Be faithful to the Marines
Source: The Hill, 6/21/2011
An op-ed by Consensus member Lt. Gen. John Castellaw is featured.
By Lt. Gen. John Castellaw
“Not long after Gen. Jim Amos was announced as the next commandant of the Marine Corps, a past commandant advised, “Get your ‘on bended knee’ speech ready,” meaning Marines were in for another fight to defend their roles, missions and their budget.
In spite of fame from the Pacific Islands campaigns, unification battles following World War II threatened the Marines’ role and even their existence. Marines fought back, and, in a seminal event, Commandant Alexander Vandegrift of Guadalcanal appealed directly to Congress with a speech that included the following: “The bended knee is not a tradition of our Corps. If the Marine as a fighting man has not made a case for himself after 170 years of service he must go. But I think you will agree with me that he has earned the right to depart with dignity and honor, not by subjugation to the status of uselessness and servility planned for him by the War Department.”
Marines, after a hard fight, prevailed, and their structure and missions were enshrined in congressional legislation, preventing the “War Department,” soon to be the Department of Defense (DOD), from turning the Marines into the Navy’s police force as President Truman had desired…”
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[…] Lt. Gen John Castellaw, USMC (Retired), a member of the Consensus for American Security and recent guest author in The Hill. […]