We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-israeli War

[S2]

Shek Reply

Good post. I actually think that you may have posted this elsewhere or offered it privately. I've seen it before and the name was deeply there. I sure as hell knew that you weren't extolling the COIN virtues of Sepp Dietrich.

The article jogged my re-collection. There've been a crap-load. So much so that I'm at a loss how to attribute original thought oftentimes. The soldierly world has never been more complex.

[Shek]

Good post. I actually think that you may have posted this elsewhere or offered it privately. I've seen it before and the name was deeply there. I sure as hell knew that you weren't extolling the COIN virtues of Sepp Dietrich.

The article jogged my re-collection. There've been a crap-load. So much so that I'm at a loss how to attribute original thought oftentimes. The soldierly world has never been more complex.

When you look at the COIN FM, you'll find that whole sections are essentially lifted straight from scholarly articles that were published in Military Review, a sort of COIN FM preview by monthly installment. Sepp's article is one of those that appears in the FM; he wrote the article for GEN Casey while he was the first COIN advisor in Iraq (IIRC), or at least the first one whose official role was to be specifically that.

To see the other articles that you can find either in spirit or as in the case of Sepp's, nearly verbatim, check out the Annotated Bibliography. Sepp's practices are found on page 1-29 in table 1-1.

[Bigfella]

Unsurprisingly Shek has covered most of my arguments batter than I could have, so I'll try to keep this brief.

"At no point in the war did the US cease its mission to prepare for a large conventional war in Europe. Not only was the institutional knowledge to perform such task retained, but so was the physical capability. This remained the case from the start of the Cold War until its end, as it should."

The institutional knowledge was lying in stilted dormancy. The physical capability was ON IT'S ASS by 1971, bigfella. USAEUR was an absolute shell of it's 1964 self. So was our doctrine. So too, had the rest of western Europe fallen into utter conventional disrepair. Carter begged western Europe to INCREASE their defense budgets to 3% minimum GNP. THAT was the goal. It remains as unattainable for them today, btw, as then.

Shek says it was our economy that defeated the Soviet Union. Fine. It was manifested in our tremendous buildup between 1976-1991. THERE was the point of contact by which a planned and centralized economy could neither innovate, produce, nor budget at our pace. In fact it was debilitatingly destructive when coupled witht the net effect of Afghanistan.

Were the problems with the physical capability in 1971 because COIN doctrine had gutted conventional capability OR because the US had stretched its resources to the limit to fight a full-scale war in Vietnam while also trying to retain a large conventional committment to Europe?

"My issue is that too much of this capability was effectively jettisoned aftre Vietnam & largely had to be re-learned when the US found itself caught up in large COIN conflicts in Afghanistan & Iraq."

"jettisoned" implies far too greatly irresponsibility. Not so in light of the overwhelming strategic threat/imbalance which we faced in western Europe because of undermanned and poorly equipped conventional forces armed with a politically unacceptable doctrine which left us utterly vulnerable to take any conventional attack of western Europe and IMMEDIATELY go nuclear for lack of a conventional deterrant.

The threat was real and absolutely dangerously destabilizing. To suggest that anything short of our full and absolute focus on the immediate threat could have achieved the same security and, ultimately, decisive success against the Soviet Union is completely wrong.

"re-learned", yes. Our doctrinal failure occurred in the aftermath NOT of Vietnam but Desert Storm. Here, in 1991, was the new world for applying COIN, not prior. Context had utterly changed once again. The conventional threat had receded from the horizon and Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti had sent clear signals that there would be a new way to conduct military operations.

NOW start to identify our neglect of dormant lessons. While you do so, I'd suggest that the rest of mankind's militaries, possessing access to the literature on COIN available from Vietnam, Malaya, and the Phillippines, ALSO were as guilty. After 1991, not before.

Shek has dealt with a good deal of this. It simply wouldn't have taken a lot to keep COIN capabilities alive beyond Ft Bragg (the doctrinal equivalent of 'ghettoization'?). As I said, it didn't require warehousing divisions of troops under glass with 'break in case of COIN threat'. It required a relatively small number of officers properly codifying the experiences of Vietnam, reading other literature, writing & reviewing manuals & interacting with other militaries - perhaps those engaged in COIN ops.

"I don't see this as 'either/or'. NATO was core US military business for the whole Cold War, but there was no reason why the US military could not retain a healthy COIN capability AND face down the Russians at the Fulda Gap."

It's possible that, smartly in 1964, we could have done both. We didn't. In the aftermath of our failure to secure neither Vietnam nor Europe your memory fails you to the massive disparity between the Warsaw Pact and our forces. This was coupled to the equally massive disparity in spending (% of GNP) by ourselves and our allies compared to the Soviet Union. That changed for us. It changed far less so for our allies. In the face of this pervasive and overwhelming threat, you'd encourage, instead, a dualist approach with strong emphasis to COIN wars not yet on our threat horizon in 1976.

We really do hold the label of a latent omnipotent hegamon to possess that kind of unwielded power. No. Our army was undermanned and poorly trained to fight and win against the Soviet Union. Our equipment was worn-out and obsolete. Our DOCTRINE (active defense) was passive, defensive, surrendered initiative, and held no answers for the echeloned operational manuever groups (OMGs) then emerging within Soviet doctrine.

You appear to have misunderstood me. I am not sure what you mean by a 'strong emphasis to COIN wars', but it doesn't sound like what I have been talking about. I'll repeat my point: what was required was the maintenance of the institutional knowledge of COIN acquired in Vietnam. All this required was a committment to maintaining the KNOWLEDGE in a systematized, ongoing fashion. Cheap & easy to do. No reason for it to interfere with the necessary conventional restructuring.

"It wasn't a resource issue, it was a choice made by politicians not to get involved in 'messy' wars and by the military to assume politicians would never change their minds."

Escapism. I reject it completely. I've made my case as best I can as to why. You're welcome to your view. I find it inaccurate, simplistic, vogue, and seriously lacking historical context.

No need for an attack of the crankies.

"Likewise I don't see an either/or situation now. Iraq is actually a classic example of needing both capabilities virtually simultaneously. The invasion was pure blitzkrieg, 2003 style, as it should have been. What was then needed was the application of the sort of COIN tactics that had to wait until 2006-07. The military has to be prepared to fight the wars they have, not just the ones they want. The US military has the resources to do both - it can 'walk & chew gum'."

Fine. Let's discuss doctrinal failure where it matters, after 1991. Sometime between 1991 and 2001 we failed to identify and prepare for the near-term dominance of assymetric warfare in all it's forms and guises. THEN let's assure an equal opporturnity failure by suggesting that this negligence was spread further than just the American army. Those COIN lessons of Vietnam were there for ANY army to absorb in this emerging environment post-1991. Few updated their doctrines, to include our commonwealth friends.

Is that really what this is all about. Do you really think I'm singling the US out for criticism? It happens that on this issue I am more familiar with the US experience. It is also the case that there is a larger body of literature on the US experience on this issue. Further, America is the most imprtant country in the world & is currently at the centre of perhaps the two most important military ops in the world at the moment. Finally, America has assigned itself a global mission with a large, well resourced military. As a result its failures are not only more apparent, but more important that those of Commonwealth nations.

There were numerous times between 1975 & 1991 when America could have CHOSEN to enter a largely COIN conflict. The opportunities existed. The decision was made that there were other priorities & that it might be politically difficult. No argument here. The end of the Cold War certainly changed the importance of conventional war as opposed to potential COIN wars, but the change was in emphasis, not the existence of potential COIN conflicts.

Yes, the failure post-1991 is clear, but I struggle with your apparent assertion that there was no failure pre-1991. It was a failure on a much smaller scale, but I contend it was there. It would certainly have been easier to stand up a functional COIN capability after 1991 with a small core of experts properly versed in COIN ideas. The resources required to do this would have been virtually nonexistent.

You seem to have decided that I mean something that I don't actually mean. You also seem to have some sort of personal investment in this topic. I don't, so to continue the argument from my side risks causing unintended offence. I don't want to do that, so I'm going to exit the debate here. I'll leave it for you & Shek to argue about.

[S2]

bigfella Reply

Hey, bluntly, I think that you can toss sticks and stones at our army for not being on it's toes starting around 1991. The knowledge was out there, the examples of a new threat were emerging, and the Soviet Union was fast receding in the mirror.

Until then, all else paled when faced with a direct confrontation between two super-powers and their proxies. Given our weak condition following SVN, we didn't have much choice. It was nuke release the moment the Reds crossed the IGB or "better red than dead". Our conventional posture and it's doctrine were militarily and politically bankrupt.

I like tanks in COIN so I hope that we'll keep them. I like light infantry in HIC so I hope that we'll keep them too. I like artillery all the time so, yup, I hope that we keep gunners.

Our NCO and officer leaders need to do it all- no "if" "and" or "but" accepted. Neither threat constitutes an acceptable risk. Certainly not long-term. Heavy forces can't go away, therefore. Given the long lead-times of this related technology, neither will budgets emphasizing these systems.

Mixes of forces may change. Hopefully, intelligent integration of human and technical capital can help us to adequately cover the full spectrum of threats.

[Shek]

Hey, bluntly, I think that you can toss sticks and stones at our army for not being on it's toes starting around 1991. The knowledge was out there, the examples of a new threat were emerging, and the Soviet Union was fast receding in the mirror.

Until then, all else paled when faced with a direct confrontation between two super-powers and their proxies. Given our weak condition following SVN, we didn't have much choice. It was nuke release the moment the Reds crossed the IGB or "better red than dead". Our conventional posture and it's doctrine were militarily and politically bankrupt.

I like tanks in COIN so I hope that we'll keep them. I like light infantry in HIC so I hope that we'll keep them too. I like artillery all the time so, yup, I hope that we keep gunners.

Our NCO and officer leaders need to do it all- no "if" "and" or "but" accepted. Neither threat constitutes an acceptable risk. Certainly not long-term. Heavy forces can't go away, therefore. Given the long lead-times of this related technology, neither will budgets emphasizing these systems.

Mixes of forces may change. Hopefully, intelligent integration of human and technical capital can help us to adequately cover the full spectrum of threats.

Maybe you can help me out here, but I don't see where this addresses the point that BF makes, which is the same one I made. The US Army didn't institutionalize the COIN experience from Vietnam. As vets retired, so went COIN experience. Can you point me to where the institution captured things?

The two biggest books to come from Vietnam are LTG Moore's book, which is about a conventional battle, and COL Summer's book, which is a rejection of COIN and an affirmation of the conventional approach buttressed by an interpretation of Clausewitz. The institution flat out rejected COIN, and my generation of officers had to learn the hard way, despite the fact that the US Army has done small wars more than it has done big wars.

I don't think either of us has stated that the US Army didn't have it's priorities straight, or that we should try to pigeon hole ourselves into a light for LIC and heavy for HIC force structure. I believe we are in agreement here, with the difference in our lines of thoughts being whether the Army should have invested some minimal resources to put pen to paper about COIN in Vietnam.

[rj1]

I'll read the paper in full later, as 105 pages is a bit.

I think the reason our counterinsurgency lessons were lost post-Vietnam was cause where else at that point in time would the U.S. use this type of warfare again? They had no colonies, so there were no peacekeeping efforts against insurgents like the British did in Northern Ireland for example.

That's a self-defeating or self-contradictory argument. Vietnam demonstrated that in an era where the US no longer had any colonies/protectorates, it still might be called to fight COIN. Vietnam demonstrated that we should understand COIN and be prepared to fight it, rathern than the institutional response of "see no COIN, hear no COIN, speak no COIN."

The geopolitics at the time was governed such that all conflicts were stomped on somewhat quickly by the dual superpowers as the U.S. and Soviets used their political influence to keep peace.

The geopolitics tried to avoid open/hot wars, and so instead, there were small wars (insurgency/COIN include) on the periphery that we were involved in. Look at Latin America. Heck, we fought a proxy insurgency in Afghanistan against the Soviets, so couldn't the tables have been turned?

[S2]

Shek Reply

"The US Army didn't institutionalize the COIN experience from Vietnam."

No. It never formally undertook an effort that was specifically budgeted at institutionalizing the COIN experience from Vietnam down to our young officers and N.C.O.s. What we did, in the aftermath of Vietnam, was get busy rebuilding our army from the ground up- both equipment and men- to counter the severe conventional disparity in central Europe which threatened to de-stabilize our deterrance strategy against a global super-power.

Nonetheless, we embarked on a series of innovations that integrated many of the lessons of light infantry tactics and field-craft from Vietnam which were utterly necessary and missing from our training base as we ramped up and deployed tens of thousands of largely half-trained riflemen into a completely unforgiving environment. In general, we integrated damn near every applicable SOLDIER SKILL that we found valid and timeless to create a better soldier.

I think that the creation of our light infantry divisions and formally activating and revitalizing our ranger regiment might serve as some example that not all small-unit lessons from Vietnam were lost to the institutional memory.

As such, we walked as we couldn't run. If COIN is Ph.D. level warfare practiced at it's most sophisticated level, in 1975 we were barely out of kindergarten and there were more fundamental, broadly useful lessons that required imparting on our war-fighting culture to meet our immediate concern.

"The institution flat out rejected COIN, and my generation of officers had to learn the hard way, despite the fact that the US Army has done small wars more than it has done big wars."

A whole generation of officers and N.C.O.s prepared for a war which they never fought and, instead, fought a war for which they'd never prepared. My generation did not. We were immaculately prepared to fight a war against the Soviet Union and win-or so we believed. I believe that our training and doctrine were appropriate for the time.

If you wish COIN to share equal billing in that period, it wasn't going to happen and I say so without apology. If you wish it "institutionalized", then I agree that we could have tacked a half-day seminar at the end of IOBC. Ah, that would be patronizing a required skill and treating it as a "lesser-included". No emphasis in IOBC and half the class is asleep.

You entered West Point in 1992. Following Desert Storm in 1991, I think it fair that threats might have changed sufficiently that you shouldn't have had to suffer so by the time that you attended IOBC in 1996. I also see that as a grievous failing coming from your commanders back then. Your commanders were from my generation of officers and had no practical exposure to speak of w/ COIN and GSFG across the IGB for the greater part of their careers.

I'd suggest, further, that from 1991 my clique of officers may have suffered a burden of arrogance stemming from our conventional dominance. I accept total blame on the part of my generation of officers for recklessly pointing the way to a brave new world that in no way reflected ground-truths.:))

"I believe we are in agreement here, with the difference in our lines of thoughts being whether the Army should have invested some minimal resources to put pen to paper about COIN in Vietnam."

A French View of Counter-Insurgency- Trinquier CSI Collected Works Unknown Date

U.S. Intervention In The Dominican Republic- Yates CSI 1988

Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B2 Theatre- Vol V: Concluding the 30 Year War- Tra CSI 1983

"Not War But Like War": The American Intervention in Lebanon- Spillar CSI 1981

No. They did to a great degree, I believe. What they didn't do was create a Dept. of COIN. Your ideas go far deeper than a few studies.

You really want to get wild? I'll make a case that it should exist as a cabinet-level department. That'll assure complete institutionalization.

[Shek]

Despite your continued insistance that I am calling for equal weighting of COIN post-Vietnam, this strawman does not fly, as I've never asked or called for this.

I'd love to find publically the numbers of COIN-specific jobs in the Army currently, but based on the Afghan COIN Academy being led by a CPT and the Iraq COIN Academy doing low throughput, I suspect that we probably have only several dozen to upwards of 100-200. This low number, despite having 1/3 of our military on foreign soil waging COIN operations indicates that the burden on a 800K active duty Army not actively engaged in COIN would be even less, both in absolute and relative terms. We'd also need some budget dust to sprinkle a few officers through grad school for the proper background to institutionalize some of the Vietnam COIN lessons, but as I said, this is budget dust.

As for the links, thanks - guess I didn't need to shell out $30 for a print copy of Trinquier. However, I'd point out that of the four links:

1 is written by a French Officer
1 is written by a North Vietnamese Officer
2 are written about peacekeeping, not COIN operations

Rather than being examples of institutionalization of COIN, with a distilled operationalized product (i.e., updated doctrine, training recommendations/POIs that adhered to the developing training management system being developed around the same time), these links represent a purely historical and not a critical scrutiny of American COIN.

Even at a few dozen to a few hundred pax, the current "institutionalization" of COIN may be fleeting. The Afghanistan/Iraq COIN Academies will die once those conflicts are finished. There is no COIN mandated training within TRADOC, so if (when?) is no longer the flavor of the day, we'll be ready to repeat the 1970s and sentence my kids' generation to the same fate of having to pay the price in blood to relearn lessons already learned by their fathers and mothers.

[S2]

Shek Reply

"It never formally undertook an effort that was specifically budgeted at institutionalizing the COIN experience from Vietnam down to our young officers and N.C.O.s."

Said that in the initial part of my reply to you. That's definitive.

You said-

"...the Army should have invested some minimal resources to put pen to paper about COIN in Vietnam."

I replied w/ some links that indicated somebody in the army was, on occasion, sorta doing that. I didn't know that you were necessarily seeking original product. Still, they weren't offered as indications of a true inculcation of the COIN experience specific to Vietnam.

"Despite your continued insistance that I am calling for equal weighting of COIN post-Vietnam, this strawman does not fly, as I've never asked or called for this."

Shek, sorry for the hyperbole attached to-

"...If you wish COIN to share equal billing in that period, it wasn't going to happen..."

Clearly it doesn't accurately reflect your views. I'm not sure that mine are being accurately absorbed either.

I guess that I've only a vague feel for what your expectations might have been between 1974 and 1991 or 2001.

"...institutionalization of COIN, with a distilled operationalized product (i.e., updated doctrine, training recommendations/POIs that adhered to the developing training management system being developed around the same time)..."

That would be thoroughly institutionalizing the experience, to be sure. If the above reflects your expectations prior to 1991, then I don't think it was likely. I don't believe that it was willful nor doctrinal escapism. You indicate that men like DePuy and Emerson had their priorities correct. I think any thorough review of that general period in our army's history would indicate a massive and unprecedented undertaking.

Clearly, I feel exactly the same as you about the institutional failure to prepare our forces as well as they might otherwise since 1991. I've made that plain enough.

"There is no COIN mandated training within TRADOC, so if (when?) is no longer the flavor of the day, we'll be ready to repeat the 1970s and sentence my kids' generation to the same fate of having to pay the price in blood to relearn lessons already learned by their fathers and mothers."

Again, I disagree. You'll be repeating the 90s if you fail to alter the prevailing condition. My generation of officers need to accept the blame for failing to prepare you adequately, not DePuy's/Emerson's. Those guys saw the next threat clearly. Perhaps it was easy. Still, they came, saw, and conquered. My generation did not see the next threat so preciently and we failed to prepare YOU for the relevant conflict paradigm.

The next iteration is on you.

If we see the past from a slightly different historical perspective, I think it's fair to say that's not the case about the future.

I'm also going to say this, and it's new- at no time in the past ANYWHERE would you see COIN operations that would serve as complete models for our experiences now in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd submit that the level of sophistication of our operations now- both in breadth and depth- far exceeds past experience and actual pre-conceived expectations of those few "experts" that may have existed prior. That's my guess. Integration with host nations, allied partners, NGOs, civil departments of governance are all newly-exercised skills.

I'm also going to suggest that if force transformation doesn't follow doctrine in an ordered process and, instead, works in fits and starts as is only practical in an imperfect world, then so too may be the case w/ formally integrating COIN as an institutionalized aspect of American war-fighting doctrine and training. I don't know but our institutional experience seems to reflect that to some degree.

Anyway, my thoughts on the matter.

[Equilibrium]

Gentlemen, Colonel, Captain, et al.

Very interesting thread.

I have studied extensively the effort by TRADOC and men such as Gen. Huba Wass de Czege, to create new doctrine and a branch level training and education system to fulfill it. However, I have long held the impression that the US Army experience in Vietnam was never exclusively a counter-insurgency campaign.

Gen. Westmoreland, I believe was more correct in his strategy than wrong. His concept did eventually prove correct, he pressured the NVA forces buttressing the insurgency to retreat into their sanctuary areas and, with the VC itself incapable of directly challenging US/ ARVN forces and the Saigon government, forced Hanoi to gamble with the Tet Offensive which destroyed the VC.

Gen. Abrams reoriented US forces to defend population areas at a time when growing US domestic opinion was turning against the war. Hanoi began using the NVA to replace the VC- using conventional armies to replace insurgents. But the conventional US/ ARVN v. NVA battles that followed led to the mauling of NVA forces in Cambodia, a degradation of NVA forces in Laos in 1971 and the destruction of the NVA armies in 1972.

The Vietnam experience was unique as opposed to the current controversy today as a foreign supported insurgency was supported at various levels of intensity and eventually replaced by conventional military forces.

I think the '73 war provided the US Army with a reminder that technology had surpassed the original post-WWII European conventional strategy, but since such strategy was based on US forces being a speed bump for an eventual nuclear exchange, it allowed US forces to recognize the possibility of conventional technology to redress the imbalance of firepower and numbers.

[S2]

Equilibrium Reply

"I have long held the impression that the US Army experience in Vietnam was never exclusively a counter-insurgency campaign."

It's more than an impression. It's a fact that from November 1965, U.S. ground forces engaged large units (regiments of in-country NVA divisions) of the NVA on a fairly routine basis.

"Gen. Westmoreland, I believe was more correct in his strategy than wrong. His concept did eventually prove correct, he pressured the NVA forces buttressing the insurgency to retreat into their sanctuary areas and, with the VC itself incapable of directly challenging US/ ARVN forces and the Saigon government, forced Hanoi to gamble with the Tet Offensive which destroyed the VC."

I'm no expert but this will likely cause you problems at WAB. I'd agree that, from 1965 onward, Hanoi imposed upon our government the requirement to conduct conventional combat w/ their forces and to do so as far from the population and rice-growing centers as possible. Too, there was a very real threat of the NVA being capable of physically cutting the nation in two from the central highlands to the coast.

Many won't dispute those salient threats but might argue successfully that Westmoreland's flaw lay in not shaping the protected areas to best advantage while, perhaps, possible to do so. It may have been an upstream fight even were we aware of TTPs that would work on a hamlet/village/town basis (micro-strategies suited to local needs using PRT-equivalent of the day such as the successful Marine CAP program along the coastal belt). Many of the impediments lay in the relationship between the SVN gov't and army and the U.S. gov't/military.

It would seem that our goals were largely aligned, if not similar. What's clear is our collective failure to achieve either. SVN is no more and we left in disgrace. At some level, larger, macro solutions designed to transform the SVN mandarin-despotic corrupt culture into a more unifying appeal to the populace were necessary. Not only didn't we do that (both the SVN gov't and MAC-V) but exacerbated many antagonizing issues and behavior needlessly.

Westmoreland, I suspect, applied his vision of war-fighting. By itself, it was generally fine. I'd argue that it was the NVA, not us, that introduced forces in-country first and necessitated our engagements along the highland borders and northward. But the WAR was much larger than these battles. It would be won or lost in the minds of the SVN people and not on some hill along the Laotian or Cambodian border.

Westmoreland, more than not having an answer, would likely be accused of consciously avoiding the discussion altogether.

I know this- The U.S. Army of 1965 was outstanding. That said and recognizing we were already well late to the game, it would have been a remarkable transformation of our forces to reach the perspectives which we see so well in hindsight. We'd be discussing a period of 1965-1967/68 to effect a societal transformation willing to en masse devote and defend the SVN gov't.

Our inability to find the right levers to legitimize the gov't in the eyes of it's people probably lost the war for us and, again, we were already well behind the eight-ball in 1965.

If so, the question of SVN might more properly lie in the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. What could they have done to pre-empt or mitigate the insurgency prior to LBJ introducing large combat elements in 1965?

[S2]

Oh, btw, I've been a poor steward of my thread. Helluva fun discussion about the 'Nam but anybody interested in discussing the upcoming summer war along the northern border should feel free to chime in.:))

[S2]

Next War-itis

From Robert Gates a couple of days ago-

Sec'y Gates on Nextwaritis

His comments speak a bit to summarizing the world now vs. 1971. He speaks to assessing risks appropriately and institutionalizing much of what we're learning now.

Global deterrance will be the purview of our U.S.A.F. and Navy. Army and marines will assume many of the classic S.F. roles in an increasingly assymetric environment.

[astralis]

S-2,

army and marines can't be too happy about that. navy and AF get to deter the big boys with their sexy new toys, army and marines get to deal with insurgencies.

[S2]

Astralis Reply

Maybe. Army and marines fight wars. Navy and Air Force talk about them.

It's our fight and there are areas where they can help but Gates is speaking to practical reality. I appreciate that there's always a reason to complain about budgets but smart Army and Marine officers hopefully realize that the nature of these and most foreseeable wars dictate an expanded skill-set and a lot of work.

The Army and Marines had better become comfortable with selling the message internally and to potential recruits. We're not about career enhancement and we promise you the opportunity to fight dirty, nasty, very personal wars far from home with little recognizable to your eye.

Enjoy.