New York Post

HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

Not content with forcing unprecedented numbers of women into billets for which most are entirely unsuited, or with foisting homosexuals on normal GIs, or with continuing the Bush II administration policy of filling the ranks with alien (often illegal) mercenaries, the Obama regime once again draws a bead on the most military of America’s evanescing armed forces: the Marine Corps.

This time, some genius in the regime has decided that the Marines’ dress cover (men’s version) is too masculine, so Pharaobama is pushing a unisex cover (hat, that is, for you soldiers and civilians) for both Marines and women-in-the-Marine-Corps.  Not surprisingly, the unisex cover, named for World War I hero Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Daly, looks a lot more like the girls’ than the boys’ cover.

The article by Newsmax is a little unfair to Daly, whom it describes as only a “sergeant who won the Medal of Honor in World War I.”  Actually, Dan Daly won two of them, the first in the Boxer Rebellion, the second at Belleau Wood – where he also won a Navy Cross.  It’s a wonder he survived all that.  Only 19 men have won the Medal of Honor twice; seven are Marines.  The comparison of the Obama pansy-hat and the Marine cover worn in Daly’s day is a bit unfair – they don’t really look that much alike.  Obama’s abomination is clearly derived from the current women’s cover.  Also, there was nothing “unisex” about Dan Daly.

How can one not believe that this is just another raid in the Obama regime’s great campaign: to destroy the U.S. armed forces utterly as fighting services?  Cui bono?  Not America’s, that’s for sure.

— Comments —

Alex writes:

The government wants as few Daniel Daly types as possible in the services, especially after what Egypt’s military did to the U.S.-installed Islamist regime earlier this year. Such types are likely to think twice before joining the military if the uniform will make them look like girls and if it’s full of open homosexuals and of women looking for someone to accuse of rape. The government is simply making the military unattractive to undesirable elements. Not a good sign, by the way.

Pete F. writes:

The observations of Henry and Alex are right on the mark – but perhaps we can go further. Obama seems to have a special animus towards the U.S. Marine Corps. Why might this be the case? There are a number of possible explanations.

Of all the services, the Marines hold most-steadfastly to their traditions and creed. Every Marine is taught the long and proud history of the Corps  and is expected to live up to the same high standards. One doesn’t simply join the U.S.M.C.; one becomes a Marine. Members of the Corps regard themselves as an elite, and conduct themselves accordingly. Until recently, the ethos of the Marine Corps was explicitly masculine in nature, even for female Marines. Women were expected to adapt themselves to this standard, and not vice-versa. The U.S.M.C. – alone among all of the services – retained sexually-segregated recruit training (boot camp) when the army, et al. had switched to coed basic training.

The foregoing would tend to make the Marines a prime target of the cultural left. Indeed, the Marines have been under attack from the left – for being “fanatics,” etc. – since the Clinton years. Older readers will remember Army Secretary Sara Lister speaking in those very terms during a hearing before Congress during the 1990s. “Breaking the Marines” on the wheel of political correctness, in a manner of speaking, would be seen as bringing the entire military to heel.

It is possible, if not probable, that Obama is a homosexual. Allegations have surfaced that he frequented the gay bar scene in Chicago during the 1990s. At the very least, the man has proven homosexual sympathies. A person of this sort might very easily resent the Marines for their traditionally masculine – and very American – identity. Deep down, Obama knows he cannot be a Marine and he also knows that he does not measure up to these men-among-men. If he can’t be a Marine, then nobody can; that is why he is trying to tear down the Corps in a fit of homosexual rage.

There is a historical angle, too. During the period 1801-1805, a then-young United States fought the First Barbary War. Our opponents were the fierce Berber  tribesmen of North Africa (modern-day Libya, Algeria and Morocco), who had terrorized the Mediterranean Sea in a lengthy campaign of piracy and enslavement of European and American captives. The Berbers were part of the Islamic Ottoman Empire.

President Thomas Jefferson, unwilling to bargain further with Tripoli, sent the U.S. Navy and Marines to deal with the Berbers. They did so in convincing fashion and the exploits of the leathernecks are now remembered as part of the Marine Corps Hymn.

It is my belief that Obama is a Muslim, de facto if not de jure – and for many Muslims, their historic humiliation at the hands of the Marines remains an open wound. To everyday Westerners, 1805 is an eternity into the past, but to Muslims, that was only yesterday. Obama likely sees the feminization of the Marines as the settling of an old score. Remember, Islam is a system of belief centered upon honor, or if you will, face. In Muslim societies, it is not uncommon for grudges to be handed down from generation to generation. I believe we are seeing something like that here.

Of course, Obama’s motives form only part of the picture. Leftists in general have long-resented the Marines, who are so closely tied with the greatest virtues of traditional America. Thus, it comes as no surprise that Obama has found many allies in his quest to de construct the Marines, and the military generally.

Diana writes:

There have been numerous attempts to disband the Marine Corp. Eisenhower himself thought a separate land army was unnecessary.

Salient snippets referred to here:

The difference between Obama and Eisenhower is that Eisenhower felt this way because he wanted to streamline and rationalize, not destroy.

I think Eisenhower was right in the narrow sense of the word, but wrong on the essentials. Morale is at the heart of military greatness. Stuff you can’t put a dollar sign on win battles as much as planning and superior weaponry. (And food.)

“When the flag went up on Mount Suribachi, Sec. Forrestal turned to Lt. Gen. Smith and said, “Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.”

Unfortunately Mr. Forrestal never foresaw a character (and a spectacle) like Barack Obama. Who could, in 1945?

Maybe Obama is wiser than Ike, in a way. He is trying to punch the lights out of our hearts, and he is succeeding.

Pete F. writes:

Diana wrote, “There have been numerous attempts to disband the Marine Corp. Eisenhower himself thought a separate land army was unnecessary.”

Intraservice rivalry between the different branches of the U.S. armed forces has always been a fact of political and military life. Nowhere has this been more true than with the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps.

During World War Two, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur famously denied the Marines on Corregidor earned unit citations for valor; when asked about it, he replied that “The Marines already have enough medals.” MacArthur and the army spent the war arguing with the Navy and Marine Corps how to best wage the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific. It is no exaggeration to state that the army and navy (the Marines were not then a separate service and were under the Dept. of the Navy) spent almost as much time fighting one another as they did the Japanese.

Even MacArthur was moved to change his opinion of the Marines, however, during the desperate early days of the Korean War. By August, 1950, the communist North Korean army had pushed the U.S. and U.N. forces into what became known as the Pusan Perimeter, on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. Our forces had their backs to the sea, and might have been defeated if not for the super-human efforts of the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade, which plugged holes in the lines all along the defensive perimeter.  General MacArthur, who was the Supreme Commander, U.N. Forces, was later moved to say, “I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!”

Eisenhower’s statement about the Marine Corps being a “separate land army” betrays his bias against the Marines, and also perhaps a fundamental misunderstanding or misrepresentation of their role. The Marines speak of themselves as being “first to fight,” which is a reference to their role as “soldiers of the sea” specialized in amphibious and expeditionary warfare. In practical terms, this has meant that the Marines are often the first U.S. forces on the scene of a battle or a war.

President Harry Truman – who served in combat in the army in France in WWI as a captain of artillery – also questioned the need for a separate Marine Corps. Like MacArthur, he, too, changed his mind after the Marines bailed out U.S./U.N. forces in 1950.

Today, intraservice rivalry is not entirely a thing of the past, but it is probably safe to say that it is less-prominent than in the past. The army and other services now have their own rapid deployment capabilities, i.e. 82nd Airborne and 101st Air Mobile Divisions, Green Berets, Delta Force, Navy SEALS, USAF special operations, etc.

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