The hangers you see from the freeway are are the LCAC hangers belonging to ACU-5.

The aircraft hangers are tucked away in a valley on the east side of I-5.

They should be at normal staffing levels since the amphibs are currently at (more or less) normal rotational levels.

Noted and corrected. Thanks for the information.

Am surprised more SOA contributors have not wandered by and waved. Nothing like a Marine to cheer folks up. :)

Laguna? Cool. Lovely beach city, but a pain getting in and out of when the weather's remotely nice, or near rush hour. My girlfriend works as a server at the restaurant at Hotel Laguna. Her brother is with the Marines, 1st MEF, combat engineer, Bravo Company I believe, and he just returned last week due to shrapnel wounds--mortar explosion as they were setting up a checkpoint, apparently. This was his second tour. Looks like he's going to be okay, but he's got some tough physical therapy ahead of him. We're just glad he's home, and as his mom and many other loved ones have been telling him, we hope his wounds take plenty of time to heal. I just hope to God the political powers that be let our guys go in there and finish the job; I don't want Fallujah in the headlines anymore, nor do I want to hear any more "...today in Fallujah..." radio reports. At least now that our Marine is home, we have less to worry about.

Thanks for being a part of Spirit of America!

A wonderful story, thank you. Keep doing what
God has put in front of you, it is working.

It may not be enough, but it's a very good start. Thanks!

I am a former Marine, stationed at Mainside at Camp Pendleton from 1979-1985. Even now, when I hear or see the 1st MarDiv in action somewhere, a part of me longs to be there, with my brothers-in-arms. You may feel you're not doing enough - just FYI, we former Jarheads feel like we didn't do enough - our tours may be over, but our duty to our God, our Country, and our Corps never ends. I can only be in Fallujah in spirit, but my 43-year-old body wants to be there in person. God Bless, and Semper Fi.

Met you briefly during a break while packing bags and boxes last January. It was a small contribution but I was glad to help.

Well put. Well put.

What a wonderful way to be involved! So far, all I can do is send money! Let me know if my friends and I can do more here in Canton, Texas. God bless you on your path.

GREETINGS FROM WWW.AMERICANAUTOPARTS.COM
WE HAD A PARTS STORE IN KUWAIT CITY 3 MONTHS AFTER THE GULF WAR IN 1993. SO WE ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE LOCALS IN THE GULF. IF WE CAN HELP YOU AT HOME OR IN IRAQ. HOLLER.
TOM O'DONNELL PRES.

I think the equipment was a great idea. I get tired of hearing all the negative things that all the media spouts. Hence why the only time I touch our idiot boxes at home is to shut them off or dust them. Also, I have two nephews that are marines, one is still serving in Japan (logistics) and the other just completed his time and came home without going to Iraq. However, my sister just informed me, he went in last week and signed all the paperwork to re-enlist and asked to be sent to Iraq. Mainly, because his two best friends one army and the other a fellow marine were sent to Iraq and he doesn't feel right being home and they are there. He was out of Pendelton and was in Amph Asslt. He got out before the new year started and started school to be a fireman and EMT but had a hard time adjusting. He is quite a young man, we are all very proud of both of them and pray that this will end soon so they and the others can get home to their loved ones. Also, a quick note, he had stated that several times when they were deployed to the Philipines, and other hotspots during his service, that hearing all the news about IRAQ all the time and all the focus on IRAQ and Afghanistan started bumming them out because the media NEVER mentions or has stories about all the good things our military men and women do all over the world but are never praised for any of them. Nonetheless, there are thousands of young men and women that are serving our country all over the world. Not that they wanted to be glorified but just recognized for the efforts and sacrifices they all make daily by being in the service. Just thought I would add that so that people realize there are other places these kids are sent but are not mentioned or heard about on the idiot box. :) God bless and keep the faith.

Here’s my latest military.com column, with a note regarding SoA pix at the end.

Small Wars Manual in Vietnam and Iraq

The contrasts between the uses of Small Wars Manual inspired operations in the Vietnam War and Iraq are stark. In the Vietnam War, the top ranking Marine Corps General in the Pacific, Lieutentant General Victor “Brute” Krulak, USMC, recommended using combined action platoons to secure the coastal hamlets in South Vietnam in order to deny these economically significant areas to the enemy. Krulak was overruled by General Westmoreland and Secretary McNamara’s Defense Department. Instead, the United States pursued an attrition strategy. By contrast, in Operation Iraqi Freedom 2, there is ample evidence that Marine Generals who are trying to implement lessons from the Small Wars Manual are meeting with success.

In 1965, the U.S. was trying to deal with how to combat the Vietcong in South Vietnam. The salient point is that most Vietcong supplies and manpower were appropriated from the peasants in the South. General Krulak advocated a “spreading inkblot” strategy based on the Small Wars Manual. The goal of this strategy was to slowly expand American control from the seacoast by pacifying one hamlet after another. Krulak’s plan drew on the lessons of Marine campaigns in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua, which had been handed down to him by veterans of those small wars.

The goal of Krulak’s scheme was to cut off the Vietcong from the population centers along the Mekong Delta and the coastal plain, where most of the South Vietnamese population was located. 80% of the people lived in 10% of the country, most in small farming communities. “The key to winning the war was to provide security for these villagers, to reassure them that it was safe to side with the government and to resist the Vietcong’s attempts to ‘tax’ them, seek information from them, and enlist their young men to carry arms against the government,” writes Max Boot in The Savage Wars of Peace. Krulak quoted General Giap, the North Vietnamese commander, “Without the people we have no information… They hide us, protect us, feed us and tend our wounded.” In order to achieve these goals, Krulak recommended a focus on aggressive small-unit foot patrolling, while forgoing big unit operations in the highlands, which did not have much in economic value.

Krulak argued that gaining control of the highlands was pointless because the people and the food in South Vietnam are located on the coastal plain. “A key point is this,” wrote General Krulak, “the conflict between the North Vietnamese/ hard core Vietcong, on the one hand, and the U.S. on the other, could move to another planet today and we would not have won the war. On the other hand, if the subversion and guerilla efforts were to disappear, the war would soon collapse, as the enemy would be denied food, sanctuary, and intelligence.” In addition to Boot’s book, Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, and Krulak’s own, First to Fight, are excellent resources for further research on this topic.

This clash of strategies between LtGen Victor Krulak, USMC, and General William Westmoreland in 1966 shaped the rest of the Vietnam War. The US and its allies conducted big-unit search and destroy missions, but the enemy rarely gave battle on the terms the Americans wanted. The Vietcong kept the initiative. The American military did not field a force designed for counterinsurgency operations – American units lacked the highly skilled light infantry with the ability to deal with civilians. The Americans flexed their high tech muscles and produced a dazzling array of weapon systems. Systems Analysis equated war to a business school production line problem: kill the enemy until a cross over point is reached when the enemy is being killed faster than he can reproduce his forces.

But, the Marines did conduct a limited amount of Combined Action Platoons (CAP). A CAP consisted of a 12 man squad of American Marines and two squads of South Vietnamese Popular Forces (PF). One such Marine squad was drawn from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (C/1/7). It garrisoned a village named Binh Nghia in a year chronicled by Bing West in The Village. “No village ever protected by a Combined Action Platoon was ever repossessed by the Vietcong,” General Krulak wrote.” But the CAP program was never deployed in a large enough scale to be decisive in the overall conflict – at it’s peak, the program involved fewer than 2500 Marines.

Now, the United States finds itself in Iraq in a situation which may be similar to Vietnam in many crucial respects. First, there are sources of economic power which can be analyzed and known. There is, of course, oil. But there are also regions in Iraq that derive much of their wealth from date farming. Because of its importance in the Islamic religion, a city like Najaf will always have a ready source of income from religious tourists. The Battalion Commander of 1/7, which occupied Najaf immediately after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, told me that Saudi and Kuwaiti concerns were already anticipating the uptick in religious tourism to Najaf with investments in hotels. On the ground in Iraq, there are doubtless many American officers who are making a detailed survey of the various economic centers of power, just as Krulak surveyed South Vietnam, 38 years earlier.

But, in contrast to the situation in Vietnam in 1965, there now seems to be a much wider appreciation in the military and in the American government for developing and deploying the necessary skills to win the several distinct, and parallel, small wars which have emerged in Iraq in the wake of the big war of early 2003. My old unit, Lima Company, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, is deployed out on the Iraqi – Syrian Border in a small town. Spread out in the rest of the Sunni Triangle, the rest of the units of the 1st Marine Division are similarly dispersed into local communities. These units have systematically gone through a work up package which begins with high intensity, live fire training in convoy operations and company attacks. This training is followed by a week of Stabilization and Support Operations (SASO) training which emphasizes the role of politics, economics, social relationships, and other quasi-military skills, in dealing with a native population.

In fact, I was just out observing 1/7 in its SASO work up. Charlie Company, 1/7 had given up a platoon to form a Combined Action unit with an Iraqi police unit. “I picked that platoon for that mission because that platoon has 3 honest to goodness, sergeant squad leaders – good experienced sergeants – and, of course, a good platoon commander,” the Battalion Commander told me. “But the squad leaders are the key to why I gave that platoon the CAP mission.” The fact that a Lieutenant Colonel/ Battalion Commander of 1200 Marines is aware of the quality of the Sergeant/ squad leaders who command 13 Marines is one good indication of a highly skilled infantry unit. Ironically, squads from the very same Infantry Company profiled by Bing West in 1966 may again have a similar mission when they return to Iraq later this year.

What will happen in Iraq when the new government take control, the trial of Saddam takes place, and the American election occurs? Like breaking a rack of balls in a game of pool, uncertain consequences dictate ever unfolding, and unpredictable situations. Iraq in its present form was a creation of imperialist map making, anyway. Even if it shatters into a few distinct states, it is what happens in the towns, cities, and neighborhoods that is most important. And that is where Marine small unit leaders are acting as “no better friend, no worse enemy,” in the words of Major General Mattis, the Commanding General of the 1st Marine Division. There will be opportunities to develop pockets of economic strength where the cultural ties between America and Iraq are strong and sustained. Maybe not in this generation of Iraqis, but perhaps in their kids.

On a last note, I received a few pictures from service members in Iraq last week – very different pictures from the prison pictures which dominated the news. These pictures come from LtCol Colin McNease, a Civil Affairs Officer with Regimental Combat Team 1, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, near Fallujah. More details on these pictures are available at http://www.spiritofamerica.net/blog/archives/000073.html. Is it just me, or does anyone else wonder why these pictures don’t make it around the world 100,000 times in an hour and cause the Senate to call Secretary Rumsfeld for a little “Come to Jesus” meeting?

HOW IRONIC, THAT THE FIRST PICTURES THE NEW UP AND RUNNING REFURBISHED IRAQUI TV STATIONS WILL BE OF SOLDIERS ABUSING IRAQUI PRISONERS.

I PERSONALLY BELIEVE THAT THE NEWSPAPERS HEADLINES SHOULD READ AND IN BOLD LETTERS.

AMERICA SHAMED AND ASHAMED!

I AM CERTAIN, THAT THE GOOD THAT OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ FAR WILL OUTWEIGHT THE BAD PICTURES NOW BEING SHOWN.

I PRAY THAT YOUR MISSIONS WILL CONTINUE AND THAT I MIGHT BE ABLE TO BE OF HELP.

THANK YOU FOR GIVING US A CHANCE TO SPREAD OUR FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS.

MARGOT RENAUD

HOW IRONIC, THAT THE FIRST PICTURES THE NEW UP AND RUNNING REFURBISHED IRAQUI TV STATIONS WILL BE OF SOLDIERS ABUSING IRAQUI PRISONERS.

I PERSONALLY BELIEVE THAT THE NEWSPAPERS HEADLINES SHOULD READ AND IN BOLD LETTERS.

AMERICA SHAMED AND ASHAMED!

I AM CERTAIN, THAT THE GOOD THAT OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ FAR WILL OUTWEIGHT THE BAD PICTURES NOW BEING SHOWN.

I PRAY THAT YOUR MISSIONS WILL CONTINUE AND THAT I MIGHT BE ABLE TO BE OF HELP.

THANK YOU FOR GIVING US A CHANCE TO SPREAD OUR FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS.

MARGOT RENAUD