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Ei Temporis Vita Semper Resumo Sese
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New Commandant Suggests Marine Corps May Grow to Fight War on Terror
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Marine Corps may need to increase in size in order to sustain continued deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan without sacrificing needed training or putting undue stress on the corps, the Marine commandant said Wednesday.
At a breakfast meeting with reporters, Lt. Gen. James Conway said the current pace of rotations to Iraq — seven months there and a bit more than seven months back home — is limiting other types of training and could eventually prompt Marines to leave the service. The goal, he said, is to spend twice the amount of time at home that was spent on deployment — for example seven months deployed and 14 months at home. Conway, who took on the Marines' top job just eight days ago, said there are two ways to deal with the ongoing stress on the Marines, and that "one is reducing the requirement, the other is potentially growing the force for what we call the long war." There are currently about 180,000 active duty Marines. About the situation in Iraq, General Conway notes that "traditional insurgencies" last about eight to nine years. But Conway says his Marines are encouraged by the "micro successes" they see.
"The degenerative and loony should never be denigrated but, rather, thanked. In their absence, the rest of you would be obliged to fill congressional seats... positions naturally unsavory to the sane and honorable." Thorax
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Stare Master
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Pressure has been building for the Army to grow and now the Marine Corps is thinking about it as well. All of this shows how completely out of step Rumsfeld has been with both the realities on the ground and the services themselves.
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American GI. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
"History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over." COLONEL BULL SIMONS
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Trooper
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| I disagree. The reality is that, by the end of 2007, most of our combat forces will be returned to CONUS and the stop losses will be lifted. Additionally (and most relevant), the appetite of the American citizen and politician for actions that require conventional forces will remain almost non-existent for at least 10 years. Before they start talking increases to the numbers of active personnel -- define the requirement in light of current political reality.
You can run and you can hide, but you'll only die tired !
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Stare Master
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Andre, my feeling for several years has been that we cut our military too much in the nineties. President Bush 41 had a plan to reduce the military by 25%, but when Clinton and his cronies were done we had a military 40% smaller than what we had in the late eigthies. Even without the deployments to Iraq I think we need to increase our military back to the levels that were planned after the Berlin Wall came down.
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American GI. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
"History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over." COLONEL BULL SIMONS
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Anti-social
 
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I doubt very much most of our combat forces will be returned to CONUS by the end of 2007, not unless all the rhetoric about not 'cutting and running' is just that. Because Iraq itself is still going to be a big giant mess at the end of 2007 IMO. In fact, I'll be surprised even if there is a significant reduction from current levels
1/508th Abn Inf, 82nd Abn Div 81-83 1/4th Inf (Mech), 3rd Inf Div (USAEUR) 83-84 SGT\EIB\Recondo "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx
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Regular Joe
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| I believe in the USMC but should it be a second land army? If we have two land armies isn't one of them redundant? We need amphibious shock troops, but how many? If the USMC needs additional Marines to sustain deployments then deploy them less often and give the increase to Army light infantry or Stryker.
Aim small; miss small.
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Stare Master
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| That expeditionary capability was great during the period between WWI and WWII and during the Cold War but it does not have much value now. When's the last time we conducted a large scale amphibious combat operation? Grenada? There have been some embassy evacuations and the like, but even those tend to be few and far between. We are in a long term war in which that amphibious capability is likely to be of little use to the Country. Keeping Marines out of combat in order to save them for an amphibious op is a waste of capability and tax money. IMO both the Army and the Marines need to be larger(and the AF and Navy need more airlift and sealift capability) and both need to be a part of our ongoing operations.
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American GI. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
"History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over." COLONEL BULL SIMONS
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Seasoned Vet
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Yeah if we don't start growing the Army and Marines now we will be churning them out willie nillie in 2 to 5 years when we WILL have to deal with a attack by Syria, Iran, N. Korea, or some other country who WILL be tested our butts seeing if we can handle what we got on our plates right now and a little extra stress (we cannot). As for what the politicians and public's appitite are they better get ready to eat a second helping of CROW ala 9-11 if they are so stupid, niaive or plain incompetent to understand we are in a war against FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAMIC terror groups who will not go away, be negotiated with or roll over and die. They are being funded by our dear friends the F-ing Wahabbi loving Saudis who will have their own civil war to sort out soon. Victor Chavez would love to slip us the green weenie, and Africa is going to be the next battlefield. So just who in our Government besides Rumsfeld is smoking Meth and so out of touch with reality that they can say with a straight face we don't need more Soldiers and Marines...I'd love to know which hometown meetings to go to so I could confront these booger eating idiots. I expect this stupidity from Liberals however the Republicans are now a close second in stupidity and incompetence. I'm beginning to thuink only the dope smoking Libertarians have a clue about security of our borders, the fact that we are at war with an idealogy as well as a organization, and that you shouldn't claim family values if you are a pole smoking child molester whose fellow legislators cover for him because he is in the same party...and God knows the Party is more important than the Country. Damn all politicians anyway. I'm sorry to get so bent but By God even Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could see that we are in a world of hurt with more committments than troops. So if you need to be able to match your available resources you don't just turn your back on one threat and run away so you don't have to increase the amount of resources available...you grow your resources to the appropriate level to deal with the current threats and any that are likely to arise in the near future. I swear sometimes we are worse than ostriches.
Stand in the door!
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