NATO recently released a decent little 10-minute sizzle reel highlighting the alliance’s sea soldiers. It includes Dutch Korps Mariniers and the newly-reformed German Seebataillon Marines in Scotland, the Portuguese Corpo de Fuzileiros on the rivers of Lithuania (still keeping it old school with HK G3 battle rifles and Zodiacs), Royal Marine Commandos training in Norway with their interesting 32-foot ORC (Offshore Raiding Craft) jetboats, and the U.S. Marine Corps, which exercises across the European continent.
So whether you call them Devil Dogs, Bootnecks, Schwarzen Teufel, or Fuzos, odds are, some of your favorite guys who operate from 10 fathoms inward are covered.
And, in a companion piece, the USMC themselves just put out a 10-minute hype video on the future Fleet Marine Force.
“Return flight-An GRS-1 Sikorsky transport helicopter lifts away with a load of casualties after disembarking the Marines in the foreground.” This is Sikorsky HRS-1, Bureau Number 127795 of HMR-161. The photo was taken by HMR-161’s photographer, Staff Sergeant H. Michael McMahon on September 13, 1951, during Operation Windmill I, Korea. From the Photograph Collection (COLL/3948), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections
A Message From The Commandant Of The Marine Corps, 10 November 2022:
70 years ago, Army Major General Frank E. Lowe was quoted as saying, “The safest place in Korea was right behind a platoon of Marines. Lord, how they could fight.”
That testimonial rings as true now as it did then, and will remain so tomorrow. As we celebrate the 247th anniversary of our Corps’ founding, we reflect on nearly two and a half centuries of exceptional prowess, while also taking objective stock of where we are today and how we will prepare for future battlefields. Our birthday provides us a chance to focus on the one thing common to our success in the past, present, and future: the individual Marine. Victories are not won because of technology or equipment, but because of our Marines.
Since 1775, Marines have fought courageously and tenaciously in every conflict our country has faced. Through the Revolution, the Spanish-American War, World Wars in Europe and the Pacific, conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, and operations in the Middle East, Marines consistently earned a reputation as the world’s elite fighting force. We inherit and take pride in this reputation, evolved over time by Marines acquitting themselves with honor and distinction on every battlefield in every clime and place. Battlefields change, and Marines have always adapted to the environment and the changing character of war – but the reason we fight and win is immutable. It’s the individual warfighters, and their love for each other, that makes our Corps as formidable a force today as it has been for the past 247 years. It’s our ethos and our unapologetic resolve to be the most capable and lethal fighting force that sets us apart from the rest.
Current events around the world remind us that peace is not guaranteed. While we are justifiably proud of our past and pay tribute to the remarkable warfighters who came before us, we understand that the stories of yesterday cannot secure our freedom tomorrow. We must be ready to respond when our Nation calls. It falls on Marines who are in uniform today to write the next chapter of our Corps. The solemn responsibility of maintaining our illustrious warfighting legacy rests upon your shoulders. I know that you are up to that task. The battlefields of tomorrow are uncertain. The future characteristics of warfare are uncertain. But one thing is certain – wherever Marines are called, they will fight and win – today, tomorrow, and into the future.
The First Recruits, December 1775, by Col. Charles Waterhouse, USMCR, shows Capt. Samuel Nicholas, 1st Lt. Matthew Parke, and a scowling sergeant with prospective Leathernecks on the Philadelphia waterfront. (USMC Art Collection)
“On November 10, 2021, U.S. Marines around the globe celebrate a 246-year legacy of battlefield prowess defined by courage, discipline, loyalty, perseverance, adaptability, leadership, and warfighting innovation.
The annual birthday message delivered by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. David H. Berger, and the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Sgt. Maj. Troy Black, acknowledges the generation of Marines who joined after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, who later served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who now approach their retirement milestone.”
You have to admit the PEQ-15, bayonet and mono-pod forward grip combo on an old-school M16 with a steel mag warms your heart
SOUTHWEST ASIA (Sept. 17, 2015) U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan Ripoyla moves to his next firing position during a bi-lateral training exercise. Ripoyla is a rifleman with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The 15th MEU, embarked aboard the ships of the Essex Amphibious Ready Group, is a forward-deployed, flexible sea-based Marine air-ground task force capable of engaging with regional partners and maintaining regional security. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Jamean Berry/Released)
A group of U.S. Marines pose for the camera in 1918 just months before the end of World War One.
Note the campaign hats of the sea soldiers in the front rank doffed to the deck. As the legend has it, German troops facing the Marines at the Battle of Belleau Wood that year termed the leathernecks “Teufel Hunden” or devil dogs. This has stuck for the past 97 years.
The Mechanix of Auto, Aviation, Military...pert near anything I feel relates to mechanical things, places, events or whatever I happen to like. Even non-mechanical artsy-fartsy stuff.
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