re: Are the marines struggling with recruitment?

quote:

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have a good friend who is a Marine and I like the way he puts it.

We were founded in a bar. Our entire philosophy is "Hey, see that guy over there? Let's get drunk and then kill him."

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Marines make since in a pre-National Military Establishment context.

The Army (War) and Navy Secretaries used to be co-equal cabinet level secretaries. So in a sense, America had two co-equal and independent militaries who almost never coordinated their activities.

So, it makes sense that the Navy would need their own infantry force that it sorta similar to the Army but then again, sorta not similar.

Once all these military department secretary came under the control of a centralized Secretary of Defense, the redundancies in the military didn’t make a whole lotta sense to bean counters.

Ergo, the Truman and Eisenhower administrations’ efforts to fold the Marines into the Army.