And Nobody Asked Me Either...

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The Paper Corps

Let's find flesh and blood Marines, not paper 'packages' to augment our career-service ranks.

In 1861, Abraham Lincoln was looking for a few good generals. In response, two old West Point graduates applied to return to active duty. One had been a success in the Mexican War, later becoming a railroad president. He had a good package and looked good on paper. The other West Pointer also had done well in Mexico, but had faded after the war. He drank a lot, and after his wife convinced him to leave the service, he’d been unable to hold a job. He had a poor package and did not look good on paper. The first officer—George B. McClellan—returned to active duty and became a brigadier general. The second officer—Ulysses

S. Grant—did not receive the favor of a reply. Who eventually proved to be the better general?

Today, the Marine Corps operates a personnel system that produces a lot of

McClellans—but no Grants. Once, there was a saying that you weren’t a real Marine until you had received your first non-judicial punishment (NJP) at the CO’s Office Hours. But now, a single NJP is enough to prevent a Marine from reenlisting. We are corrupting the NJP system, which was designed to

handle routine cases on a local basis— not to be a career ender. We should put local commanders back in command; they should have a real say in whom we retain.

Command selection and augmentation of reserve officers into the regulars are other manifestations of the paper tiger we have built. For instance, a prospective commander told me re

cently that he was seriously considering turning down his command assignment—because he would have to move from California to North Carolina. We are selecting people who don’t even want to be commanders!

Let’s find flesh-and-blood Marines, not paper “packages” to augment our career-service ranks. It’s time to return command to the commanders. Just allocate percentages to commanding generals and commanding officers, and let them decide whom to reenlist and whom to augment. Any commanding general who cannot select his own subordinate commanders wisely should be relieved; any commanding officer who cannot pick the best Marines available to reenlist should be fired.