5 Marines, 1 sailor: you see this often.. lone sailors among Marine KIA's

[expatriot]

Are they so desperate for personnel to do convoy duty that they are pulling security personnel out of the regular Navy to help Marines do land duty?


Sad thought in my head, "I know its dangerous mom but I am signing up for the NAVY... who would we ever fight in the next 50 years with a decent Navy... I'll be safe, mom... It's not like I am signing up the MARINES or anything."

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Yes, but also the Marines do not have their owm Medics

so chances are that was the corpman

[Howardx]

i believe that is correct

its always been the case.

[expatriot]

11. what's the logic behind THAT?

I'm serious. that is interesting.

[davepc]

18. It goes back to the roots of the services

So what started out as necessity of wooden ships and iron men became tradition and today its just prohibitively expensive and unnecessary for the Marines to duplicate the medical services they get from the Navy for their own force structure.

[htuttle]

2. In a word, yes

Yes they are.

They've been doing this for at least half a year. I think they give the sailors about a week of 'infantry training', hand them a rifle and send them out.

[benburch]

4. So NOT just Medics and SEALs????

WOW.

[kittenpants]

12. Jesus, poor guys.

I bet they never imagined this when they signed up.

[oneighty]

16. I doubt that

But when I was in the navy aboard a mine sweeper in Korea I was a member of the "landing party" we had weapons we barely knew how to use. In our case the "landing party" was sent out in the dark of night to identify non responsive radar targets. Sometimes they were Korean fishing boats laying mines.

My Navy buddy had a son in the navy (E-5 Submariner) serving in Kuwait involved in moving supplies into the ME. An odd job for a sailor in his classification.

180

[Kraklen]

25. Why would you doubt it?

See post #19

[oneighty]

30. I have no problem

believing in Sailors being conscripted for non-combat duty. My ex-navy buddy had a son in Kuwait doing just that (An E-5 Submariner). I doubt they would stick a weapon in their untrained hands and put them in with battlefield trained Marines. I think the Marines would protest. Perhaps they would have a Sailor ride shotgun in a convoy. I can imagine that.

180

[Kraklen]

31. defusing bombs under fire is non-combat duty?

Huh.

[oneighty]

32. Now you are in my territory

Since I was Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal. (Bomb disposal) Why did you bring that up? Yes Navy has a lot of EODs in Iraq. I belong to the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Association. The subject comes up now and then. Of course if one works in the combat zone they are in combat.

I have my combat action ribbon.

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[Kraklen]

33. Because it mentions defusing bombs under fire...

in the article linked in post #19 on the conscripting of regular Navy sailors into combat duty.

[oneighty]

35. Navy EODs

Are well trained in explosive ordnance foreign and domestic from cannon balls to nuclear weapons. They are trained in surface ordnance and underwater ordnance. Normal training is about 12 months. There are no shortcuts. EODs know exactly what it is they do. Not like the news article suggests.

And yes it is not unusual for Sailors to be assigned to non sailor duties. As EOD I worked with army navy air force and marines at various times. Incidentally Military EODs of all services attend the same school and in classes together.

For what it is worth.

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[Kraklen]

26. Why would you doubt it?

See post #19

[ThomWV]

3. Seal

[expatriot]

9. oh, duh.... never thought of that but that begs another question....

They're so desperate for convoy personnel they're having highly trained SEALS ride shotgun. I would think that the effectiveness of a single SEAL riding in prominently non-SEAL unit would be greatly diminished but I guess when I talk about modern military strategy I talk out of my ass (as I do on many topics, come to think about it).

[opihimoimoi]

5. They even send the wounded back to the death zone....Damn...

[oneighty]

6. Hospital Corpsman (Medics) are sailors

Navy has always supplied Marines with medical care. Hospital Corpsmen (All military medics) are the bravest of the brave.

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[Marnieworld]

20. my hubby was a navy medic in the first Gulf war

I'll tell him you said that. He'll like that.

[oneighty]

23. He and all the other Corpsmen

that serve with the Fleet Marines deserve that.

180

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Probably a corpsman. A medic in army jargon.

Now just more wormfood for colonialism.

[davepc]

8. The Marines do not have organic medical services, battlefield or otherwise

they depend on the Navy. Marine 'medics' are all Navy Sailors.

[Kraklen]

10. There was an article over a year ago...

about how they were so desperate for personnel that they were pulling sailors out of the Navy and sticking them on convoys without proper training.

I'm sure the situation has only gotten worse.

[davepc]

14. Yeah, except they volunteered for the job.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/cno/n87/usw/issue_21/sandcrab.htm

The gritty, sandy soil of Iraq, far from any ocean, is an unlikely place to find a trio of submarine Sailors.

And yet these three undersea warriors have joined the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team (CMATT) in that war-weary nation in a daunting mission. Trading their duties in the relative comfort of shore stations in the United States for the unexpected perils and occasional rewards of a front-line position in the Global War on Terrorism, the three submariners have exchanged their coveralls for desert camouflage to help rebuild the Iraqi military and its infrastructure. Headquartered in Baghdad, CMATT works under the guidance of the Coalition Provisional Authority to supply buildings, weapons, equipment, and training for Iraq’s new security and defense forces.

ETC(SS) Jason Taggart, YN2(SS) Randy Murray, and YN2(SS) Karl Rosenkranz, who served together onboard USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN-730), volunteered for this unique assignment. After a week of training and processing at Fort Bliss, Texas, they climbed aboard a plane for Kuwait and then moved on to Baghdad.

emphasis added

[Kraklen]

17. Not the ones I read about.

In fact, they were quite unhappy about the situation.

[davepc]

19. You're right -- my bad

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/04/26/unready_for_combat/

At least 3,000 Navy and Air Force personnel such as Peters -- trained mainly in noncombat specialties such as mechanics and construction -- are serving on the front lines of the Iraqi insurgency. The Iraq war is the first military engagement in which such large numbers of air and naval personnel are serving in combat roles on the ground, facing imminent threat of attack.

Most of them have received only crash courses in basic combat, in some cases after they've arrived in the Middle East and then been stationed near the front lines because of shortages of troops in the Army and Marine Corps. Though technically defined as support units, their jobs -- guarding convoys and oil facilities, or defusing bombs under fire -- bear little resemblance to traditional ''noncombat" duty in the safety of a base.

''Airmen are driving trucks in Iraq because the Army didn't have enough of them," Brigadier General S. Taco Gilbert, the Air Force's deputy director for strategic planning, said in a recent interview. ''They're manning .50-caliber machine guns."

Some of the service members contend that they have not been provided with sufficient skills to protect themselves in combat situations.

[DemoTex]

13. There was a naval forward observer at Hamburger Hill in 1969.

He was there to direct the fire of the battleship USS Iowa's 16-inch guns (2000 pound shell).

[oneighty]

21. Beach Jumper

I think they were called. In Korea there was a single engine plane flying over the target area spotting for the battleship laying way off shore barely visible to the naked eye.

The sixteen inch projectiles from the battleship tumbled through the air high up over our minesweeper.

They go whoooooshhhhh whoooooshhhhhhh. Scary sound.

yipeeeeee

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[maxrandb]

34. That's My Old Ship!!!!!

First ship I was on in the Navy!!

We used to be able to observe the "broadsides" from either the foc'sle (pronounced foxe-ill), or from the O5 level bridge. If you stuck your head out to far over the railing, the fireball would singe your eyebrows. Once the shock-wave (what you see making almost perfect circles in the water) knocked me on my ass and sent me flying about 10 feet.

People used to think that the "broadside" moved the ship sideways in the water, but at 48,000 tons, it would take a lot to move that ship.

You could be in the "shitter" just forward of turret 3 when they shot those guns and the toilet paper rolls would start dispensing toilet paper by themselves.

Simply awesome ship. I've never had, and probably never will have a better tour than the 4 years I spent on the Dreadnought IOWA.

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. Navy corpsmen: all Marine medics are Navy personnel

Get with it.

[GoldenOldie]

28. How about the SeeBee's (sp) the Navy Construction?

They have always been in on the groundfloor for constructing runways, etc.

My grandson joined a highschool SeaBee ROTC and was given his "training?" by a SeaBee Reserve Unit the only Naval ROTC available in the area. He stayed with it for 2-years until he realized they had nothing to offer him as he was interested in becoming a Naval Officer on the water and he certainly wasn't interested in construction work.

After reading or hearing the same thing that they were going to reassign Naval personnel into the Army/Marine land battlefield, I told my grandson he should rethink his career moves.

[ls317]

22. Dont Forget

USAF Combat Controllers and Pararescue can work with USMC and Army.They are often assigned to combat areas of operation also.Combat Controllers and Pararescue have medical training.

[liberalitch]

24. The Navy sends observers too....

I guy who lived across the hall from me was a photographer.... who they sent along with the marines.... he saw some gnarly shit and his negatives have never been declassified.
Fortunately though when his hitch was up... they didn't do a stop loss because his PTSD was so bad that he was allowed to retire.
He and his wife live in the outer banks now

[Zynx]

27. Marine medics are actually sailors. Arcane, but true.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

29. Navy Corpsmen - the Marine Corps few good men.

navy corpsman '69 - '73

and please don't call them medics.