Sidebar: Bring It All Back
Editor's Note: General Leonard F. Chapman, Jr., died on 6 January 2000, of complications after recent surgery. The following is abridged from "The Commandants," a work in progress at the U.S. Naval Institute Press.
On 1 January 1968, General Leonard F. Chapman, Jr. was sworn in as the 24th Commandant of the Marine Corps at a brief White House ceremony. The 53-year-old Commandant assumed leadership of a Marine Corps that was larger than at any time since the end of World War II, with more than 300,000 Marines on the rolls. More than 100,000 were serving in one of 24 Marine Corps battalions, headquarters, or supporting units currently deployed in Vietnam. A common observation of the time declared that there were only three types of Marines: those in Vietnam; those recently returned from Vietnam; and those on orders to go. Yet the war in Vietnam, which was to grow even more intense and bloody in the months ahead, was to pose only one of the major problems facing the man who, in the next four years, was to lead the Corps through one of its most turbulent and challenging eras.
The new Commandant was born in Key West, Florida on 3 November 1913, the son of a Methodist minister. His father later left the ministry and entered business, becoming the proprietor of two Florida newspapers and then of a citrus packing company. He also served in the Florida legislature and as superintendent of the Florida prison system.
Chapman entered the University of Florida at Gainesville in 1931, with the intention of becoming a lawyer. By his senior year, he was a cadet colonel in the university's compulsory ROTC course, and was offered a regular commission in the Marine Corps, which he accepted—despite the fact that he had "never seen a Marine in my life." After completing the Basic School and the U.S. Army's Field Artillery School, he served with the 10th Marines before joining the cruiser Astoria (CA-34) at Pearl Harbor in 1940, as commanding officer of the ship's Marine detachment. After serving in the Astoria through the war's early cruiser raids, the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the Battle of Midway, he was ordered back to the United States in mid-1942 as an instructor in various Marine Corps schools. Returning to the Pacific in 1944, he commanded the 4th Battalion, 11th Marines at Peleliu and Okinawa.
After a variety of postwar staff and field assignments, he took command of the highly visible Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., in 1956. Within a year, he had put the traditional Sunset Parade under the lights, locking in the "Eighth and Eye" Barracks' reputation as the premier ceremonial post of the Corps. His first assignment after promotion to brigadier general was as Commanding General, Force Troops, Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, from where his reputation for high standards and a sharp eye for detail would precede him in successive Headquarters Marine Corps tours as Assistant Chief of Staff G-4, Chief of Staff, and Assistant Commandant.
As Chief of Staff in particular, Chapman had laid a solid foundation for the management and information systems of the Corps to advance into the computer age. As Commandant, however, his principal problems would be far removed from automated management.
The overarching problem was Vietnam. At the time Chapman assumed office, it was a war to which the Marine Corps was fully committed. Less than a month later, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched the 1968 Tet Offensive, which ended in bloody failure for the communists on the battlefield but nevertheless changed the course of the war. The Lyndon B. Johnson administration put a cap on the number of U.S. troops in country, halted most of the bombing in North Vietnam, and opened peace negotiations in Paris. The following year, newly elected President Richard Nixon announced the beginning of U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam and the start of a process soon known as "Vietnamization." Probably surprised and somewhat dismayed by this turn of events—because up to this point he considered the war winnable—Chapman adjusted quickly and began a reassessment of the Corps' roles and missions, now that the limit of their commitment to Vietnam had been reached. "Once he saw Vietnam wasn't going anywhere, he wanted the Marines out early," said one of his staff officers. By June 1971, the last large ground units of Marines had departed, leaving behind only advisors and gunfire spotters, embassy security guards, and some aviation units.
Redeployment would not be the hardest problem to overcome. The Congress and the Nixon administration were determined to reduce Defense spending, end the draft, and create an all-volunteer military establishment. Chapman opted for fewer forces, fully modern and ready, rather than larger forces that could not be properly manned, trained, and equipped under anticipated budget constraints. Under his close guidance, the Marine Corps was reduced from its Vietnam-era high of 317,000 to slightly more than 200,000 Marines by mid-1972. Maintaining such a reduced strength level required recruiters to find and ship about 40,000 qualified individuals each year—in the absence of a draft and in the face widespread antiwar and antimilitary sentiment. But the Marines needed only to attract 6% of that part of the youthful population who were willing to wear a military uniform of some kind, and a nationwide survey showed that enough young people were out there who would answer a call keyed on toughness and exclusivity. A short, highly effective recruiting film, "We Never Promised You A Rose Garden," was the keystone of a recruiting approach that remains successful to this day.
Such recruiting success was not instantaneous, however, and manpower woes—along with two other major holdovers from the turbulent 1960s, drug abuse and racial tensions—would persist into the latter half of the 1970s. And even while Chapman continued to wrestle with the problem of laying the correct manpower base for the post-Vietnam Marine Corps, he could not neglect the material side of things. He saw the 1970s and 1980s as a time when the Corps would return to its amphibious roots. The Nixon Doctrine and the Strategy of Realistic Deterrence called exclusively for air and naval support for U.S. allies outside of Europe and seemed to presage a return for the Marines to a rapidly deployable, maritime force in readiness.
But though the mission seemed clear, the means would be difficult to acquire. The gigantic amphibious force of World War II and even Korea had shrunk to 64 ships. On the other hand, most of the amphibs in commission had been built in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the 'Gators had the most modern mission force in the Navy. Chapman pushed especially hard for a new assault amphibian vehicle, the LVTP-7, and a large multipurpose amphibious assault ship, the LHA. In addition, he worked to procure a new aircraft, the British-built AV-8A Harrier, which could take off and land vertically, greatly enhancing the responsiveness of Marine close air support.
In matters of weapons and equipment, as he had in manpower, Chapman set the pattern of doing more with less. Probably no such program could have totally succeeded in that environment of shrinking budgets, hostility or indifference to military service, or social upheaval. But Chapman's approach preserved the Marine Corps' essential identity and tradition, building for the future while navigating through the storms of one of the Corps' most difficult eras.
Dr. Spector is Chairman of the History Department at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. He is the author of Eagle Against the Sun (1985) and After Tet (1992).
Bring It All Back
The late General Chapman never tired of telling about his 1970 conversation with Brigadier General James R. Jones (no kin of the incumbent Commandant of the Marine Corps), while plans were being made to bring the Marines back from South Vietnam.
In addition more than 100,000 Marines, tons of supplies and equipment had to be retrograded, and one determinant of the difficulty of the task would be the bottom limit on the value of gear to be taken out. If anything worth less than, say, $50 could be left behind, the task would be much easier than one with a bottom limit of, say, $25. But when General Jones—commanding the massive Force Logistic Command that would spearhead the movement of all this gear—received his guidance from the Commandant, he was in for a shock: Everything worth five dollars or more would have to come out.
"But, General—" he protested. "That could take the best part of a year. . . ."
"Then that's how long your tour will be," Chapman replied gently.
On 14 April 1971, the headquarters of III Marine Amphibious Force was reestablished on Okinawa. Three days later, Brigadier General Jones walked into the Commandant's office in the Pentagon's Navy Annex and deposited the last five-dollar spare part on General Chapman's desk.
The task was complete. General Jones was relieved of command—and later would be rewarded with a second star.
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