@sneakypete You're a vet, right? Your further comments are requested. There is a lot to digest here .
@don-o Yes,but I am an army grunt vet. What little I know about the Navy and USMC I learned growing up in Virginia Beach,Va,and hearing it from the kids of sailors and marines I went to school with. I know NOTHING about Marine Aviation specifically.
I DO know the USMC is the US Navy's hated bastard child,and they try to screw the Marines at every available opportunity. If it ain't about funding fleets so Admirals have big boats to float around on,the Navy just ain't interested,and they seem to resent every nickel they have to give to the Neanderthal Gun Toters.
From what I have seen in what little joint mission training or operations I was involved in,the USMC was under-trained and under-equipped. They were more than willing,they were enthusiastic,but they just lacked the training and the tools they needed.
Also,there seems to be some basic requirement that senior USMC Generals have their heads up their asses,and hate the enlisted swine they command. Probably because that is the only type the Navy thinks is fit to wear a star.
We actually had a A-camp overran in VN because the USMC General in charge of Marines in I-Corps refused to send Marines to the camp as a relief force because "it's not worth risking the lives of Marines to protect green beanies and the primitives they live with". That is NOT a direct quote,but it comes close.
Why that Marine General hated SF is being the arrogant shithead he was,he looked around when he first took command as the USMC Corps commander,and decided that the first thing he needed to do was close down all those A-Camps,and use the Green Berets as recon teams to serve under his command. The senior SF officer in I-Corps (a LTC) basically told him to go piss up a rope,and walked away,and there wasn't a damn thing that arrogant ass could do about it. He couldn't believe a mere LTC could get away with refusing his orders,and took it up with General Abrams in Saigon,and Abrams told him he had no authority to command the SF troops in A Corps or anywhere else to do anything because they had their own missions to run,and he should know that because he had been briefed on it before he even took command.
The asshat even refused orders from MACV headquarters in Saigon to send a relief force,and Westmoreland had to fly to DaNang in person the next morning to relieve him of his command and name his XO the new USMC Corps Commander. Of course,the A Camp had already been overran,some of the SF people and MANY of the native peoples in the camp killed by the NVA long before the USMC relief column got there. The only outside help they got was from a SOG recon team out of DaNang that had been monitoring the radio calls all night decided to get on a Kingbee SVN helicopter and fly there at dawn to see what they could do. They ended up rescuing several of the SF guys still holed up in bunkers the NVA weren't able to blow up,but that's about it. IIRC,there were,and may still be, 2 SF MIA's from that camp that nobody knows what happened to them.
I will say this,though. Most of the Marines I have had personal dealings with in training missions have been the Force Recon guys,and there is not a loser in the bunch. VERY bright guys who are highly motivated to do the best job they can do. Never met a single one I would hesitate to go on a mission with. First class warriors in every respect,from Company grade officers down to the lowest ranked enlisted. I suspect the same can be said for the field grade officers in their command structure,but I never met any of them.
