Something about us 10th Mountain guys....




We ALWAYS got a surplus of positive comments from other units about our cohesion and fighting ability.



Hell, we were have a battalion wide semi-competition, on what platoon could do the quickest and best assault on an object with 3 buildings during training. Our platoon did the best.



Another funny fact; when we replaced an unit in Iraq and we had to put all distinctive markings on our Hmmwvs. Insurgents that we picked up and put in jail and such were saying that everyone in that area was afraid of the hmmwvs with the markings that our company had on our trucks.




 

Funny, but there have been a few in this very thread.  Sounds like you have a case of selective listening.

You don't know shit it seems.



I knew my job extremely well. I had NCOs who were pretty high speed mother fuckers themselves would try to quiz me all the time on what to do in various situations. I was a pretty fucking squared away dude, imo anyway. Take any Marine in with the same amount of service as me, and I bet I'd beat them 3 out of 5 times in skill, tactics, PT, and my knowledge on weapons systems. I could disassemble a Mk-19 and M2 .50 BMG with my eyes closed, and we were LIGHT infantry that the only time we ever got to touch those "Heavy" weapon systems was when we went overseas. I also NEVER shot below expert and pretty sure I could hang with the Marines "superior" marksmanship.



We had a guy from COUNTER-TERRORISM unit in the Marines who went to the Army and mocked about how shitty the Marines were. We also a former Marine who was one of the platoon's LT and said much better opportunity in the Army, and just as good, if not better training. So there you have it.



 

In general Marine NCOs of equal rank do get more responsibility than their Army counterparts.  That doesn't mean they're better, it just means we use a slightly different system.  I agree that the whole Marines don't have to go to Army bootcamp but Army have to go to Marine bootcamp doesn't prove anything, other than the fact that the Marine Corps places a much higher emphasis on their history than other services do.  The stories from the guys who change services are usually worthless, what guy is going to say to his new platoon, "you guys are a bunch of pussies, shit was way harder when I was a (Soldier/Sailor/Marine/Airmen)  FWIW, as I always say in these threads, I've never had a problem with any of the Army combat arms units that I've worked with.  Now your REMFs are another story....

Even REMFs hate REMFs.

The good ones look for something else.

Your helmet weighs six pounds?  The rubber duckies used in the pool aren't 10lbs, also when you rig your pack correctly (with the WP bags tied off correctly) they are filled with air and provide positive buoyancy.  It has been a few years since I did WSQ level two, but the portion were you were in full gear didn't include SAPIs, and the swimming with a pack involved floating on the pack and pushing it.

Yeah as long as you have the pack you're good.  I failed the SQ2 part where you had to swim a certain distance with all your gear, but without your pack.  That shit was difficult.

ahhhh selective marine history again

have some class and be respectful of the chosin reservoir veterans. the marine corp knows all about trucks. do you remember what happened 23 oct. 83 in beirut? im sure 220 marine, 18 navy and 3 army families will never forget what happened. im sure the surviving marines heard lots of screaming that morning. this is history... not glossed over marine corp history. BE RESPECTFUL TO ALL VETERANS!
ETERNAL R & R MY BROTHERS

Yes Task Force Faith on the east side of the Chosin of the 7th ID did a good job; but a battalion combat team couldn't stand up against that much force.

In the great Mafia of the American Military, the USMC is Michael Corleone...and the US army is Fredo Corleone.

The Army makes the world safe for America.  Marines make the world safe for the Army.

It's a joke...relax Francis...lighten up...loosen you're panties...it's a joke...etc etc etc

Ask a Marine what's so special about the Marines and the answer would be
"esprit de corps", an unhelpful French phrase that means exactly what it
looks like - the spirit of the Corps...but what is that spirit? and where
does it come from?

The Marine Corps is the only branch of the U.S. Armed Forces that recruits
people specifically to Fight. The Army emphasizes personal development (an
Army of One), the Navy promises fun (let the journey begin), the Air Force
offers security (its a great way of life). Missing from all the
advertisements is the hard fact that a soldier's life is to suffer and
perhaps to die for his people and take lives at the risk of his/her own.
Even the thematic music of the services reflects this evasion. The Army's
Caisson Song describes a pleasant country outing. Over hill and dale,
lacking only a picnic basket. Anchors Aweigh...the Navy's celebration of the
joys of sailing could have been penned by Jimmy Buffet. The Air Force song
is a lyric poem of blue skies and engine thrust. All is joyful, and
invigorating, and safe. There are no land mines in the dales nor snipers
behind the hills, no submarines or cruise missiles threaten the ocean jaunt,
no bandits are lurking in the wild blue yonder.

The Marines' Hymn, by contrast, is all combat. "We fight our Country's
battles," "First to fight for right and freedom," "We have fought in every
clime and place where we could take a gun," "In many a strife we have fought
for life and never lost our nerve."

The choice is made clear. You may join the Army to go to adventure training,
or join the Navy to go to Bangkok, or join the Air Force to go to computer
school.

You join the Marine Corps to go to War! But the mere act of signing the
enlistment contract confers no status in the Corps. The Army recruit is told
from his first minute in uniform that "you're in the Army now, soldier". The
Navy and Air Force enlistees are sailors or airmen as soon as they get off
the bus at the training center. The new arrival at Marine Corps boot camp is
called a recruit, or worse, (a lot worse), but never a MARINE. Not yet,
maybe never. He or she must earn the right to claim the title of UNITED
STATES MARINE, and failure returns you to civilian life without hesitation
or ceremony. Recruit Platoon 2210 at San Diego, California trained from
October through December of 1968. In Viet Nam the Marines were taking two
hundred casualties a week and the major rainy season and Operation Meade
River had not even begun yet Drill Instructors had no qualms about winnowing
out almost a quarter of their 112 recruits, graduating 81. Note that this
was post-enlistment attrition. Every one of those 31 who were dropped had
been passed by the recruiters as fit for service. But they failed the test
of Boot Camp!
Not necessarily for physical reasons. At least two were outstanding high
school athletes for whom the calisthenics and running were child's play.
The cause of their failure was not in the biceps nor the legs, but in the
spirit. They had lacked the will to endure the mental and emotional strain
so they would not be Marines. Heavy commitments and high casualties not
withstanding, the Corps reserves the right to pick and choose.

History classes in boot camp? Stop a soldier on the street and ask him to
name a battle of World War One. Pick a sailor at random and ask for a
description of the epic fight of the Bon Homme Richard. Ask an airman who
Major Thomas McGuire was and what is named after him. I am not carping and
there is no sheer in this criticism. All of the services have glorious
traditions but no one teaches the young soldier, sailor or airman what his
uniform means and why he should be proud of it.

But...ask a Marine about World War One and you will hear of the wheat field
at Belleau Wood and the courage of the Fourth Marine Brigade comprised of
the Fifth and Sixth Marines. Faced with an enemy of superior numbers
entrenched in tangled forest undergrowth the Marines received an order to
attack that even the charitable cannot call ill-advised. It was insane.
Artillery support was absent and air support hadn't been invented yet. Even
so the Brigade charged German machine guns with only bayonets, grenades, and
an indomitable fighting spirit. A bandy-legged little barrel of a Gunnery
Sergeant, Daniel J. Daly, rallied his company with a shout, "Come on you
sons a bitches, do you want to live forever?" He took out three machine guns
himself. French liaison-officers hardened though they were by four years of
trench bound slaughter were shocked as the Marines charged across the open
wheat field under a blazing sun directly into the teeth of enemy fire. Their
action was so anachronistic on the twentieth-century field of battle that
they might as well have been swinging cutlasses. But the enemy was only
human. The Boche could not stand up to the onslaught. So the Marines took
Belleau Wood. The Germans, those that survived, thereafter referred to the
Marines as "Tuefel Hunden" (Devil Dogs) and the French in tribute renamed
the woods "Bois de la Brigade de Marine" (Woods of the Brigade of Marines).
Every Marine knows this story and dozens more. We are taught them in boot
camp as a regular part of the curriculum. Every Marine will always be taught
them! You can learn to don a gas mask anytime, even on the plane in route to
the war zone, but before you can wear the Eagle, Globe and Anchor and claim
the title United States Marine you must first know about the Marines who
made that emblem and title meaningful. So long as you can march and shoot
and revere the legacy of the Corps you can take your place in line.

And that line is as unified in spirit as in purpose. A soldier wears branch
of service insignia on his collar, metal shoulder pins and cloth sleeve
patches to identify his unit. Sailors wear a rating badge that identifies
what they do for the Navy. Marines wear only the Eagle, Globe and Anchor
together with personal ribbons and their CHERISHED marksmanship badges. They
know why the uniforms are the colors they are and what each color means.
There is nothing on a Marine's uniform to indicate what he or she does nor
what unit the Marine belongs to. You cannot tell by looking at a Marine
whether you are seeing a truck driver, a computer programmer or a machine
gunner or a cook or a baker.
The Marine is amorphous, even anonymous, by conscious design. The Marine is
a Marine. Every Marine is a rifleman first and foremost, a Marine first,
last and Always! You may serve a four-year enlistment or even a twenty plus
year career without seeing action but if the word is given you'll charge
across that Wheatfield! Whether a Marine has been schooled in automated
supply or automotive mechanics or aviation electronics or whatever is
immaterial.

Those things are secondary –– the Corps does them because it must. The
modern battle requires the technical appliances and since the enemy has them
so do we. But no Marine boasts mastery of them. Our pride is in our
marksmanship, our discipline, and our membership in a fraternity of courage
and sacrifice. "For the honor of the fallen, for the glory of the dead",
Edgar Guest wrote of Belleau Wood. "The living line of courage kept the
faith and moved ahead."

They are all gone now, those Marines who made a French farmer's little
Wheatfield into one of the most enduring of Marine Corps legends. Many of
them did not survive the day and eight long decades have claimed the rest.
But their actions are immortal. The Corps remembers them and honors what
they did and so they live forever. Dan Daly's shouted challenge takes on its
true meaning - if you lie in the trenches you may survive for now, but
someday you may die and no one will care. If you charge the guns you may die
in the next two minutes, but you will be one of the immortals.

All Marines die in either the red flash of battle or the white cold of the
nursing home. In the vigor of youth or the infirmity of age all will
eventually die but the Marine Corps lives on. Every Marine who ever lived is
living still, in the Marines who claim the title today.

It is that sense of belonging to something that will outlive our own
mortality, which gives people a light to live by and a flame to mark their
passing.

It's been my experience that people join the Marine Corps out of a sense of duty, honor, patriotism...and for the chance of adventure.

While the vast majority (those not in the Combat Arms) of those that join the army do so because they see it as a type of social welfare experiment designed to take care of them.

I have no experience working with the Army.  I would say that each branch serves a purpose and serves it well.  

The only experience I have ever had with the Army that made me thing WTF was when we landed in Korea for Ulchi Focus Lense and the working party unloading our gear was primarily Sergeant 1st Class's and Staff Sergeants.  I can tell you for sure that you would never find a workng party of Staff Sergeants and Gunnery Sergeants.

I say God bless the Army and God bless my Corps!

to my brothers and to the Army

Huh, we're doing this again already...
I keep hearing all sorts of misconceptions and I'm not going to addess them all but...
Yes everyone in the army trains on M16s, M249s, M240s, M203s in basic.  I think I shot about 100 chalk rounds in basic training.  Yes we use iron sights, then we get CCOs and shoot/qualify with those aswell.  We also get nods and lasers and qualify at night with those.  You guys did pushups, so did we ––- yay.

Marine airwing is the most over exaggerated shit that I keep hearing.  We used the AF almost exclusively on our deployment, we dropped plenty of bombs and there were never significan issues.  The French did the best CAS for us because they didn't want to reconfirm a thousand times exactly where we needed it and were willing to drop a bomb where they thought the enemy was and have us do adjustments off of that so that the second bomb would be money (it was).  I couldn't decide which was better for CAS an A-10 or a B-1 saying fuck it, we've got a shit ton of bombs, let's drop em all.

Whoever said 1ID was mechanized...it's all Brigade Combat Teams now....2 of our are light infantry, 2 are mech.  My unit got replaced by a 4th ID light unit aswell.

People keep saying the marines use m16s w/ acogs and the army uses m4 w/cco.  Well, if I was in an urban environment I would choose the M4 CCO.  My entire battalion was issued CCOs AND ACOGs.  We used the ACOGs for Afghanistan.  The marines that were with us (ETTs) used the exact same M4 / ACOG setup we were running.  We had plenty of DMs and Machineguns for the long range stuff.

A far better weapon for a nice long range shot on an IED team is a Javelin anyways...we shot our fair share.

First in last out crap doesn't really mean much unless you're hitting the beaches, EVERYONE claims to be first in etc.  It is mostly BS.  A B-2 pilot probably thinks he's first in but an army or infantry grunt probably thinks it means boots on the ground, while some navy sub off the coast is claiming this aswell.
You can't make great comparisons to what one unit does vs another in most situations because it is always a diffent fight against differnt enemy tactics or terrain.

When I was at MEPS getting ready to leave for the army infantry there were a ton of marines there that day talking all their military smack.  2 stories that stood out were how one guy was already planning to go awol from the marines and just wanted an enlistmen bonus.    Hopefully they squared that dude the fuck away.  The other was a future marine commo guy telling me how hard core he was compaired to my army ass...sure buddy, just keep repairing those radios.

ETA: When I got to my unit my PSG was an E-6, We've still got E-5 squadleaders now, and we have plenty of E-4 teamleaders, most of them are specialists because in the real world shit doesn't go the way someone planned it on a piece of paper.  You can be an E-4 army NCO aswell, it's called a Corporal, same as the USMC E-4 NCO.

Also the 9 man vs. 13 man thing....our squads were always linked up with a gun team from our platoon.  This gave us (in theory if we weren't undermanned) 12 man squads which i means 2 m203ss, 8 M-4s, 1 M-14, 2 Mk 49s, and a Mk 48.

Having dropped a shit load of bombs in country used air from all the coalition forces and used both Marine rotary wing and Army CCA, my preference is Marine Air because just like the A-10s their whole purpose in life is to provide CAS, there is no this is my side job attitude or putting the plane safety in front of troop safety on the ground. If you think AF (outside of A-10s) or French Air is all that good; anyone who is the fire support business will tell you don't have enough experience to give that informed of an opinion.  I have had AF B1s arguing with FACs on the ground on the ground on how they mensurated targets (yet the birds were pre-Sniper-X pods and would have to PSS-SOF the grind using the same PSS-SOF the FAC was using).  I have had Strike Eagles and Vipers refuse to go low enough to strafe, I have had to send away French and Dutch aircraft because they could not read back the 9 line, which is actually a 11 line, to a level the sender could acknowledge they received accurately received it.

 
Addition previously you talked about an FO controlling air, this again goes back to a lack of knowing or experience at what the FO was doing.  I was the equivalent to a Bde Fires and Effect officer. No one, tier one Special Operations included was allowed to control air without being a theatre approved JTAC.  Per the SPINs in theatre, FO, even JFOs cannot control air, they can provide an initial grid for a type 2 or 3 control but the pilot is talking back to the JTAC (or FAC if you have one) or to a FAC-A who is actually controlling the fires.  The Air Force who is the CFACC has codified that, and no is allowed to break that rule unless they own their own air (again the advantage of the MAGTF).  Pilots will get grounded for that sort of thing, it just doesn't happen.

Well that 13 man squad normally gets machine guns and assault rockets attached also.  Our squad was built around the fire team concept, while your squad was built around its mode of transportation.  I would suggest you read "On Infantry" it will give allot of the history of squad size development.

I don't know who army bonuses are paid, but for the them to actually get the full bonus in the Marines would mean they would have to serve several years.