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My father, a real-life “Saving Personal Ryan” veteran (first wave, third touchdown craft to the touch the sand at Normandy), taught me many issues, together with by no means to let opinion outweigh reality. To that time, one factor he stated to me has resonated many occasions throughout the years: “Son, opinions are like a. …”
Properly, the remainder.
Gary Anderson’s op-ed of Aug. 3 on Army.com is an instance of my father’s prophetic recommendation.
Firstly, to so blatantly disparage any veteran days after his retirement, particularly one like Gen. David Berger, who devoted his whole life to the Marine Corps and furthermore this nation in a myriad of roles together with fight, will not be solely disrespectful, it is dishonorable!
Extra to the purpose, Mr. Anderson fails to correctly determine the principal “why” in Commandant Berger’s planning steerage. The final’s pressure design was initiated to adjust to the steerage of the 82nd Congress (80 years in the past!) directing the Marines to stay most prepared when our nation is least prepared. As any protection analyst understands, we are actually firmly centered on a brand new Nationwide Protection Technique in step with a brand new period of nice energy competitors through which we’re arguably behind.
Mr. Anderson additional fails to appropriately account for the roots of the trendy U.S. Marine Corps amphibious operations and the architects of that functionality — initially, Lt. Col. Pete Ellis and later Commandant Ben Fuller. It was their “daring” and never all the time embraced Fleet Marine Pressure idea of the Nineteen Thirties, coming from having been a land-centric pressure in World Struggle I, that heralded the success of the Marine Corps’ island-hopping campaigns of World Struggle II.
Lastly, Mr. Anderson alludes to the labeled video games on the Naval Struggle Faculty and what they could have indicated regarding Commandant Berger’s imaginative and prescient. Fortunately, that is the explanation they have been labeled. Had the findings indicated something otherwise, the idea would have shifted. It hasn’t.
Taking a web page from Commandant Fuller, Commandant Berger appeared on the “coming storm” and made the daring and brave resolution to realign the Marine Corps again to its amphibious roots. His redesign of the Corps took it from the land-centric pressure it had turn into in the course of the Struggle on Terror to a extremely cellular, versatile and adaptable combating pressure able to partaking in island-hopping campaigns within the Pan Pacific theatre, harking back to the Marine Corps of previous!
Whereas Mr. Anderson dismissively alludes to the specter of a land-centric Marine Corps being consumed into the Army, having served as a senior adviser to a extremely revered U.S. senator, these sorts of “economies of scale” initiatives are sometimes mentioned by the uninitiated on Capitol Hill. As historical past has additionally educated us, something Congress considers may happen.
Lastly and most particularly, Commandant Berger “bought” his idea to seasoned specialists within the Pentagon, together with Gen. Jim Mattis, then the secretary of protection, a fellow extremely adorned Marine, and the Honorable Richard V. Spencer, the 76th secretary of the Navy and one other former Marine. ‘Nuff stated!
No, Commandant Berger’s imaginative and prescient to revamp the Corps doesn’t mark him as Mr. Anderson opines. Slightly, having the dignity to serve with Commandant Berger, I watched a gentleman and a dedicated patriot who enormously beloved the Marine Corps verify his personal ego time and time once more to do the fitting factor for the Corps, all the time inserting “service above self.”
The thirty seventh commandant, Gen. Bob Neller, and my predecessor, Secretary Spencer, acquired it proper in seeing Gen. David Berger turn into the thirty eighth commandant of the Marine Corps. Fortunately, neither my opinion nor Mr. Anderson’s issues, as historical past would be the remaining choose of Gen. Berger’s efforts. However mark my phrases, if that coming storm does materialize, Gen. Berger will go down within the annals of Marine Corps historical past as the best commandant to ever serve our nation.
— Kenneth J. Braithwaite, a retired Navy rear admiral, served because the ambassador to Norway in the course of the Trump administration and later because the 77th secretary of the Navy.
