Tag: US Marine Corps

This story has been sweeping the Internet because it appears to show the extreme double standard between Hillary Clinton and everyone else that is not politically connected:

A Marine Corps officer who has been locked in a legal battle with his service after self-reporting that he improperly disseminated classified information will use Hillary Clinton’s email case to fight his involuntary separation from the service, his lawyer said.

Maj. Jason Brezler’s case has been tied up in federal court since he sued the service in December 2014. He became a cause celebre among some members of Congress, Marine generals and military veterans after he sent a classified message using an unclassified Yahoo email account to warn fellow Marines in southern Afghanistan about a potentially corrupt Afghan police chief. A servant of that police official killed three Marines and severely wounded a fourth 17 days later, on Aug. 10, 2012, opening fire with a Kalashnikov rifle in an insider attack.  [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link, but it is important to realize that like Clinton, Maj. Brezler was not criminally charged.  Instead he received a career ending report that led to involuntary separation proceedings by the Marine Corps.  So the circumstances are different and not the best comparison in my opinion.  I still think the David Petraeus situation is a better comparison considering he was criminally charged and punished for doing something in my opinion was a far less of a transgression than what Clinton did.

What that all said I don’t blame this Marine or anyone else in trouble fill spillage for citing the Clinton case as a way to avoid punishment.

In my opinion Adam Driver’s character is probably one of the biggest disappointments of an otherwise mostly good Star Wars movie.  Really did anyone expect a young Marilyn Manson when Kylo Ren took his helmet off?  To be fair though he is a much better actor than Hayden Christensen was in the prequels.  Of interest though is that before joining the Dark Side, Adam Driver was once a US Marine:

For a while, Adam Driver felt like he was doomed to a life of missed opportunities.

Of course, for an Emmy-nominated actor named one of GQ’s “Men of the Year,” that’s not true anymore — but ask him about his role in the new “Star Wars” film and it quickly becomes apparent that he does not want to screw this one up.

A misfit growing up in small town Mishawaka, Indiana, Driver was drawn to performing from an early age, landing regular roles in high school plays and singing in the choir at the church where his stepfather was pastor.

But mediocre grades kept him from getting accepted into acting school after graduating in 2001. With big talk to match his big dreams, he set off for Los Angeles to try to break into acting the old-fashioned way. Instead, his car broke down halfway there and, out of money, he was forced to retreat back home.

“It’s hard to come back after telling everyone ‘I’m outta here,’ ” he says.

A new hope

After stints selling vacuums door-to-door and other odd jobs, Driver was among the first to go see a Marine Corps recruiter after the Sept. 11 attacks, signing up for the infantry.  [Military Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

Here is a pretty cool story about a US Marine who was seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan and before having her leg amputated decided to walk across the UK with Prince Harry cheering her on:

But among the small group of warriors drawing breath at the special reception laid on for them, none should feel more proud than Kirstie Ennis, an Afghan veteran like Harry, and the sole woman to take part in the 72-day expedition.

She is lucky to be alive. Surgeons have practically rebuilt her in the course of 38 separate operations. She has somehow covered the extraordinary distance on a leg so damaged and painful that her medical team insists it should be amputated – and it will be removed once today’s final agonising mission is complete.
It is just three years since the slender blonde was told she would never walk again. In fact, so exemplary is Kirstie’s determination that she and the Prince have forged a remarkable bond in the past few weeks, when Harry joined 24-year-old Kirstie and the other walkers on their journey.  [Daily Mail]

You can read the rest at the link, but I wish Kirstie all the best as she continues her recovery from her injuries

There was a pretty devastating article published in the Washington Post where Marines to include females that took part in the recent integrated combat arms experiment took shots at Navy Secretary Ray Mabus for his criticisms of their performance:

Marines involved in a controversial experiment evaluating a gender-integrated infantry unit say they feel betrayed by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus after he criticized the results of a nine-month study that found women are injured more frequently and shoot less accurately in simulated combat conditions.

“Our secretary of the Navy completely rolled the Marine Corps and the entire staff that was involved in putting this [experiment] in place under the bus,” said Sgt. Danielle Beck, a female anti-armor gunner with the task force.

Mabus questioned the findings of the research after a four-page summary of the results was released Thursday, saying he still thinks all jobs in the Marine Corps should be opened to women. He said results that found women were more than twice as likely to be injured and ultimately compromise a unit’s combat effectiveness were an “extrapolation based on injury rates, and I’m not sure that’s right,” he told NPR.  [Washington Post]

Here is something I find interesting because critics of the study were claiming the female volunteers were not properly trained when in fact they received five months of training before conducting the experiment:

“If you were to look at our training plan and how we progressed from October to February, you’re not going to find any evidence of institutional bias or some way we built this for females to fail,” said one Marine officer who participated in the experiment.

The officer, who asked to remain anonymous because of his active-duty status, explained that for the first five months of the experiment the Marines of the task force trained as a unit in North Carolina to prepare for the testing phase in California. This phase of training is known as “the work-up,” with the second phase in California — where the trials would be held — acting as the deployment.

Additionally if you read the rest of the article the women who participated in the experiment were high performers on their physical fitness test.  So basically you have motivated females that volunteered for the experiment, that were fit, and received five months of combat arms training that went and did the experiment with their male counterparts.

What gets me more than anything about this whole issue is that if Secretary Mabus had his mind made up beforehand why bother with the experiment in the first place?

The Marines are coming!  The Marines are coming!:

South Korea and the United States plan to stage a joint landing drill here late this month, with three U.S. amphibious ships participating, officers said Wednesday.

Starting at the end of this month, the Marine Corps and the navies of the two nations are scheduled to hold the annual landing drill of Ssangyong in South Korea’s southern port city of Pohang “to boost capabilities of conducting the full spectrum of a combined arms, amphibious landing operation,” a military officer said.

Though the exact scale of the planned exercise is not known, officers say some 1,000 U.S. Marines and 3,000 South Koreans are to take part in the drill, which is expected to last less than a week, together with the three U.S. amphibious vessels.

“The U.S. plans to send the 25,000-ton USS Green Bay transport dock, the 41,000-ton USS Bonhomme Richard assault ship and the 15,000-ton USS Ashland dock landing ship for the exercise,” another officer said.

The Green Bay, which takes on the design for stealth capabilities, is able to deliver a fully equipped battalion of 800 Marines. It is the first time that the San Antonio-class ship has taken part in the joint drill.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I would like to see the anti-US leftists try and stab these guys like they did the US ambassador.

South Korean and U.S. Marines hold a joint firing drill in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, on Dec. 23, 2014. (Photo courtesy of First Marine Division) (Yonhap)

I wonder which US military installation we will see closed first, Futenma in Japan or Yongsan Garrison in Seoul?

Japan will make every effort to achieve the “earliest possible” relocation of the Futenma base to the proposed site further north on the island of Okinawa, new Defense Minister Akinori Eto said Monday.

“We have to avoid keeping the (U.S. Marine Corps) Air Station Futenma in the center of Ginowan, which is densely packed with houses and schools,” Eto, 58, said in a group interview at the Defense Ministry. “Though we are fully aware of the various opinions among the local public, the only solution to avoid continuous use of the Futenma air station is its relocation to (the shores of) Camp Schwab” in the city of Nago.

Eto stressed that the ministry will be tenacious in explaining the significance and benefits of the relocation to Okinawa’s residents.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Very interesting read by a female Marine about why women should not serve in the Infantry:

While reading the February issue of the Marine Corps Gazette, I skimmed past the “Be Bold” advertisement calling for readers to submit articles that challenge a Marine Corps policy or way of doing business. Immediately a current “hot topic” came to mind, but as usual I quickly discarded it because I have purposely avoided publicly disagreeing with the passionate opinions of many of my female peers and friends. After weeks of contemplation and debate, I am “being bold” and coming clean: I am a female Marine officer and I do not believe women should serve in the infantry. I recognize that this is a strong statement that will be vehemently challenged by many. I have not come to this opinion lightly and I do not take joy in taking a stance that does not support equal opportunity for all. I have spent countless hours discussing this topic with many civilians and Marines and have discovered that a large number of people agree with the arguments in this article but do not wish to get involved in the public discussion. Interestingly, most of the people who want to incorporate women into infantry are civilians or young, inexperienced Marines. Most of the more seasoned Marines with whom I have spoken tend to oppose the idea of women in infantry—perhaps this is failure to adapt or perhaps it is experienced-based reasoning. National Public Radio’s recent segment, “Looking for a Few Good (Combat-Ready) Women,” stated, “Col Weinberg admits there’s anecdotal evidence that female Marines, who make up 7 percent of the force, aren’t rushing to serve in ground combat.”¹ If the infantry had opened to women while I was still a midshipman or second lieutenant I probably would have jumped at the opportunity because of the novelty, excitement, and challenge; but, to my own disappointment, my views have drastically changd with experience and knowledge. Acknowledging that women are different (not just physically) than men is a hard truth that plays an enormous role in this discussion. This article addresses many issues regarding incorporating women into the infantry that have yet to be discussed in much of the current discourse that has focused primarily on the physical standards.

Before you disagree, remember that war is not a fair business. Adversaries attempt to gain an advantage over their enemies by any means possible. Enemies do not necessarily abide by their adversary’s moral standards or rules of engagement. Although in today’s world many gory, violent war tactics are considered immoral, archaic, and banned by international law or the Geneva Conventions, adversaries still must give themselves the greatest advantage possible in order to ensure success. For the Marine Corps, this means ensuring that the infantry grunt (03XX) units are the strongest, most powerful, best trained, and most prepared physically and mentally to fight and win. Although perhaps advantageous to individuals and the national movement for complete gender equality, incorporating women into infantry units is not in the best interest of the Marine Corps or U.S. national security.  [Marine Corps Gazette via a reader tip]

I highly recommend reading the whole article at the link, but what I find most interesting about this is that if a male Marine had written this same exact article he would be called a sexist bigot by the special interests in order to drown out honest debate on this topic.  The male Marine would likely have his career blackballed as well if he was of higher rank.  It is a bit harder for the special interests to shout down a female Marine Captain though.

With that all said there are a few things I disagree with the author Captain Lauren Serrano on.  I think if the physical standards are kept high then only someone who is an extremely high-speed individual would be able to meet them.  Due to this fact the drama that Captain Serrano worries about will be largely absent. I have known only one female in the Army during my career that I think could have physically met the Infantry standards.  Her husband was in the 75th Ranger Regiment and they used to work out together all the time.  She was so high-speed that I would be shocked if she became the source of any drama.  By the way I had asked her if she would join the Infantry if she could and she said no way, it was not something she ever wanted to do. That is something else the special interests do not consider, there may be extremely fit people who could meet Infantry standards, but they choose not to because it takes a certain mentality to want to be in the Infantry.

The other issue Serrano brought up, injuries over the course of a career is hard to know, but once again if standards are kept high the women who are able to make it will be extremely fit and should help prevent injuries.  I only see the issues that Captain Serrrano is worried about coming into play if the standards are dropped in order to allow more females into the Infantry.  It is important to remember that if standards are dropped that not only will it allow more females in the Infantry that shouldn’t be there, but males as well.  Infantry is hard work and takes great physical fitness and a certain mentality to do it that the current training standards help to weed those out that shouldn’t be there.

The Camp

Camp Mujuk was established in 1980 to assist the III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) with training deployments to the Korean peninsula.  Mujuk means invincible in Korean and is an 84 acre facility located approximately 400 kilometers southeast of Seoul and 6 kilometers south of the port city of Pohang.  The camp used to be owned by the ROK Marine Corps, but as part of the camp close outs and consolidations that began back in 2004, Camp Mujuk became the responsibility of the US Marine Corps to maintain:

When viewed on Google Earth the small size of this facility is quite evident:

Camp Mujuk’s location in Pohang is important because it is only about a mile from the home base of the 1st ROK Marine Corps Division.  The camp is used as a base to house Marines that rotate to the peninsula for various exercises such as Foal Eagle, Key Resolve, and Ulchi Focus Lens (UFL), which is where US Marines train with their ROK Marine Corps counterparts. Though US Marines only come on the peninsula to train with their ROK Marine counterparts they are still subject to anti-US protests at training exercises they conduct on the peninsula to include even this year’s 2010 Key Resolve exercise:

In past protests, demonstrators actually were jailed when they assaulted US Marines during amphibious landing exercises.

In preparation for these regular training exercises a small detachment of Marines man the camp full time.  According to Global Security.com the camp is manned with 32 Marines full time who usually rotate out after 6 months.  With such a small full time troop presence at Camp Mujuk this means the camp has limited facilities such as a mini-PX and barber shop:

The camp does have the ROK Hard Cafe, which I suspect visiting troops probably share chuckles about when they see the cafe’s name:

Besides being a camp for visiting Marines to house themselves at during training exercises, the camp also serves to maintain pre-positioned aviation and ground ordinance facilities in the area.  Here is a look at the facilities that Camp Mujuk has for visiting Marines:

Here is Camp Mujuk’s headquarters area with the American and ROK flags flying overhead:

You can see the camp’s gym on the right of this picture that Im sure gets plenty of use when visiting Marines are on the base:

Besides getting a good work out at the gym, visiting US Marines also get plenty exercise by training with their ROK Marine counterparts:

When Marines are not training they are also trying to make a positive impact within the Korean community by conducting Good Neighbor activities such as sponsoring orphanages.

The barracks the US Marines stay at are about three years old and are apartment style with refrigerators, microwaves, and washers & dryers:

Like other US camps in Korea, Camp Mujuk also has markers commemorating Heroes of the Korean War such as Marine Corporal Joseph Vittori who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for actions during the Korean War:

Corporal Vittori was killed in action against the Chinese on September 16, 1951.  Here is his Medal of Honor citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as an Automatic Rifleman in Company F, Second Battalion, First Marines, First Marine Division (Reinforced), in actions against enemy aggressor forces in Korea on 15 and 16 September 1951. With a forward platoon suffering heavy casualties and forced to withdraw under a vicious enemy counterattack as his company assaulted strong hostile forces entrenched on Hill 749, Corporal Vittori boldly rushed through the withdrawing troops with two other volunteers from his reserve platoon and plunged directly into the midst of the enemy. Overwhelming them in a fierce hand-to-hand struggle, he enabled his company to consolidate its positions to meet further imminent on slaughts. Quick to respond to an urgent call for a rifleman to defend a heavy machine gun positioned on the extreme point of the northern flank and virtually isolated from the remainder of the unit when the enemy again struck in force during the night, he assumed position under the devastating barrage and, fighting a singlehanded battle, leaped from one flank to the other, covering each foxhole in turn as casualties continued to mount, manning a machine gun when the gunner was struck down and making repeated trips through the heaviest shellfire to replenish ammunition. With the situation becoming extremely critical, reinforcing units to the rear pinned down under the blistering attack and foxholes left practically void by dead and wounded for a distance of 100 yards (91 m), Corporal Vittori continued his valiant stand, refusing to give ground as the enemy penetrated to within feet of his position, simulating strength in the line and denying the foe physical occupation of the ground. Mortally wounded by enemy machine-gun and rifle bullets while persisting in his magnificent defense of the sector where approximately 200 enemy dead were found the following morning, Corporal Vittori, by his fortitude, stouthearted courage and great personal valor, had kept the point position intact despite the tremendous odds and undoubtedly prevented the entire battalion position from collapsing. His extraordinary heroism throughout the furious night-long battle reflects the highest credit upon himself and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

Here is another Marine hero commemorated at Camp Mujuk, Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Gordon:

Lieutenant Colonel Gordon was a veteran of World War II before seeing service in the Korean War.  During the war he was the pilot of a AD-2 Skyraider or Marine Attack Squadron 121. On November 18, 1951, while on a combat mission over North Korea, his aircraft was struck by anti-aircraft fire and caught fire.  LTC Gordon tried to bail out at a low altitude, but was killed during the attempt. Lieutenant Colonel Gordon was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Presidential Unit Citation, the Republic of Korea War Service Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.

Conclusion

That concludes my Camp Mujuk history lesson, which as readers can see isn’t much considering it is a small camp that has a small permanent troop presence, but that doesn’t mean the camp isn’t important.  It is the premier site to host training between two important allied forces; the US Marines and the ROK Marine Corps.  The importance of this camp will ensure that it will continue to play an important part of the US-ROK alliance long after many other camps of similar size are closed on the peninsula.

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Note: Special thanks to ROK Drop reader and contributor Jim for forwarding most of the above pictures to me to post on.