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Re: Truman and the Marines
In a message dated 9/10/2003 12:01:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time, ben.frank@wap.org writes:
>we don't really need an army since the marines can handle it all.
Too true. BMF
In _With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa_ (Sledge, '81), Sledge makes it sound like there's less rivalry than popularly believed between the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps. Sledge even trades an Army guy for his socks as they were better for tropical warfare.
There is an incident on Okinawa where the Marines (probably K/3/5/1 [K company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Division]) almost get shelled by the Army, but I can't find the specific unit that attacked him after an extensive search. It could have been the 20th Army as there's a map in the book I have with the 20th in the region of the fighting I think it was. Anyway, the Army was "challenged" apparently if that's the right word to use, as they were informed that fire would be returned if they didn't stop.
Sledge also talks about how the "Marine Corps came in for a great deal of undeserved criticism ... in postwar years..." He also talks about how the services worked together.
I also bought a book on the 5 RCT in Korea by a Marine whose wife's uncle died in Korea; I think the uncle was Army, but I need to find the book. I just mentioned wanting to find it to my dad...
Vincent -- whose dad tried for the U.S. Army but where a recruiter referred him to the U.S. Navy, later getting in trouble for doing it. I figure it could have been some sort of intuition because my dad later married another close relative of a U.S. Army KIA, my mother, whose father (my grandfather), John Wallace Rich, was KIA in World War II, and my dad's first cousin was KIA in Korea, Louis Bartning, but I don't know for sure the reason for my dad's being advised to join the Navy rather than the Army. Louis was also my great uncle Louie's only boy...
P.S. I wonder if the author of that book'd be interested in being on our Board of Directors for Incorporation for that nonprofit we're incorporating (at least I am).