to what the Afghan army could do: play defense and prevent the Taliban from consolidating. By 2018, U.S. troop strength was lower than 10,000. Nonetheless, General Scott Miller orchestrated an effective campaign to keep control of Afghanistan’s cities. Afghan soldiers, not Americans or allies, did the fighting and dying. The last U.S. combat death occurred in February of 2020.

Nevertheless, narcissistic President Trump, desperate to leave, promised the Taliban that America would depart by mid 2021. He cut the number of American troops in country to 2,500. With those few troops, General Miller nonetheless held the line. The U.S. military presence, albeit tiny, motivated the beleaguered Afghan soldiers. When the Taliban massed to hit the defenses of a city, the askaris defended their positions and the U.S. air pounced on targets. In addition, our presence provided a massive spy network and electronic listening post in central Asia, able to monitor Russia, China, Pakistan, and Iran. At a cost of no American lives and 5 percent of the defense budget, Afghanistan had reached a stalemate sustainable indefinitely at modest cost.

Phase Four. Bug-out in 2021. President Biden broke that stalemate in April of 2021, when he surprised our allies and delighted the Taliban by declaring that all U.S. troops would leave by 9/11, a singularly inappropriate date. As our military packed up, the miasma of abandonment settled into the Afghan psyche. In early July, our military sneaked away from Bagram Air Base in the middle of the night, which triggered a cascading collapse. Once Afghan units across the country grasped that they were being abandoned, they dissolved. What followed was a chaotic evacuation from the Kabul airport, with the Taliban triumphantly entering the city.

Asked why he had pulled out entirely, President Biden said, “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point, with al-Qaeda gone?” That stunning fabrication was a denial of reality: Al-Qaeda are commingled with the Taliban in Kabul. As the world watched, America had to rely upon Taliban forbearance to flee. President Biden had handed America a crushing defeat without precedent.

President Biden has claimed that the ongoing evacuation occurred because the Afghan army ran away instead of fighting. In truth, the Afghan soldiers did fight, suffering 60,000 killed in the war. Their talisman was the American military. No matter how tough the conditions, somehow an American voice crackled over the radio, followed by thunder from the air. Those few Americans were the steel rods in the concrete. When that steel was pulled out, the concrete crumbled. The spirit of the Afghan army was broken.

During the month following the abandonment of Bagram Air Base, the Pentagon remained passive. In contrast, a month before the abrupt fall of Saigon in 1975, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger was concerned about the North Vietnamese advances. As a former grunt in Vietnam, I was his special assistant during that turbulent time. He in­formed State and the White House that he was ordering an air evacuation; 50,000 Vietnamese were rescued before Saigon fell. In the case of Kabul, the Pentagon took no such preemptive action.

Worse, selecting which Afghans can fly to safety has been left to State Department bureaucrats, although State has an abysmal ten-year record, with 18,000 applicants stuck in the queue. Each day approximately 7,000 undocumented immigrants walk into America; about 2,000 Afghans are flown out daily from Kabul. In the midst of an epic foreign-policy catastrophe, the priorities of the Biden administration remain driven by domestic politics and constipated bureaucratic processes.

What comes after the botched evacuation finally ends?

• A course correction inside the Pentagon is sorely needed. Our military reputation has been gravely diminished. The 1 percent of American youths who volunteer to serve are heavily influenced by their families. About 70 percent of service members have a relative who served before them. The Afghanistan War spanned an entire generation. What they took away from this defeat will be communicated from father to son, from aunt to niece.

To avoid alienating this small warrior class, the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs must put aside their obsession with alleged racism and diversity in the ranks. Former secretary of defense Mattis said that lethality must be the lodestone of our military. Sooner or later in the next six months, we will be challenged. Instead of again waiting passively for instructions, the Pentagon should recommend swift, decisive action.

• President Biden’s image as a foreign-policy expert is indelibly tarnished. As vice president in 2011, he vigorously supported the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. Three years later, U.S. troops were rushed back in to prevent Iraq from falling to the radical Islamists. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote at the time, “he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign-policy and national-security issue over the past four decades.”

President Biden bragged that under his leadership, America was “back.” Instead, while denying that our allies were upset with his performance, he has destroyed his credibility. Per­haps there will be changes in his foreign-policy team, but President Biden himself will not be trusted by our allies as a reliable steward.

• In his Farewell Address, Washington wrote, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.”

As Washington warned, due to extreme partisanship, the American presidency has accumulated the powers of a king or a despot. In matters of war, over the past several decades one party in Congress or the other has gone along with whatever the president decided. This tilts power decisively in favor of the White House. Congress has abdicated from providing either oversight or a broad base of public support. The White House as an institution has become regal and aloof — the opposite of the intention of the Founding Fathers.

Afghanistan, from start to finish, was a White House war, subject to the whims and political instincts of our president. The result was an erraticism that drove out strategic consistency and perseverance. A confident President Bush invaded Afghanistan, blithely expanded the mission, and steered a haphazard course from 2001 through 2007. Presidents Obama and Trump were overtly cynical, surging (2010–2013) and reducing (2014–2020) forces while always seeking a way out divorced from any strategic goal. President Biden (2021) was a solipsistic pessimist who ignored the calamitous consequences and quit because that had been his emotional instinct for a decade.

• Our Vietnam veterans were proud of their service. The same is true of our Afghanistan veterans. In both wars, they carried out their duty, correctly believing their cause was noble. After nation-building was designated a military mission, our troops both fought the Taliban enemy and improved life for millions of Afghans. With the Taliban now the victors, it hurts to lose the war, especially when the decision rested entirely with one man.

Who are we as a country? Who will fight for us the next time?

This article appears as “Who Will Trust Us the Next Time?” in the September 13, 2021, print edition of National Review.

Francis J. “Bing” West, Jr. (b. 1940) is an American author, Marine Corps combat veteran, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs) during the Reagan Administration.

West writes about the military, warfighting, and counterinsurgency.  In the Vietnam War, he fought in major operations and conducted over a hundred combat patrols in 1966–1968.  He wrote the Marine Corps training manual Small Unit Action in Vietnam, describing how to fight in close combat.  As an analyst at the RAND Corporation, he wrote a half dozen detailed monographs about fighting against an insurgency.  Later, as Assistant Secretary of Defense, he dealt with the insurgencies in El Salvador.  From 2003 – 2008, he made sixteen extended trips to Iraq, going on patrols and writing three books and numerous articles about the war.  From 2007 through 2011, he made numerous trips to embed with U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan.

We previously discovered only a few similarities between the Special Naval Landing Force of World War II — and U. S. Marines.  In modern times, Japanese amphibious forces still aren’t called marines, but they have taken on the unique missions assigned to marines, and to achieve this capability, one element of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) is training alongside the United States Marines.  It is called the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB) of the JGSDF (the Japanese Army).

Today, Japan only has one military department called the Japanese Self-Defense Force (JSDF).  Within this department are Japan’s three major defense organizations.  They are the Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF), Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), and Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF).

The ARDB (in Japanese, Sui-riku-ki-do-dan) (also, 水陸機動団) is an army amphibious brigade posted adjacent to the JMSDF Base at Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture.  The genesis of the ARDB was tensions between China and Japan that occurred when the Chinese illegally occupied Japanese territory and established a coast guard station there.  Known as the Senkaku Islands Incident, the Japanese government created a rapid deployment special operation force manned, armed, and trained to respond to all such encroachments.

Whatever the Chinese did at Senkaku, they did it with full intention.  Perhaps it was a stratagem to test Japan’s resolve in defending Japanese territory.  Such “tests” are a regular component of China’s regional strategy.  It is an untoward behavior displayed along coastal Vietnam, the South China Sea, the Gulf of Tonkin, and the waters surrounding the Philippine Islands.

In committing to defend its territory, the Japanese government expanded the JSDF by creating a rapid deployment brigade as a special operations-capable organization.  Authorized by the Defense Programs and Self-Defense Budget, the Brigade formed after war planners studied the various tables of organization of the U. S. Marine Corps.

Long before the brigade was officially approved and organized, JGSDF provided army units to the U.S. Marine Corps for essential training and reorganization.  These were usually platoon and company-size units that trained within and alongside regular Marine light infantry units.  The Japanese units excelled during joint exercises Iron Fist and Dawn Blitz.

Such training exercises continued in 2014 as part of the so-called Rim of the Pacific Exercises and numerous other (smaller) exercises where members of the JGSDF trained alongside U. S. Marines on mainland Japan, Okinawa, and California.

The Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade was activated on April 7, 2018 — Japan’s first amphibious (landing force) organization since World War II.  A short time later, 150 Japanese troops of the ARDB deployed with American and Filipino Marines.  This instance marked the first time since World War II that Japanese amphibious vehicles operated on foreign shores.

The Brigade also dispatched 300 troops to participate in Exercise Talisman Saber in July 2019 in Queensland, Australia, where they joined with Australian, American, and British Marines.  It was during this exercise that the ARDB suffered its first training death: Sergeant First Class Suguru Maehara was tragically killed in a vehicle accident.  On March 10, 2021, 55 Japanese recruits passed the training qualification course for the ARDB.  Two of these recruits were female, the brigade’s first such candidates.

Although the brigade organization reflects subordinate “regiments,” they are actually battalion-sized units suitable for task-organized missions.  A third “regiment” was added to the Brigade in 2023, now based on Kyushu Island, the southernmost of Japan’s main islands. Looking to the future, one key component of brigade operations will include an air support component based at Saga Airfield, sixty miles away from the main navy base at Sasebo.  The air component will eventually consist of 17 V-22 Tiltrotor aircraft and 50 Black Hawk and Apache Longbow helicopters.  The air squadron will join the Kyushu-based regiment in 2025.

One of the best Marine Corps recruiters I ever met was a First Sergeant named Kelly.  He was assigned to the Recruiting Station, Baltimore – probably one of the worst cities for military recruitment anyone could imagine, particularly during one of America’s least popular wars: Vietnam.  And yet, First Sergeant Kelly met his enlistment quota month after month, year after year.

It helped that First Sergeant Kelly presented a dashing figure with large medals in his full-dress blue uniform.  It also helped that Kelly had more than a few combat decorations dating back to the Korean War.  But I do not doubt that what pushed Kelly to the top of the woodpile in the recruiting service was his candor and his honesty.  He always got invited to speak at various community gatherings – where he had an opportunity to speak for the Marine Corps.

”He told people at these gatherings:“The Marine Corps is a combat arm.  Winning battles is what Marines do for a living.  We offer the finest training in the entire world.  No other man or woman in uniform is as well trained as a United States Marine.  After initial recruit training, all Marines attend infantry training – because every Marine is a rifleman.  After that, all Marines attend occupational specialty training.  No other service does as good a job as the Marines in preparing young men and women for combat.  Not everyone survives in combat, of course – but at least in the Marines, your sons and daughters stand a better-than-average chance because our training is the toughest in the world.”

First Sergeant Kelly was right, and that’s the way it has always been with Marines.  Sweating in peacetime is how Marines avoid bloodshed in combat.

The United States had, since the end of the Revolutionary War, followed Great Britain’s aversion to standing armies.  To pay for an under-used army was always abhorrent to the British and American governments.  More than this, early British and American citizens saw the maintenance of a standing army as a government threat. In the United States, if there were to be a war, the president would have to convince Congress to declare war, and only then would the Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy receive authorization to increase their services to “wartime strength.” The mistake of this long-held system became apparent in 1898 when the United States declared war on Spain, and there was no one to send – except the Navy and Marine Corps.  

Troubles with European powers in Central and South America had been brewing for a long time, and one Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, believed that the time had come to make an example of these meddling European powers.  At the time, Spain had an abysmal human rights record, treating their “subjects” as chattel and viciously suppressing every attempt the people made to break free of Spanish tyranny.  Some influential Americans felt so strongly about Spain’s human rights abuses that they worked behind the scenes to start a war so that the matter of human rights could finally be resolved.

When war with Spain was finally declared, the total U.S. Army consisted of regiments detailed to fight American Indians, posts designed to train Army recruits and offer mid-level career training and personnel to serve the interests of the Army’s growing bureaucracies – that is, within the War Department and in the headquarters element of the U.S. Army.

On the other hand, the Navy had been creating and defending overseas (advanced) naval bases since around 1870.  In those days, the Navy’s capital ships had regularly detailed Marine Corps detachments.  Their sole mission was to maintain good order and discipline on the Navy’s ships of the line, conduct sea-to-shore operations according to the demands of the fleet commander, and provide security for naval bases at home and abroad.  No one conducted amphibious operations better than the U.S. Marines.

So, when the United States declared war on Spain, the Navy and Marine Corps were ready to invade the Spanish province of Cuba.  The Army, however, could not commence combat operations until they first had an army large enough to attack a sophisticated enemy force.  In a nutshell, the U.S. Army had first to determine which of their senior officers would be in charge.  They had to recruit an army, clothe, arm, train it, and then find some way to get those troops, all of their cannon, wagons, horses, food, ammunition, and medical stores from San Antonio, Texas, to Cuba.

Once there, the Army had to figure out how to remove their men, wagons, ammunition, food stores, horses, and forage from ships into the surf and get them safely ashore.  Granted, none of these things were easy tasks.  By the time the Army figured it out, the Navy and Marines had already seized Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, severed all communications between Cuba and Spain, and captured or sunk half of the Spanish Navy’s ships operating in and around Cuba.

Unfortunately, the Army’s intransigence and ingrained bureaucracy learned no lessons from the Spanish-American War.  In 1916, when it became apparent that the U.S. would become involved in The Great War of 1914, the Army was still “unprepared” for combat.  In contrast, the Marine Corps was ready for combat but not organized for land warfare.  Land warfare is the Army’s mission, and it would take some time before the Marines were allowed to participate in the European war.

But first – the Marines would have to increase their size dramatically: the Marines would need more officers, and they would need more privates.

Finding Officers

The outbreak of war made it essential that the Marine Corps commission (to officer status) men who had prior military service (when practicable).  The first resource, of course, were Marine Corps Warrant Officers, Noncommissioned Officers, graduates of military colleges, and civilians with prior military service and training.  After the United States declared war, the Marine Corps initiated policies to identify and commission men for temporary and permanent service as officers.  Two men were Corporal John A. Hughes (Medal of Honor) and Private Lewis B. Puller (five Navy Cross medals).  Commissions were offered to six graduates of the Naval Academy, two former Marine Corps officers, 89 Warrant Officers, 122 NCOs, 36 Reserve officers, and National Naval Volunteers, 284 graduates from military colleges, 136 prior service civilians, and 86 civilian volunteers who could pass a competitive entrance examination.

To expedite the training of new officers, HQMC took advantage of the law providing for a Marine Corps Reserve.  Successful reserve candidates were “enrolled” as second lieutenants of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and ordered to Marine Corps posts for instruction pending the formal issuance of a regular officer’s commission.  Individuals who applied to take the entrance examination were enrolled as privates in the Marine Corps Reserve.  These men were informed that should they pass their tests, they would be sent to Parris Island, South Carolina, for training, pending receipt of their commissions as second lieutenants.  Individuals who did not pass their officer’s examination could continue as enlisted men or accept discharge from the service.

The Marine Corps was pleased by the number of exceptionally qualified applicants for an officer’s commission.  The number was sufficient for the Marine Corps to stop recruiting from the civilian population.  The Commandant of the Marine Corps decided that all requirements for officers not required for graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy would be filled by the advancement of exceptionally qualified Marine Corps NCOs.

”The Marine Corps ordered those men appointed as officers from civilian life to report to the Marine Barracks at Mare Island, California; San Diego, California; Parris Island, South Carolina; and the Marine Corps rifle range at Winthrop, Maryland, for training.  At the time, the Marine Corps Base at Quantico, Virginia, was still under construction.  After July 1917, all newly appointed officers attended““Officer Basic Training” at Quantico.“The Marine Corps ordered those men appointed as officers from civilian life to report to the Marine Barracks at Mare Island, California; San Diego, California; Parris Island, South Carolina; and the Marine Corps rifle range at Winthrop, Maryland, for training.  At the time, the Marine Corps Base at Quantico, Virginia, was still under construction.  After July 1917, all newly appointed officers attended “Officer Basic Training” at Quantico.

Additionally, in carrying out the policy of obtaining officers from the ranks, HQMC directed all Commanding Officers to nominate their best men to attend an officer training camp.  To achieve this, Commanding Officers convened a board of three officers to examine the nominee’s qualifications and report, by order of merit, the names of those who were qualified for final screening at Quantico, Virginia.  Of around 1,200 candidates, six hundred enlisted men were selected to attend officer screening and training at Quantico.

At Quantico, the Marine Corps organized all officer candidates into training companies.  An officer serving as Major commanded them as Chief Instructor.  All candidates were instructed in infantry drill regulations, interior guard duty, bayonet training, bombing, minor tactics, field engineering, topography, administration and military law, chemical warfare, responsibility at sea, and rifle and pistol marksmanship training.  It was an intense period of training and highly competitive.  The training was conducted so that if a candidate was successful, it was because he had within him what it takes to become a good combat officer.  Only a few of these former enlisted men failed to meet the test of the candidate screening course.  The total number of former enlisted men who received commissions in July and August 1918 was 555.

Between August and December 1918, a second class graduated an additional 604 newly commissioned provisional second lieutenants of the Marine Corps Reserve with temporary commissions to second lieutenant of the regular Marine Corps.  Note: some of these men were further trained for aviation duty.

The Army Training Corps

By an Act of Congress in August 1918, a provision was made for a Student Army Training Corps (forerunner of the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps).  Within two weeks, the Secretary of War directed the Provost Marshal General of the Army to allocate 1,500 registrants to the Marine Corps – so that the Marines could access college-educated young men interested in serving as military officers.  With the approval of the Secretary of the Navy, HQMC identified twelve universities from which these candidates would be drawn.  A seasoned officer was dispatched to each university to supervise the Army Training Corps Marine section’s administration, instruction, and discipline.

Originally, HQMC intended that some of these students serve as aviators upon graduation and receipt of their commission.  Additionally, after completing the Student Army Training Corps, Marine officer candidates would receive additional training at Parris Island, South Carolina.  The Commandant of the Marine Corps viewed this additional training as necessary to properly introduce them to Marine Corps culture, imbue them with esprit-de-corps, and lay the foundation upon which martial exceptionalism would become their performance standard.  That was the plan.  Nothing of this transpired in 1918 because the war concluded on 11 November, and the Student Army Training Corps was shut down shortly after that.

Training Enlisted Marines

The Marine Corps system of training enlisted personnel during World War I was thorough and excellent in every respect.  The result of this training was that the Marines proved themselves time and again well suited to the arduous tasks and duty of defending the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Following the outbreak of war in 1917, the Marine Corps temporarily opened recruit depots at the Navy yards in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Norfolk, Virginia.  These were used until regular recruit training facilities could come online at Parris Island, South Carolina, and Mare Island, California.  Recruit depots were soon enlarged in both size and scope to deal with the massive increase in the overall size of the U.S. Marine Corps.  Marine Corps recruits received eight weeks of intense training at the beginning of the war.  Between April 1917 and November 1918, Parris Island trained 46,000 recruits; Mare Island trained an additional 11,000.

Recruit training was only part of what went on at these facilities.  Between 1917 and 1918, the depots graduated 2,144 Marines from NCO School and 1,164 Marines from Field Music School, Radio School, and Signals School.

After graduating from boot camp, Marines proceeded directly to Quantico, Virginia, where they received advanced, highly intensive training in the combat arms.  Every Marine was drilled into becoming a crack shot with his service rifle – which the Germans noticed almost immediately when they came into contact with the Marines for the first time.  The fact was that Marine rifle fire was so deadly that German commanders moved their trench positions further away from those of the American Marines.

Quantico was also home to the Overseas Depot, a training facility devoted to final pre-deployment re-organization.  Initially, the Overseas Depot could have been more efficient because, traditionally, the Marines organized their regiments as numbered companies.  The Army’s organization for land warfare was far more efficient – they fielded regiments of three battalions, each battalion consisting of four to six companies.  Before the Army would allow the Marines to fight in France, the Marines had to reorganize their regiments to conform to the Army system.  Marine infantry regiments are essentially organized in this manner to this day.

While at Quantico, Marine trainers used rifle platoons as principal training units.  Noncommissioned officers became specialist weapons, logistics, and tactics instructors within these platoons.  This meant platoon commanders, the lieutenants, had to know as much as their NCOs.  After training, these platoons were formed within a rifle company, over them, a company command structure consisting of administrators, logisticians, communicators, a first sergeant, an executive officer, and the officer commanding.

Once the companies were trained, they became part of newly formed battalions, which became part of regiments.  In essence, individual Marines leaving boot camp received at least eight but probably as many as twelve additional weeks of training at Quantico.  Consequently, the men were proficient, highly motivated, and well-disciplined.  As much as such a thing is possible, these young Marines were ready for combat.

The Overseas Depot was responsible for organizing the following units: Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Separate Battalions; Gun Battalion; Second and Third Separate Machine Gun Battalion; Eleventh and Thirteenth Regiments.  In total, 16,000 officers and enlisted men.  The schools of instruction at Quantico also included Officers School, hand-to-hand/bayonet training, hand grenades, chemical warfare, and defense, employment of automatic rifles and machine guns, scouting and sniper training, mine laying/mine clearing, and sapper training.

On 27 June 1917, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines (1/5) landed in France.  Within a few days, the entire regiment was under canvas on French soil.  From 3 July, every effort was made to further prepare the regiment for combat.  Between 15 July and the end of September, elements of the regiment engaged in pre-combat training with the U.S. First Infantry Division, AEF.  Until February 1918, the training of Marines in France was handicapped because the AEF had assigned them to logistical functions.  It wasn’t until March 1918 that the Fourth Marine Brigade began conducting training as a brigade.  The individual Marines were well-trained and highly motivated, but Marine units needed to learn how to fight as battalions within regiments and regiments within a combat brigade.

The Marine Brigade

The Fourth Brigade of United States Marines comprised the Fifth and Sixth Regiments of Marines and the Sixth Machine Gun Battalion of Marines.

The Marine Brigade was formed on 10 March 1918.  Along with a forming Army Brigade, the organization of the U.S. Second Infantry Division was complete, and Major General Omar Bundy, U.S. Army, assumed command.  Within a short time, the Second Division began moving toward the Toulon Sector southeast of Verdun.  This was where the Second Division became part of the X Corps of the Second French Army.

On the 17th of March, the 5th Marines replaced a French unit at Montgirmont.  Later, additional Marine and Army units began moving into frontline positions as much-battered French forces withdrew for employment around Amiens.  The U.S. Second Infantry Division was assigned to hold a front previously held by two French infantry divisions.

After repulsing a German attack on 6 April, the 74th Company (redesignated Company A, 1/6) incurred heavy casualties when the Germans launched a gas attack against Marine positions.  On 20 April, the 84th Company (redesignated Company L, 3/6) successfully repulsed two German assaults.  Second Lieutenant Edward B. Hope was cited for extraordinary heroism, the first of 1,633 other Marines similarly recognized.

On 9 May, Army Brigadier General J. G. Harbord assumed command of the Marine Brigade when Marine Brigadier General Charles A. Doyen (pictured right) was returned to the United States with the Spanish Influenza.  Under Harbord, Marines were rushed to a defensive location outside Paris on 18 May to counter a German thrust.  Before the end of the month, the Germans launched a surprise attack at Chemin de Dames (near Reims), threatening Chateau-Thierry east of Paris.

On 30 May 1918, the U.S. Second Infantry Division began moving to check the German advance. Initially, the Division’s lead elements, the U.S. 9th Infantry and 5th Marines, were spread out across the entire rear of the withdrawing XXI French Corps.  As the 6th Marines and the 23rd Infantry came online, they were filtered into the thinly held Allied line that extended eleven miles long.  Their orders were “No retirement will be thought of on any pretext whatsoever.”

Most French units had withdrawn by 4 June, their replacements helping to shorten the American perimeter to around 9,000 yards.  The Germans received their first lesson about Marine Corps rifle marksmanship as they approached the Marine front. American Marines earned their nickname“Devil Dogs” from the Germans in World War I at the Battle of Belleau Wood.  Marines were using the 1903 Springfield Rifle with such effective marksmanship that they decimated German troops from distances exceeding 800 yards.

According to the Defense Casualty Analysis Office, American forces serving in Europe during World War I included 4.7 million men.  There were, in total, 116,516 deaths, 53,402 of which were due to battle, 63,114 involved illness (including Influenza). The number of wounded in action was 204,002.

Regarding service affiliation, 4 million men served in the U.S. Army.  Army battle deaths numbered 50,510, with 193,663 wounded in action.  Navy personnel numbered 599,051.  Navy battle deaths were 431 killed in action, 6,856 died because of non-combat injury or illness, with 819 sailors wounded in action.  The total of Marines serving in Europe was 78,839.  Of those, 2,461 were killed in action, 390 died of disease, and 9,520 were wounded in action.

HQMC realized early on in the conflict that the Brigade would take casualties, and it would be up to the stateside command to replace them.  No sooner had the 5th and 6th Regiments departed for France than Marine headquarters began thinking about replacement drafts.  It was a wise decision because then the Marines finally went into action, they took a significant number of casualties.

In the rush to replace those casualties, Marine Corps replacements received little “additional” training beyond their initial boot camp and none in France.  There simply wasn’t time. Nevertheless, our history reflects that in June 1918, U.S. Marines distinguished themselves during The Battle of Belleau Wood (an earlier essay presented in three parts). The American press picked up on this battle and the tenacious fighting ability of the Marine Brigade. It was probably the first time in history that most Americans knew there was a U.S. Marine Corps.

JOURNAL OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
(Philadelphia) Friday, November 10, 1775

Resolved, That two Battalions of marines be raised, consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken, that no persons be appointed to office, or enlisted into said Battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required; that they be enlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress: that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalions of American Marines, and that they be considered as part of the number which the continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of.

Ordered: That a copy of the above be transmitted to the General.

The General

George Washington was an army man — with considerable experience gained in militia service beginning in 1752. Through his older brother Lawrence, serving as Virginia’s Adjutant General, George received an appointment as major and commander of one of the colony’s four military districts. It was a time when the British and French competed for control of the Ohio Valley. In those days, the Virginia colony extended all the way to present-day southern Ohio.

In 1753, Virginia governor Dinwiddie appointed Washington as his special envoy and sent him into the French territories to demand that French forces withdraw from British territory, and to forge an alliance with the Iroquois nation.  Major Washington completed his mission in record time: 77 days.

In 1754, Gov. Dinwiddie promoted Washington to lieutenant colonel and assigned him to serve as the executive officer (deputy commander) of the Virginia Regiment.  Dinwiddie ordered the regiment to confront the French at the fork of the Ohio River.  Washington set off in compliance with those orders, leading around 150 men.  Washington’s information was that the French had around 1,000 troops involved in the construction of Fort Duquesne.  Typically, Washington’s information was wrong.  The French had around 50 men.  We remember this engagement as the Battle of Jumonville.  It was the event that started the French and Indian War (1754-1763).

A year later, Lieutenant Colonel Washington served as a volunteer militia aide to Major General Edward Braddock, commander of a British expedition sent to deal with the French and their Indian allies.  The confrontation became known as the Battle of the Monongahela, the Battle of Braddock’s Field, and the Battle of the Wilderness.  It was a disaster for the British; but General Braddock wasn’t too pleased, either.

The Captain

Samuel Nicholas was born in Philadelphia in 1744.  He was the youngest of three children of Anthony and Mary Nicholas.  Mary died in 1750; Anthony was a blacksmith with a drinking problem.  He died the next year when Samuel was seven years old.  The children were turned over to their uncle, Attwood Shute, who was then serving as the mayor of Philadelphia.  In 1752, Shute enrolled Samuel in the Academy and College of Philadelphia.

There is not much known about Captain Nicholas between his graduation from school in 1759 and his appointment in 1775.  We suspect that he was an educated gentleman of good reputation — otherwise, he would not have received a commission for service as an officer of Marines.

The Marine Battalions

The Congress formed a naval committee in mid-October 1775.  The naval committee would have the responsibility for managing naval assets, including purchasing ships, appointing officers, directing recruitment, purchasing stores, and issuing orders for naval operations.

A marine committee replaced the naval committee in December 1775.  This committee consisted of one member from each of the thirteen colonies.  It took over responsibility for directing the naval affairs of the Continental Congress.

The naval committee intended that General Washington form two battalions of marines from his existing army.  The marines became necessary when the naval committee developed a plan for an assault on Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Halifax was the primary supply point for Britain’s North American forces.  Only one battalion formed from the Congressional resolution, rather than two.  The battalion allowed for five companies of 300 men.

Congress suspended its plan for the American assault when the Americans learned that the British had landed several infantry regiments and 3,000 Hessian mercenaries.  Canceling the operation gave General Washington some breathing room.  He was struggling to recruit and train men for his land army; he had no interest in drawing forces away from his land regiments to build a force of marines for the navy.  The general preferred that if recruitment must be done for marines, he suggested that this activity take place in New York or in Philadelphia.

That duty, of course, fell upon Captain Samuel Nicholas.

One will note that during the colonial period, America’s soldiers were farmers with some affiliation with a local militia.  They knew about fighting Indians and farming, but they knew far less about fighting in a land army.  And less about fighting from ships.  General Washington’s first priority was recruitment, and his second was training.

Captain Nicholas faced the same challenges, except that his task was to train young men as soldiers of the sea.  His recruits had to be able seamen who were deadly riflemen, who could deliver deadly fire from the riggings from the mainsails.  Sure footing 30 to 50 feet in the air, on a pitching ship, armed with a muzzle-loading musket demanded a certain kind of man.  But what soldiers of the sea knew about fighting on land was next to nil.

As Nicholas’ recruits began to form, he and his deputy, Lieutenant Matthew Parke, stood off to the side resplendent in their green coats,  off-white waistcoats, breeches, and facings.  The sergeant brought the men to order, no doubt snarling at them and using colorful words.  Neither the sergeant nor his recruits were in uniform.  They were dressed as they might have first appeared at the recruitment office.  The sergeant, no doubt a veteran of previous wars with the British Army, may have dressed in native attire, a sword hanging from his waist, a powder horn, and a musket.  Behind these privates was the ship Alfred, Commodore Esek Hopkins, commanding.  There was a mission for the Marines — it would involve the Marine’s First Amphibious Raid.

The fight at Sea

On 6 April 1776, the ship’s voyage northward following the raid on New Providence was in every way routine — which meant that the crew was kept busy with their shipboard duties.  An hour into midnight, the ship’s watch observed two unidentified sails southeast of Alfred’s position.  The officer of the deck ordered beat to quarters, and all hands mustered for action.  One of those ships was a monster, HMS Glasgow, rigged with twenty guns accompanied by her tender.  Captain Nichols deployed his Marines with his able executive officer, 1stLt Matthew Parke, at his side.  Also standing to was 2ndLt John Fitzpatrick, whose station was the quarterdeck. 

HMS Cabot veered off under the weight of Glasgow’s cannon — Hopkins brought Alfred to action.  In one of the first exchanges, Lieutenant Fitzpatrick fell by the weight of a musket ball, killing him instantly.  Of this officer, Nicholas later wrote, “In him I have lost a worthy officer, sincere friend, and companion, that was beloved by all the ship’s company.”

In this engagement, a lucky shot from Glasgow carried off Alfred’s wheel block, making the ship unmanageable.  Hopkins’s other ships joined the fight, sending Glasgow off to Newport, her stern guns firing until out of range.

Joining Washington

At the end of December 1776, General Washington was greatly encouraged by his successful assault against the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey.  On 30 December, Washington crossed the Delaware and re-occupied the city.  At the time, British General Charles Cornwallis commanded a large infantry force at Princeton.  He at once responded by marching toward Trenton.  After an indecisive skirmish at Assanpink Creek, Washington withdrew a short distance eastward to establish his bivouac.

Full of confidence, General Cornwallis made camp believing he had caught the elusive  American.  His plan was to assault Washington at dawn the next day.  General Washington, however, had other ideas.  Once night had fallen, Washington assembled his force and, leaving guards to keep the fires burning throughout the night, set out through rough country to Princeton Road.

At sunrise, the British 17th and 35th Regiments just outside Princeton, setting out to reinforce Cornwallis, spotted an American army rapidly moving toward the city.  Quickly ordering up the 40th Regiment, British Colonel Charles Mawhood opened fire with his field cannon and ordered the 17th forward with fixed bayonets.  Mawhood’s charge hurled the Americans under General Hugh Mercer back in disorder.  Pennsylvania troops under General John Cadwalader, and Marines under Captain Samuel Nicholas, quickly took over the fight.  As the Marines weighed into the line, the Pennsylvanians were repulsed.  Washington, seeing the disorder, rushed to the line, personally reformed the Virginians and Pennsylvanians, and then appealing to the soldier’s patriotic fervor, led these men to extend their line within 30 yards of the 40th and ordered, “Fire!”

The American volley and a British response shrouded the field in thick gun smoke.  As the pall slowly lifted, the Red Coats saw that they had suffered the worst of it and broke their ranks in retreat.  Washington ordered his men to pursue them.  Nichols Marines needed no such encouragement.

That’s all I’m going to say about that …

James Anderson, Jr.

Every Marine has his (or her) own reasons for joining the U.S. Marine Corps.  I suspect there are so many reasons that it may be impossible to catalog them all.  Jim Anderson was 19 years old when he signed up from Los Angeles, California.  Whatever his reason, Jim had just completed 18 months of college.  Apparently, his sense of duty to his country was more important than staying in college.

As with most “West Coast” Marines, Jim Anderson attended recruit training (boot camp) at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California.  After graduation, he was promoted to Private First Class, and, as with all West Coast Marines, attended Infantry training at Camp Pendleton, California.[1]

In late 1966, the Marines had been fighting in South Vietnam for going on two years.  In December, James joined the 3rd Marine Division, and he was subsequently assigned to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment (Fox 3/3).  In February, the elements of five battalions participated in Operation Prairie II — a continuation of Operation Prairie I. which took place under the overall command of Brigadier General Michael P. Ryan, formerly the Commanding General, 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade.[2]  Ryan supervised the employment of 2/3, 3/3, 3/4, 1/9, and 2/9.

These operations were necessary because during the Tet Holiday, having agreed to a cease-fire, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) used the temporary truce to infiltrate across the DMZ into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN).  On 25 February, Marine artillery initiated the bombardment of NVA units within (and north of) the Demilitarized Zone (called the DMZ).  The NVA responded by bombarding the area of Con Thiên and Firebase Gio Linh.

On the morning of 27 February, a Marine reconnaissance patrol northwest of the Cam Lo Combat Base attempted to ambush a small unit of NVA soldiers.  As it turned out, the NVA unit was larger than the Marines thought, which became apparent when the NVA suddenly attacked the attackers.  The NVA unit was a rifle company of the 812th infantry regiment.  It didn’t take long for the Marines to get on the radio and call for assistance.  When the request came in for support, Lima Company, 3/4 was in the process of conducting a security patrol north of Cam Lo.  Operational authority diverted Lima Company to aid the recon unit.  Nothing seemed to be working out for the Marines that day because beyond being bogged down by thick vegetation, a company of NVA regulars attacked Lima Company, which stalled the effort to save the Recon Marines.

In view of these circumstances, Ryan ordered Golf Company, 2/3 from Camp Carroll to extricate the beleaguered recon patrol.  Golf Company linked up with the recon Marines at around 2340 that night.

At 0630 on 28 February, the NVA hit Lima Company’s position with more than 150 mortar rounds.  The communists followed their artillery bombardment with a major ground attack against three sides of the Lima Company’s perimeter.  Rocket-propelled grenades slammed into both Marine tanks supporting the company but remained in operation.  Within a period of two and a half hours, Lima Company repulsed three separate attacks.  In that time, the company lost four Marines killed and 34 wounded.  Ryan dispatched Marines from Fox Company 3/3 to reinforce Lima 3/4.  Fox Company linked up with Lima Company at around 1030.  Meanwhile, Golf Company 2/3 formed a blocking position on Hill 124.  En route to the blocking position, the Golf Company Marines found themselves engaged by NVA from both sides of their route of march.  The battle lasted well into the afternoon — with Golf Company losing seven killed, and 30 wounded.

At 1430, the 2/3 command element under Lieutenant Colonel Victor Ohanesian[3] moved with Fox Company from Lima Company’s position toward Hill 124.  Jim Anderson’s platoon had the point position.  This movement triggered an NVA ambush, and the Marines were hit with intense small arms and automatic weapons fire.  The platoon reacted quickly, forming a hasty defense, and mounting a stiff resistance.

PFC Anderson found himself bunched together with other members of his squad twenty yards in front of the enemy line.  As the battle intensified, several of Anderson’s squad members received debilitating gunshot wounds.  When an enemy grenade suddenly landed in the midst of the squad near Anderson’s position, Jim Anderson unhesitatingly, and with complete disregard for his own safety, reached out, grasped the grenade, and pulled it under his chest to shield his fellow Marines from shrapnel.  PFC Anderson’s personal heroism saved members of his squad from certain death.  In an instant, Private First Class James Anderson, Jr., gallantly gave up his life for his fellow Marines.[4]

When Operation Prairie II concluded on 18 March 1967, U.S. Marines had suffered 93 killed in action, and 483 wounded.  In this one operation, American forces killed 694 NVA regulars.  The fight continued under Operation Prairie III on 19 March.

Richard Allen Anderson

Richard was born in Washington, D.C. on 16 April 1948 but raised in Houston, Texas, graduating from M. B. Smiley High School in May 1966.  Richard Anderson also attended college before dropping out to join the Marines on 8 April 1968.  After graduating from boot camp in San Diego, California, and infantry training at Camp Pendleton, California, the Marine Corps ordered Richard to Sea School in San Diego.  Promoted to PFC on 1 July 1968, Richard completed his training in October and proceeded to Okinawa, Japan, where the Marine Corps assigned him to the 9^th Marine Amphibious Brigade and assigned to Company D, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines.

In January 1969, Marine Headquarters assigned Anderson to Company E, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion where he served as a platoon scout and later, as an Assistant Fire Team Leader.  The Marines promoted Anderson to Lance Corporal on 1 June 1969.

In the early morning hours of 24 August 1969, Anderson’s recon team came under heavy automatic weapons fire from a numerically superior and well-concealed NVA ambush.  Although knocked to the ground by the enemy’s initial fire and painfully wounded in both legs, LCpl Anderson rolled into a prone shooting position and began to return fire into the enemy’s ranks.  Moments later, he was wounded for a second time by an enemy soldier who had approached within eight feet of the Marine defensive line. 

Undeterred by his wounds, LCpl Anderson killed the enemy soldier and continued to pour a relentless stream of fire into the enemy.  Observing an enemy hand grenade land between himself and members of his fire team, Anderson immediately rolled over onto the grenade and absorbed the full impact of its deadly explosion.  Through Richard’s indomitable courage and selflessness, he saved his fellow Marines from certain death.  In that instant, Lance Corporal Richard A. Anderson gallantly gave up his life for his fellow Marines.

Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends

Conclusion

James and Richard Anderson, though sharing a last name, were unrelated — except that both were United States Marines.  Both men were in their twenties; both Marines distinguished themselves through virtuous behavior on the field of battle.  Both Marines were posthumously awarded the nation’s highest recognition: the Medal of Honor.  There was but one difference in these young men: their skin color.  Both of these young men gave all they had to give — and did it in order to save the lives of their Marine brothers.

Endnotes:

[1] Traditionally, honor graduates from recruit training receive promotions to Private First Class upon graduation.  It is likely that Anderson was so recognized in his graduating platoon.

[2] Michael P. Ryan, a former enlisted Marine, served at Iceland, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian during World War II.  For service at Tarawa, Ryan was awarded the Navy Cross medal for extraordinary heroism and distinguished service as a company commander and provisional battalion commander on Betio Island.

[3] Killed in action.

[4] James Anderson was the first black Marine to receive the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War.

---

Honor — Courage — Commitment

Pick almost any job in the U.S. military; it will be dangerous work.  Most people do not understand that to win in battle, a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine must constantly train to master his particular combat skills, maintain them, and rehearse them — so that they become second nature.  Two things are true about this: first, even the sharpest, gutsiest, most skilled trooper runs the risk of being killed in combat.  Second, training for war can be as lethal as combat.  Military men and women die in training accidents all the time.  Wearing our nation’s uniform is risky, but some military occupations are exponentially more dangerous than others.  So dangerous, in fact, that someone looking in from the outside might wonder why people do those kinds of jobs.  The answer is because someone has to.

Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) is one of those jobs.  It’s one of those occupations where, after everyone takes cover, the EOD technician suits up and approaches the explosive device intending to render it inert.  Sometimes they’re able to do that. Sometimes they die trying.

Highly specialized training for these men and women lasts a year.  The EOD schools not only teach their students how to do their jobs, but they also teach them how to survive it — or, they try to.  The fact is that explosive devices can be pretty complex — made so by the bombmaker whose goal is to kill the EOD technician or as many people as possible in the explosion.

It is not only the bomb that EOD technicians must defeat; they must destroy the explosive where the bombmaker placed it.  It is one thing to demolish a bomb along an isolated stretch of road — something else to defeat it when it’s been placed near a school or hospital.  Of course, this presumes that the EOD technician locates the bomb before it goes off.

EOD is also one of those jobs where complacency will kill you as quickly as cocky self-confidence.  One Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer instructs his men, “If you think it’s going to blow up, don’t go down there.”  But no one in EOD wants to admit defeat (even when discretion is the better part of valor).  Such stubbornness is suicidal.  When evaluating a disposal task, Marine EOD technicians are foolish if they do not carefully think about a few of the Marine Corps’ leadership principles: (1) Be proficient; (2) Know yourself; (5) Set the example, and (8) Make sound and timely decisions.

EOD technicians indeed wear protective suits — the operative word being “protective.”  It’s like saying “fire retardant.”  It may offer some protection from small bombs, but it won’t save the technicians from death or severe injury if the blast is large. Speaking of serious injury, anyone within a certain radius of an explosion is likely to experience one of the more devastating injuries: traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The protective suit can also be a hindrance.  It’s bulky.  It limits dexterity.  It restricts a technician’s vision.  When that happens, the highly motivated (and exceedingly confident) bomb disposal technician is likely to begin shedding his protective gear so that he can get to the bomb — and do his job.

By the way, whether soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine … all EOD technicians are volunteers.  But volunteerism isn’t enough.  Applicants for EOD training must go through an extensive screening process.  They have to be physically and mentally (psychologically) suitable for the most stressful of all combat assignments.  This is not the job you go to in the morning with a hangover.

EOD Marines — well done!

De Oppresso Liber

The term “Snake Eater” originated after the U. S. Army Special Forces (also known as the Green Berets) served members of the press and visiting dignitaries a meal of snake meat following a public relations demonstration at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  Sadly, the meal was fit for human consumption, and no journalist or politician died from ingesting snake venom.  Since then, members and former members of the Green Berets are sometimes referred to as snake eaters.

The Green Berets have nine distinctive missions: unconventional warfare, direct action, counter-insurgency operations, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, psychological operations, counter-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, security force assistance, and foreign internal defensive operations.  As part of the U. S. Special Operations Command, Green Berets have consistently distinguished themselves in combat arms since their establishment in 1952.  Modeled on the First Special Service Force and the covert missions of the Office of Strategic Services in World War II, its founding members included Colonel Wendell Fertig, Colonel Aaron Bank, and Lieutenant Colonel Russ Volckmann.  Since 1952, Green Berets have participated in combat operations in South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Philippines, Syria, Yemen, Niger, and the so-called Gulf Wars in the Middle East.

Currently, there are around 4,000 Green Berets performing missions around the world, from the Middle East to Africa and Asia.  Most people never hear about these “quiet professionals,” and that’s the way the Green Berets prefer it.

“These guys [Green Berets] are never going to quit, they’re never going to accept defeat, and they’ll fight to the end. And it’s always been that way.  So, the American people should be proud of that.”  — Master Sergeant Matthew Williams (Awarded the Medal of Honor in 2019).

As a case in point, on 2 May 1968, Master Sergeant Raul “Roy” Perez Benavidez (1935-1998), while risking his life to save eight of his comrades, received 37 wounds, including being shot several times, shrapnel from two grenades, and a bayonet wound, but he survived and — more to the point, he completed his mission.  Benavides was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 after the Army delayed recommending him for the medal for ten years.  Freaking bureaucrats.

And now, we turn to Captain Richard J. Flaherty (1945-2015), whose short stature required a waiver for acceptance for service in the U. S. Army.  Standing 4’9” tall, Flaherty became known as the “Giant Killer” for his service to the United States.  Captain Flaherty struggled throughout his life, from the moment of his birth when he was stunted in his growth from the infusion of his mother with the wrong blood type during his birth.  From his sensitivity to being called a “shrimp” in school, Flaherty began a life-long, intensive physical fitness regimen that transformed him into acquiring a robust physique.  To put an edge on his physical strength, he became an expert in martial arts.  Richard Flaherty received his Army commission to Second Lieutenant in August 1967.

In 1968, Flaherty was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam, where he served as a platoon commander, with later service as a Reconnaissance Platoon Leader.  During his tour in Vietnam, he participated in fierce combat outside of Hue City during the Tet Offensive.  His tenacity and tactical superiority in combat resulted in the award of the Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Star Medals, and two Purple Heart Medals.

Upon returning to the United States, Flaherty attended the Special Forces Officer’s Course at Fort Brag, North Carolina, with subsequent service with the Third Special Forces Group (Airborne), where he served in one of the Army’s “A” Teams.  Captain Flaherty was discharged from active duty service when the Army reduced its manpower in 1971.  Freaking bureaucrats.

After his separation from the Army, Flaherty did private and military contract work in Rhodesia (present-day Republic of Zimbabwe) and Angola.  The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) recruited Flaherty in the late 1970s, which involved him in the CIA’s scheme of supplying arms and munitions to the Contra forces in Nicaragua.  The CIA dismissed Flaherty when found in possession of “silencers,” which today are legal in 42 states.

After leaving the CIA, Flaherty helped the Army uncover a smuggling ring at Fort Bragg.  He also worked as an undercover informant with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Captain Flaherty was the victim of a hit-and-run incident in 2015 that cost him his life.  At the time of his death, the 69-year-old Captain Flaherty, recipient of five medals for extraordinary courage under fire, was living as a homeless man in Miami, Florida.

Homelessness among military veterans isn’t a new phenomenon.  We’ve had military veterans without proper accommodations since the post-Civil War period.  Between 1865-1880, homeless veterans made up the majority of America’s homeless population. Americans didn’t wake up to this situation until after the Vietnam War.  At present, the Veterans Administration estimates the number of homeless veterans at around 40,000 (mostly) men on any given night.  The leading causes of homelessness among veterans are post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain disorder, social isolation, unemployment, and substance abuse.  The state of California has the highest number of homeless veterans in the United States.

It’s enough to make one wonder, “What in the hell is the matter with this country?”  The answer, of course, is “Freaking bureaucrats.”

Hat tip:  Major Paul Chapman, USMC (Retired)

The Invasion of Grenada

(Continued from Last Week)

Land the Landing Force

Reveille sounded for the Marines at 0100.  They consumed their traditional pre-assault breakfast, drew live ammunition, and the squad and fire team leaders began checking their men.  ACE flight crews made ready to launch aircraft.  Only a few of the pilots in HMM-261 (or their enlisted men) had previous combat experience.  Twenty-one helicopters lifted off at 0315.  Marine pilots maintained radio silence and navigated using night vision goggles.  Intermittent rain showers delayed the launching of aircraft.

Company E 2/8, under the command of Captain Henry J. Donigan III, was “first in.”^[1]  Their helicopters went ashore with AH-1 Cobra escorts.  The company’s target was LZ Buzzard, an unused race track south of the Pearls airfield.  Colonel Smith accompanied the lead element.  Smith ordered one platoon to take Hill 275, an anti-aircraft gun site.  Even though Grenadians manned the hill, they opted not to engage the Marines — which they demonstrated by dropping their weapons and fleeing down the other side of the hill.

With Hill 275 secure, Smith ordered Echo Company to push along a road toward the West side of the airfield.  Rugged terrain delayed the Marine’s progress by two hours.  As Echo Company was about to move toward the air terminal, they began receiving enemy mortar fire.  Two or three rounds landed near the terminal complex: five more landed in the vicinity of LZ Buzzard.  There were no casualties, and the firing soon stopped.

Following Echo Company an hour later, Fox Company went ashore just outside the town of Grenville.  The terrain was much rougher than reflected on aerial photographs, and the pre-designated landing site proved unsuitable.  Colonel Amos determined the only alternative landing site was an adjacent soccer field.  The problem with the soccer field was that it had a high brick wall that surrounded it.  Potentially, the field was a kill zone, but because the people of Grenada seemed welcoming of the Marines, Amos approved the landing and designated the soccer field as LZ Oriole.

Local citizens treated the Marines of Echo and Fox Companies as liberators.  In the minds of these civilians, Grenada had been cursed by thugs for far too long.  The locals led Marines to the homes of members of the Revolutionary Army; they pointed out members of the local militia.  They told the Marines where they could find concealed arms and munitions.  Locals even loaned the Marines their private vehicles to carry away dangerous munitions.

Marine Air/Army Rangers

Lieutenant Colonel Smith, who had gone ashore with Echo and Fox companies at Pearls/Grenville, was having a difficult time establishing radio contact with USS Guam.  He suspected that Colonel Faulkner was planning a surface landing at Grand Mal Bay or possibly at Gouyave, but he couldn’t know Faulkner’s intent without radio contact.  At around 1500, Smith received a radio message from his reconnaissance platoon commander informing him of the new plan.  Smith, with only sporadic radio contact, was confused.  He boarded a resupply helicopter, leaving his XO in charge, and returned to Guam.

Back aboard the ship, Smith received an update/briefing from the MAU operations officer, Major Tim Van Huss.  The objective of the Grand Mal Bay operation was to relieve Golf Company of its special mission.  The plan called for an amphibious landing at Grand Mal with Fox Company transferring by helicopter from Grenville — scheduled for execution that very evening.  Smith requested and received permission to delay the landing by two hours.

Captain R. K. Dobson, commanding Golf Company, was becoming irritated.  His company had been “on deck” since 0430; each time he received a “go” order, it was put on hold, rescheduled, or canceled.  Finally, after standing by inside the amphibious tractors for several hours aboard USS Manitowoc, Dobson ordered his Marines out of the tractors and informed them that they would go ashore by helicopter.  From 1330, the company was staged on the flight deck of the LST; Dobson fidgeted because he had no clear idea where his company would be employed — but then, neither did anyone else.

By 1750 it was growing dark; Captain Dobson instructed his platoon commanders to secure all weapons and ammunition return the men to their berthing spaces for much-needed sleep.  No sooner had Dobson given these instructions, he was called to the bridge.  Company G would go ashore at Grand Mal Bay in forty minutes; the amphibious landing was back on.  Marines were mustered and loaded aboard the AAVs … the first tractor left the ship precisely at 1830.  It was by then completely dark — there was no moon to navigate by reckoning.  The track vehicles headed for the beach in single file.  Thirty-one minutes later, the first tractor went ashore on the narrow beach with no opposition.  Captain Dobson was finally ashore, but he still had no instructions.  There was no radio communication with the BLT commander.

At around 1930, Navy LCUs began bringing in tanks, jeeps, and heavy weapons.  Within a short time, the narrow beach became congested with combat Marines and equipment.  Captain Dobson established area security with roadblock positions on the coastal road some 200 meters north and south of LZ Fuel.  After establishing flank security, Dobson sent his recon platoon to reconnoiter the roadway.

At 2300, Dobson could hear the sound of approaching helicopters.  Marines quickly rigged the LZ with red lights and a strobe to guide the aircraft, a Huey UH-1 bearing the MAU air liaison officer (ALO), Major William J. Sublette.  Sublette brought Dobson up to date on the operation and told him that there was a strong enemy force between G Company’s present position and St. George’s.  He also informed Dobson that Fox Company would arrive at his position sometime after midnight.  Dobson asked the major to contact Colonel Smith, give him Dobson’s present position, and request the battalion commander’s orders.

Lieutenant Colonel Smith arrived in a CH-46 an hour later.  The beach was so narrow, the helicopter had to unload its passengers with its back wheels in the surf; Smith and his staff had to wade ashore through the surf.  So far, the operation had been a communications disaster.  When the CH-46 returned to the ship, it carried a message to Colonel Amos asking that he airlift Fox Company from Grenville to Grand Mal Bay.

Smith directed Dobson to begin the process of moving Golf Company to the Queen’s Park Race Track; Fox Company began making its airlift movement from Grenville to LZ Fuel for a link-up with Golf at 0400 — the small LZ could only accommodate two CH-46s at a time, so the movement lasted until near daylight.  With Dobson receiving only light resistance from the Grenadians, Smith directed that he proceed to the Governor-General’s house to reinforce a 22-man special mission team and help evacuate Governor-General Sir Paul Scoon, his wife, and nine other civilians to USS Guam.

Once the Scoon party had safely departed Grenada, Smith ordered Dobson to proceed to and seize Fort Frederick, which dominated the entire area of St. George’s.  En route, local civilians informed Dobson that there remained a company-size unit and a large supply of ammunition inside the fort.

Captain Dobson sent a reinforced platoon to seize the high ground adjacent to Fort Frederick where they could provide supporting fire if needed.  With the balance of the company, Dobson proceeded through dense foliage along the ridgeline.  Nearing the fort, the Marines observed several men climbing down the outside wall as if abandoning their positions.  Within a short time, Captain Dobson’s company entered the fort unopposed, where they found randomly discarded uniforms — a suggestion that perhaps the Grenadian military had taken early retirement from active military service.^[2]

Golf Company Marines quickly seized a large store of weapons and ammunition.  Additionally, in a lower chamber inside the fort, Captain Dobson discovered numerous documents purported to be arms agreements with Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Soviet Union, along with detailed maps of the disposition of Grenadian armed forces.  As Golf and Fox company consolidated their positions at Fort Frederick, the Marines of HMM-261 began preparing for the evacuation of American medical students.

Grand Anse

Colonel Amos was organizing additional lift support for BLT 2/8 when he received a directive from Admiral Metcalf to provide airlift support to the Army for NEO evacuations from the Grand Anse area.  Amos proceeded to the Salines airfield where he conferred with the CO 2nd Ranger Battalion (2/75th), Lieutenant Colonel Ralph L. Hagler, Jr., who, as it happened, was a classmate of Colonel Amos at the Virginia Military Institute.  Amos and Hagler sat down and planned the evacuation operations for the next day.  The beach at Grand Anse was narrow in width, short in length, and overgrown with heavy vegetation extending almost to the water’s edge.

The evacuation plan called for CH-46s carrying Rangers to land on the beach in three flights of three helicopters.  Four CH-53s would follow the 46s to pick up medical students.  Once the students had been taken off the beach, the 46s would return for the Rangers.  Amos would personally direct the airlift operation from an airborne UH-1 and coordinate additional air support from the Navy’s A-7 squadron from USS Independence and the USAF AC-130 detachment.  Naval gunfire would provide additional on-call fire support.

At 1600, CH-46s began airlift operations from Salines.  Artillery, mortars, and overhead aircraft opened up on suspected Grenadian and Cuban military positions five minutes later.  The bombardment continued until about twenty seconds before the first flight of 46s touched down on the beach.  The helicopter landings prompted a steady increase of enemy small arms fire. Waist gunners returned fire with their .50 caliber machine guns.

The narrowness of the beach forced the last CH-46 too close to an overhanging palm tree.  When a rotor blade contacted the palms, the pilot had to shut the aircraft down and order the crew to abandon the damaged helicopter.   

As soon as the Rangers exited the aircraft, they sprinted to the medical school dormitories.^[3]  When the last of the remaining eight aircraft had departed, Colonel Amos ordered in the CH-53s.  Despite increasingly heavy fire from the Grenadians/Cubans, all students were safely evacuated.  As soon as the last 53 lifted off, the downed 46 became the focus on the enemy’s attention — which pissed off Lance Corporal Martin J. Dellerr, the downed helicopter’s crew chief.  When Dellerr saw that his helicopter was being peppered with small arms fire, he sprinted to the bird, conducted a full inspection of the aircraft, and then sprinted back to the pilot and announced that the bird could fly.^[4]  The aircraft was shaking more than usual during takeoff, but it did return to Salines without further mishap.

Back to the Northeast

While Fox and Golf companies were operating in the southwest, Captain Donigan’s Echo Company continued operations in the north.  During the late afternoon of D Day, the company commander received information that armored vehicles, including one tank, were approaching from the north.  It was a false report, but it did cause Company E to suspend its operations and prepare for an armored attack.  Locals offered to help the Marines erect anti-vehicle obstacles, but the Marines urged them to vacate the area.

On 27 October, Colonel Smith ordered Captain Donigan to carry out a reconnaissance in force to the Mount Horne area, a little over two miles from Greenville.  Captured documents from Fort Frederick identified Mount Horne as the location of the headquarters element of the People’s Revolutionary Army Battalion.  Donigan led a reinforced rifle platoon to that location, encountering no enemy resistance.  On the contrary, local civilians welcomed the Marines and pointed them to two buildings that had served as a battalion command post.  One building housed a complete communications center, island maps, and modern radios.

Acting on information from residents, Donigan dispatched another reconnaissance on Mount St. Catherine, where a suspected enemy force controlled a television and microwave station.  En route, Marines weathered a heavy rain squall.  Their approach to the communications station prompted a handful of enemy soldiers to make a rapid withdrawal in the opposite direction.  The Marines discovered and confiscated several mortar and anti-tank munitions.

Smith directed Donigan to check out a report of a large cache of arms stored at the Mirabeau Hospital.  Once more, local civilians helped direct Donigan’s Marines to a large cave thought to contain ammunition.  The cave was empty, so Marines proceeded toward the hospital.  At the crest of a hill, the Marines encountered three Cubans who attempted to flee.  Marine riflemen wounded two of these men and placed them in custody.  In the fading light of day, unknown persons began firing at the Marines from a densely wooded ridgeline, but the enemy broke off contact after a few minutes.  There were no casualties among the Marines.  Donigan led his Marines back to Pearls the following morning.

St. George’s

Following the capture of Fort Frederick, Fox and Golf companies continued seizing the strong points around St. George’s.  The Marines destroyed one Soviet BTR-60 armored personnel carrier blocking the road between Fort Frederick and the Governor-General’s residence.  On 27 October, Smith was ordered to seize Richmond Hill Prison, Fort Adolphus, and Fort Lucas.  Captain Dobson’s Marines quickly took the prison, which had been abandoned, and organized his company for an assault on Fort Adolphus.  Dobson observed human activity inside the fort and reported this by radio to Smith during his approach.  After discussing the employment of prep-fire into the Fort, Smith decided against it because he believed, given the tendency of the Grenadians to flee, pre-assault fire may not be necessary.

Dobson’s Marines cautiously approached the fort.  Along the way, the Marines encountered the Ambassador to Venezuela, who informed the Marines that Fort Adolphus was, in fact, the Venezuela Embassy.  Smith’s discretion had avoided a serious international incident.

There was no enemy resistance as Marines from Fox Company entered St. George’s.  Once more, local civilians helped the Marines to discover caches of weapons and munitions and took into custody suspected members of the People’s Revolutionary Army.

Confusing Tactical Areas of Responsibility

To allow the Marines to continue their southward advance, Admiral Metcalf changed the boundary line between 82nd Airborne units (TF 121) and Marine Amphibious forces (TF 124).  The new line ran from Ross Point on the east coast to Requin Bay on the west.  This vital information never reached the Army’s operating elements and, to make matters worse, Marine and Army units had not exchanged liaison officers.   Radio call signs had not been disseminated for joint fire control center operations.  Both Marine and Army units remained unaware of their close proximities.

With the boundary shift, Colonel Smith’s Marines were no longer an adequate-sized force for controlling the new area of operations.  Since his artillery battery had remained aboard ship, Smith employed these Marines as part of a provisional rifle company and tasked them with area security in and around St. George’s.  Smith’s decision allowed him to employ Fox and Golf companies in other areas.

Smith received a report that as many as 400 Canadian, British, and American nations were located at the Ross Point Hotel, on Mattin’s Bay, south of St. George’s, and eagerly awaiting evacuation.  Fox Company Marines arrived at the hotel just after dark.  They discovered less than two dozen foreign nationals, mostly Canadians with no Americans.  Moreover — no one wished to be evacuated.

At the end of the second day, there was still no sign of Army units, so Fox Company set up a night defense around the Ross Point Hotel.  The next morning, the lead element of the 2nd Battalion, 325th Infantry Regiment (2/325th), reached the hotel.  No one in 2/325 was aware of the boundary shift, and insofar as they knew, the area of the Ross Hotel was a “free-fire zone.”  The only army people aware of the boundary shift were the division and brigade commanders, who had not passed the word to their subordinate units.  Smith became concerned that his Marines might become the targets of US Army units operating “in the dark.”

Mopping Up

By the end of the third day, peacekeeping forces from allied Caribbean nations began to arrive and take up their stations in the St. George’s area.  Smith’s provisional company continued to arrest and detain enemy personnel and confiscate arms and other equipment.  By this time, the number of “enemy” leaders had grown considerably, and these individuals also needed to be turned over to the peacekeepers.  Included in the detained number were the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Mobilization, and Lieutenant Colonel Liam James of the New Jewel Movement.

Marines began preparing to turn over their positions to the 82nd Airborne Division units.  The 22nd MAU was needed in Beirut. 

Finalizing the North

On the fourth day, Captain Donigan’s Marines prepared to seize Sauteurs … an operation interrupted by the discovery of the PRA leader in the northern sector of Grenada, someone calling himself Lieutenant George.  Donigan’s first platoon took George into custody in Greenville.  With George’s surrender peacefully accepted, Echo Company moved out for Sauteurs at around 0300 the following day.  Donigan split the company into two teams.  Donigan intended his raiding team to assault the PRA camp near Sauteurs before the general advance on the town.  The company mortar section was set up on Mount Rose, halfway between Sauteurs and the Pearls airfield, and communicators set up a radio relay station at the same place.  The company’s second team readied for entering the town.

Donigan launched his raid at 0530; the camp seized without any resistance.  With no shots fired, residents awakened to find U.S. Marines in control of their town without resorting to violence.  Having been made aware that the people of Sauteurs were short on food, Captain Donigan took with him enough rations to feed the town for several days.  Red Cross workers undertook to effect fair distribution of these rations.  The goodwill of the Marines toward the town folk resulted in a cooperative attitude, and local people were happy to identify local members of the PRA.  Captured PRA couldn’t sing long enough or loud enough about other members and the locations of arms and munitions.

Meanwhile, Colonel Faulkner planned to move Fox and Golf companies to Gouyave and Victoria on the northwest coast — the only sizeable towns not already under Marine control.  Colonel Smith objected to removing Fox Company away from St. George’s, so Golf Company moved to the two towns alone.  There was no opposition in either of these towns, and both were peacefully seized.

Admiral Metcalf had one final concern: the island of Carriacou, one of two inhabited islands between Grenada and St. Vincent. Naval intelligence reported unconfirmed information that a North Korean military presence existed on Carriacou and that some PRA members had fled to the island.  Accordingly, Metcalf ordered the Marine Amphibious Unit to seize the island before daylight on 1 November 1983.  Once army units had replaced the Marines at Sauteurs, Pearls, St. George’s, Gouyave, and Victoria, the MAU returned to the sea and prepared for an amphibious/vertical landing at Carriacou.

The early morning landing at Carriacou was unopposed.  There were no North Korean soldiers on the island.  All PRA members voluntarily surrendered, and the citizens could not have been happier to see the American Marines.  One native asked if the island had become part of the United States and seemed disappointed with the negative response.  Army units arrived on 2 November to replace the Marines — which brought their role in Urgent Fury to an end.  The 22nd Marine Amphibious Unit Marines then proceeded to relieve the shattered battalion in Beirut, Lebanon.

Post Script

If the invasion of Granada proved anything at all, it was that the National Security Act of 1947 did not resolve age-old problems associated with joint missions’ interoperability.  The military services have different missions, but they also had dissimilar chains of command, incompatible equipment, different ways of completing similar tasks, and, always-present, interservice rivalry.

Service competition, in and of itself, is not a bad thing.  Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines take great pride in their service affiliation.  And, the fact is that interservice rivalry has existed since the Spanish-American War.  It continued through two world wars, the Korean War and Vietnam.  But at some point, an unhealthy rivalry is self-defeating.  During the invasion of Granada, Army Rangers had no way of communicating with Marine or Navy forces.  Senior army and air force officers routinely treated the Navy and Marine Corps as second-class citizens — as if only the Army and Air Force knew how to fight a war — and the Navy and Marines deeply resented it.^[5]  Even now, under the unified command system, there is a cultural divide between Army and Marine forces, and nowhere is that better illustrated than the story of Marineistan. 

To fix this problem in 1985, Senator Barry Goldwater and Representative William Flynt Nichols developed a bill to reorganize the Department of Defense (Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, 1986).  The Act essentially streamlined the military chain of command, designated the Chairman, JCS as the principal advisor to the President, National Security Council, and Secretary of Defense.  It also changed how the various services organize, train, equip, and fight.  The first test of Goldwater-Nichols was the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989.

Sources:

1. Adkin, M.  Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada: The Truth Behind the Largest U.S. Military Operation since Vietnam.  Lexington Books, 1989.
2. Cole, R. H.  Operation Urgent Fury: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Grenada.  Washington: Pentagon Study, 1997.
3. Dolphin, G. E.  24 MAU 1983: A Marine Looks Back at the Peacekeeping Mission to Beirut, Lebanon.  Publish America, 2005.
4. Moore, C.  Margaret Thatcher: At Her Zenith in London, Washington, and Moscow.  New York: Vintage Books, 2016
5. Russell, L.  Grenada, 1983.  London: Osprey Books, 1985. 
6. Spector, R. H.  U. S. Marines in Grenada.  Washington: Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps, 1987.
7. Williams, G.  US-Grenada Relations: Revolution and Intervention in the Backyard.  Macmillan, 2007.

Endnotes:

^[1] Echo 2/8 was my first line unit (1963-1964)

^[2] A captured Grenadian captain explained that none of the Grenadians expected a combined surface/vertical assault.  Observing U. S. Marines coming toward them from different positions became a psychological shock to defenders and senior officers alike.

^[3] [3] The pilot of the last helicopter of the first flight misjudged the distance to an overhanging palm tree; when the rotor blade brushed against it, the pilot was forced to shut down his engines and abandon the bird where it came to rest on the beach.  The beach area had then become even tighter — another helicopter would have a similar problem.  

^[4] Marine Corps crew chiefs become attached to their aircraft and crews.  

^[5] Particularly in light of the hard feelings that existed from the earliest days of the Korean War when army units were unprepared to fight.

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