Let the Debate Begin!
The long-awaited Maritime Strategy, in the works since then-CNO Admiral Mike Mullen set it in motion in June 2006, leads off this month's Proceedings. Punctuating the need to work closely together in an age of asymmetric warfare, the document carries the signatures of the senior officers of the three Sea Services—Admiral Gary Roughead, the new CNO, General James Conway, Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Admiral Thad Allen, the Coast Guard Commandant. The element of jointness is reinforced by the title, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.
We anticipate, as do the signatories, both praise and criticism of the strategy in the weeks and months ahead. The question at hand: Does the new strategy set the services on a course that is both soberly conceived and clear-sighted? As always, Proceedings is eager to provide an independent forum for high-minded debate, just as it has since it began publication in 1874.
John Lehman, the former Navy Secretary, sets the stage for the discussion with a trenchant analysis of the strategy. Secretary Lehman was intimately involved in producing the last full-fledged Maritime Strategy, published in 1986. His judgment of the new one: A document worthy of praise and the hard work that went into it, but not without its flaws.
Publication of the Maritime Strategy coincides with, and complements, our annual Marine issue, a tradition celebrating the 10 November birthday of the Corps. CMC Conway (at left) anchors the Leatherneck package with a situation report that combines optimism for operations in Iraq with a warning that men, women, and equipment are wearing down. His piece, "The First Battles of the Long War," is well worth your time.
Lieutenant Colonel Kelly P. Houlgate, USMC, weighs in with a call to end what he describes as a "backyard brawl," meaning the mistrust and wariness that all too often infects dealings between Marines and Sailors.
Remember Harvard during the Vietnam era? It was a hotbed of antiwar sentiment and hostility toward members of the armed forces. These days opposition to another war, the one in Iraq, is strong in Harvard Yard, but students and faculty treat classmates who have served in the combat zones with warmth and respect. Frequent contributor Art Pine visited Cambridge and spoke with a number of Marines and ex-Marines with at least one deployment to Iraq and/or Afghanistan behind them to tell the story of how Harvard crimson is blending with Marine green.
Years ago, my friend, Naval Academy classmate, and former CMC General Chuck Krulak, posed a curious question to me.
"Did you ever see Zulu?"
"What's Zulu?" I said.
"It's a movie," he replied, a trace of exasperation in his voice. "Did you ever see it?"
I confessed I had not seen it, in fact was only barely aware that such a film existed. Then-Colonel Krulak proceeded to deliver a (relatively) gentle lecture on Zulu as a teaching tool for Marine officers and NCOs even though it is about an 1879 battle in Natal between British and Zulu troops.
"Any Marines in it?" I asked.
"No."
That conversation stayed with me over the years and, recently, I started to wonder what movies other than the old standbys—Sands of Iwo Jima, Battle Cry, Flying Leathernecks—were like Zulu, movies with no Marines in them that might teach, inspire, and bewitch Marines. Another old friend, retired Colonel Fred Peck—one-time liaison between Hollywood and the Corps—agreed to take on the story. It's called "Little Shop of Heroes." You'll love it.
Sixty-five years ago, on 7 August 1942, the 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal, marking the first American ground offensive of World War II. The battle lasted six long months and is viewed by some scholars as the turning point of the war in the Pacific. We close out our Marine section with a piece by historian Merrill "Skip" Bartlett that looks at the decades-old debate on whether the Navy left the Marines to the tender mercies of the Japanese shortly after the landing.
Big news. The Marine slogan, The Few. The Proud. The Marines, is the newest inductee to Madison Avenue's Advertising Walk of Fame.
Happy Birthday, Marines. Semper Fidelis.
-Robert Timberg, Editor-in-Chief