The Marine ‘Mask of War’ (1)

May 14, 2012:

The Air Force has a storied tradition called the "Dear Boss" letter. While there may have been previous iterations, and certainly the feeling was out there before, the "Dear Boss" letter as it is known started with a letter penned by then-Captain Ron Keys in 1973 to General Wilbur Creech, Tactical Air Command commander. The below is just a snippet of the opening of his missive.

"Dear Boss,
Well, I quit. I’ve finally run out of drive or devotion or rationalizations or whatever it was that kept me in the Air Force this long.

May 13, 2012:

Although the final form of the concept is still in draft form and thus unavailable to the public at large, AirSea Battle is already a juggernaut of a military concept. The planned shift in DoD focus to Pacific Command certainly demands a reassessment of naval and aerial operations, but the major impetus for the development of a Navy and Air Force concept of operations is the proliferation of Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) capabilities among our possible enemies.

A2/AD may have a fancy acronym, but it is not much more than a well planned, large scale defensive position. It seems new because missiles can pack enough of a punch and are accurate enough to destroy a ship at sea.

April 27, 2012:

Over the past few months the Corps has been hit with a number of instances that can be directly traced to a lack of Leadership and continuous reinforcement of what is now called "Core Values".  For those of us whom are "Long in the Tooth", we've seen these problems surface before and the way we've always dealt with them is via honest, aggressive, clear-headed and pragmatic Leadership that emphasized the implementation of the time-tested 11 USMC Leadership Principles and strict adherence to the 14 USMC Leadership Traits.

April 26, 2012:

The recent decision by the L.A. Times to publish the photographs of American soldiers posing with Talib body parts re-ignited the firestorm raised by the Marine urination photographs: is the American media anti-military and putting our troops at risk, are, were the newspapers standing up to Pentagon pressure and to be commended for demonstrating the value of a free press, or are these acts excusable due to the stress the Marines and soldiers are experiencing?

April 26, 2012:

Judging the book, “The Snake Eaters” (Free Press, May 1, 2012) by Owen West by its cover, I would never have picked it up.  I would have been wrong.  I would have assumed that this was another first-person “there I was” tale from Iraq.  After hearing far too many contractors and retirees try to slyly slur that they “have a bit of a SOF background” in a conspiratorially lowered voice, I would have assumed that the title referred to another attempt to anoint some unit or experience as “special.”