What Defense Secretary Gates, and CJCS Admiral Mullen fail to realize or even understand at the most basic level is the Warrior Ethos.  They can never possibly understand. Has either served in combat? 

I would suggest that they both go take a survey of the resident patients at Walter Reed and Bethesda to really find out what those Soldiers and Marines who are in units paying the price think. Not survey some Airmen in a supply warehouse who works 8 hrs per day and calls her fellow Airmen "Co-Workers". Not a survey of the majority of the Navy, as much as I love our Corpsman, the Navy forgot the meaning of discipline long ago.

The enemy in Afghanistan, our enemy, is cowering in a cave knowing that the Darkhorse 3rd Bn, 5th Marines, and Marines like them are coming to kill them. These same Marines, who risk their lives for each other and our country, are the same Marines who risk their lives making sure that innocent Afghan civilians aren’t harmed. 

I sleep well at night because I know what these men are capable of.  Like many of you I served with thousands just like them. Marines refusing to be evacuated for wounds during firefights so as not to let their fellow Marines or the unit down. Marines attempting to escape from field Hospitals in Iraq (missing hands and legs) to return to combat with their fellow Marines. A 3/5 Officer in Iraq was wounded twice in Fallujah II - no time to worry about the hand grenade fragments embedded or the bullet wound in his leg.  He stayed and fought with his Marines until the end, then took care of his Marines first. Why do Marines do this?  Because we love our fellow Marines and would never do anything to let them down. 

What Gates, Mullen and our others in our misguided government will never understand is Warrior Ethos, Unit and Combat Cohesion. The love of one brother Marine for another.  We get it and are completely against our Government tampering with it in any way.

Our Marines, these Marines, get paid to do one thing and they are doing it extremely well. WIN IN COMBAT. In many cases that means killing and these days it means being 10 times badder than the most evil MF you ever heard of. The 9/11 high jackers look like girl scouts compared to some of these shitheads. In 20 years I want my kids to sleep just as well  knowing that such men still exist and are capable of the doing the same things to anybody who would harm our country, them or you. 

If we, as a nation, destroy that Warrior Ethos we greatly risk ending up like the British and our other allies.  They just spent 5 years in Afghanistan and accomplished less than the Darkhorse Bn has accomplished  in just over a month (read the link below)

When I retired I looked my father, and his generation of Marines in the eye. I didn't need to say anything. We tried to do everything possible to make their Marine Corps better. In 2006 the Marine Corps was infinitely better than it was in 1979. It is better today than it was in 2006.

I have serious doubts whether the next generation of Marines will be able to look us in the eye and say that the Marine Corps is better in 2030 than it is today.  The government  failed to issue them the one simple piece of equipment that we all had. 
A MORAL COMPASS.

(Read more about 3/5 and the Warrior Ethos in the link below).

Sangin, the Fallujah of Afghanistan, and what it means to your Marines