Of course, I agree. But we have our share of ****-birds too. Perhaps they are just a higher class of ****-bird. Ha.
Oh, the Navy/Marine team has been imperative to success throughout America's history.
- The Barbary Pirates Wars signaled to the global powers that America could project beyond the hemisphere in order to protect economic interests, when they were preferring to keep paying ransoms.
- After 1900, the Navy had begun to
create amphibious landing doctrine. They assumed that maritime attacks on the United States and its interests were possible in both the Pacific and the Caribbean, and given the thousands of miles the fleet would have to steam to provide security to the outermost bases. The General Board was convinced that it would require Marine expeditionary battalions that were capable in the hastily development of advanced bases, and it could not depend on the small and overextended Army to defend the bases in short, limited order.
- After the AEF arrived in France it was the Marines that halted the German Spring Offensive and Army General Pershing had to keep putting the Marines back in to keep the ground.
- By the 1930s, the Fleet Marine Force was developed. The Marines and the Navy began to modernize amphibious warfare.
- It was the Navy/Marine amphibious doctrine that pushed victory throughout the Pacific during World War II.
- It was this doctrine that Army General MacArthur used to promote the Battle of Inchon, in which the Navy cleared Soviet mines, with Marines spearheading the assault on Green, Red, and Blue Beach.
- It was the Marines who were used as a feint in order to turn Iraq's Republican Guard's attention towards the sea, whereas their backs were turned to our Army forces in the desert during the Gulf War.
- It was Army General Franks who assumed that America couldn't make use of the Marines in land-locked Afghanistan, because of an outdated way of thinking. But it was General Mattis who objected. It was Vice Admiral Moore who refused Frank's assumption and he put General Mattis in charge of Task Force 58 - the ships and the landing force. Thus it was Mattis who worked Pakistan into giving over airspace; and it was the Navy/Marine team that led the way to "Rhino." It took only twenty-eight days for the Navy, Marines, Army Special Operations, and the State Department to come up with the plan and it began with CH-53s flying Marines, with Navy F-14s and Marine Cobras ruining Taliban plans to object. Then Bush rightfully allowed Franks to make certain decisions, in which he ****ed it all up.
- It was Marines and Navy Corpsmen battling through the heart of Iraq in 2003, with Navy/Marine aviation providing most of the air cover through the central territory. Not because the other branches weren't good, but because the Navy understands Marine operational tempos.
* And in a few decades it will be the Navy who provides cover as Marines hit the beaches of Endor with Lightsabers and blasters, while others still wonder why the term generally used is "Send in the Marines."
****ing OORAH!!!
