Mounting Up with Wings as Smitten Eagle: Ethos

This is the first post in an occasional series on learning to how to fly as a Marine.

I am a Marine pilot, and this is the journey I took after I earned my gold bars as a Second Lieutenant of Marines to become a Marine aviator.

In this post I will address the ethos of the Marine aviator.

Marines are Marines first. Being a Marine is synonymous with being a Rifleman, and being a Marine Officer implies being a Provisional Rifle Platoon Commander first. Secondarily Marines whatever their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS–their day to day job). Therefore I’m a Marine Officer first. A pilot a distant second. Go ahead and take away my aviator’s wings, so long as I can keep the Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem of the Marine.

This ethos is not common to all military aviators. Many Navy aviators are pilots first. Indeed, even enlisted sailors of are known by their Rate–their job. A Marine is a Marine, and you may address him as such, or perhaps by his rank. A sailor is a Boatswain’s Mate 3rd Class, or a Quartermaster 2nd Class, or perhaps a Signalman Chief Petty Officer. A sailor is his job first.

Next, the Marine aviator is almost completely oriented toward supporting the Ground Combat Element–that unit of infantrymen reinforced with tanks, artillery, amphibious assault vehicles, etc. The premier missions for the Marine aviator are Assault Support–carrying Marines and their stuff, and Air Support–dropping bombs and shooting guns in support of those ground Marines. Marine aviators also do other missions–aerial reconnaissance, anti-air warfare, electronic warfare, and command & control missions, but their heart is being there when it counts to help out the Lance Corporal with a rifle.

The Marine Corps is expeditionary in nature. This is an outgrowth of the role played by Marines as essentially colonial infantry, and being a force in readiness able to deploy at a moment’s notice. This attribute is expressed in a “Bag’s Packed” mentality, meaning that on an individual level, the Marine awaits only orders to march. I have spent many days on a 24-hour recall tether to maintain the required level of readiness. In 2004, my unit went from duty in garrison to conducting combat operations north of Kandahar in 19 days. Imagine yourself playing croquet in your backyard–and looking less than three weeks into your future at the peaks of the Hindu Kush. Yes, the Marine Corps can function as a second land army, but that is not where it’s strength lies.

The Marine Corps is Naval in character, and therefore Marine Aviators are Naval Aviators. (As an aside, the Marines are a separate Naval service that reports to the Secretary of the Navy. Marines do NOT work for the Navy–at least on an organizational level. There may be Marines assigned to Navy units, and there are Sailors assigned to Marine units. But those Marine units are not administratively responsible to any Navy Admiral.) The Marines are a Naval service, not a Navy service. This means that we ought to get used to the confines of a troopship, understand Naval lingo, and remember that sea duty is a Marine duty. I personally have transited the Suez Canal, and visited perhaps a dozen Mediterranean ports. I have practiced amphibious assaults, and have coordinated naval guns firing at land-based targets.

I would summarize the Marine ethos as being:

• Rifleman First, and oriented toward supporting the Rifleman
• Expeditionary in Nature
• Naval in Character

Instilling this ethos requires the proper training prior to flight school, and that is the role of The Basic School (TBS), in Quantico, Virginia.

TBS is a post-commissioning school that imbues the Marine ethos into the officer corps, giving each officer a common starting point, and inculcating specific Marine attitudes, doctrine, tactics, and procedures. Just as importantly, it allows Marine officers to get to know each other, and lends confidence that no matter the MOS of that officer–he could be a box-kicking Supply Officer, that he will be able to at least be familiar with the problems, virtues, vices, and strengths of ground combat.

Officer Candidates School and the Naval Academy provide the bulk of the new Lieutenants to TBS, although the purpose of these commissioning sources is not to instill the ethos and doctrine of the Marines; rather they are screening processes to ensure only quality officers are commissioned into the Marines.

The TBS curriculum imbues the Marine ethos through cultural immersion in an austere, warrior like setting. Newly minted Lieutenants are organized into companies, which break into platoons, sections, squads, and teams for sand table exercises, field problems, and Tactical Evolutions Without Troops. Approximately one third of the instruction is in garrison, and the remainder is in the field, so there is a significant about of time of marching with a pack, digging fighting positions, and employing weapons from the M-16 through the M2 .50 Cal machine gun. All Marine officers learn to call for artillery and mortar fire, and are given cursory training on employment of aviation. Land navigation is done with a map, compass, and pace counts. It is a demanding course–it is not uncommon to have higher-ranking junior officers, like First Lieutenants, from allied countries go through the TBS Basic Officer Course as their advanced infantry training course.

Following TBS the young Marine officers continue to more specialized training for their particular MOS, and ultimately will move to a unit in the operating forces, such as an infantry battalion, helicopter or fighter/attack jet squadron, or perhaps a logistics battalion. The next stage for most*** future Marine aviators is Introductory Flight Screening, and Aviation Preflight Indoctrination at Naval Air Station Pensacola. And that is where I will begin the second part of this occasional series.

*** Some Marine Officers may serve a tour or two as a ground officer, and then apply to flight school later. These officers typically go through flight school as senior First Lieutenants and Captains, and are relatively rare. Typically less than five such officers are selected for this coveted assignment each year.

Recommended Reading:

• One Bullet Away, by Nathaniel Fick
• First to Fight, by Krulak

Links:

• Class 186: The Making of a Marine Officer

Videos: (With a hat tip to Blue Falcon, whoever you are. Blue Falcon’s videos are a bit tongue-in-cheek, but provide a fairly good view into what activities are involved at The Basic School.)

• TBS: Part I
• TBS: Part II
• How Not to Debark a 7-Ton (TBS is also a place to make mistakes. Making mistakes may be embarrassing or fatal if made in the presence of enlisted Marines and the enemy.)