Commandant of the United States Marine Corps

General Frank J. Grass, USA Retired.

General W.L. Spider Nyland, U.S. Military Marine, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.

General Philip M. Breedlove, U.S. Air Force Retired, Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

General Kevin P. Chilton, U.S. Air Force, Commander U.S. Strategic Command, and on and on and on.

So, so Donovan hears about this Marine, who speaks six languages, by the way, fluent French, fluent German, fluent Arabic, Russian, Spanish, and he says, "I want this guy." The Marines, of course, didn't wanna give him up, but Donovan goes to Roosevelt.

President Roosevelt puts some pressure on the Marine Corps Commandant.

Next thing you know, he's parachuting, uh, Reup- uh, Pete Ortiz behind the lines into Nazi Germany.

Now, Pete wore his uniform.

And the doctrine tested was both new and important.

Throughout the 1920s, when Major General Commandant John A. Lejeune led the Corps, the doughty World War I commander of, briefly, the renowned 4th Marine Brigade, and then its parent 2nd Infantry Division, had steadfastly emphasized the expeditionary role of the Marines.

Speaking to the students and faculty of the Naval War College in 1923, Lejeune said, "The maintenance, equipping, and training of its expeditionary force so it will be in instant readiness to support the fleet in the event of war, I deem to be the most important Marine Corps duty in time of peace." But the demands of that same expeditionary duty, with Marines deployed in the Caribbean, in Central America, in the Philippines, and in China, stretched the Corps thin.

Existing doctrine for amphibious operations, both in assault and defense, the focal point of wartime service by the Marines, was recognized as inadequate.

All sorts of deficiencies existed, in amphibious purpose, in shipping, in landing craft, in the areas of air and naval gunfire support, and particularly in the methodology and logistics of the highly complicated ship-to-shore movement of troops and their supplies once ashore.

The men who succeeded Lejeune as Major General Commandant upon his retirement after two terms in office, eight years, at the Corps' helm, Wendell C. Buck Neville, also a wartime commander of the 4th Marine Brigade, Ben M. Fuller, who commanded a brigade in Santo Domingo during the war, and John H. Russell Jr., a brigade commander in Haiti who then became America's High Commissioner in that country for eight years, all shared Lejeune's determination that the Marine Corps would have a meaningful role as an amphibious force trained for expeditionary use by the Navy.

Each man left his own mark upon the Corps in an era of reduced appropriations and manpower as a result of the Depression that plagued the United States during their tenure.

Neville, who had been awarded the Medal of Honor for his part in the fighting at Veracruz in 1914, unfortunately died after serving little more than a year, 1929 to 1930, as Commandant.

In their fatigues so different from our herringbone utilities and their olive drab ponchos, ours were camouflaged, so different from us, there was no doubt in our minds that the 77th were good people to have alongside in a fight and as a result we referred to them as the 77th Marine Division.

On the same busy day, 10 August, only hours after Major Culpepper's battalion had knocked out the last of the Japanese tanks, the Indianapolis, CA-35, steamed into Apra Harbor with Marine Corps Commandant Lieutenant General Alexander A. Vandergrift on board, accompanying Admiral Nimitz.

On 15 August, Admiral Nimitz directed that his forward CINCPAC-CINCPOA headquarters be established on Guam, and from here he directed the rest of the Pacific War.

Soon after, from airfields on Guam, as well as those on Tinian, B-29s were blasting the Japanese home islands.

It seemed to help, except this one time on my last mission in country when things got a little hairy.

We were tasked with flying the USMC Commandant, General Conway, the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, and a random three-star on an area of operations tour of Helmand Province, visiting multiple forward operating bases.

It was as we were approaching Fop Rankle that it happened.

We've got brownout.

How individualized can we make this treatment? Because while trauma is trauma and it affects the brain and the heart and the gut in very similar ways, unwinding trauma is a uniquely individual exercise.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had very recently with a Joe Dunford, who is the retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Commandant of the Marine Corps.

He's now the President and CEO of Center for Strategic and International Studies.

And I was telling him a story about a conversation I had had with some very senior people in a military service that wasn't the Marine Corps.

I had just come from a unit where almost everybody in the damn place was court-martialed.

And eight

months to the day later, in walks the aide-de-camp to the then-commandant of the Marine Corps, P.X. Kelly.

with a medal, a certificate of commendation from the commandant, a check for $20, because they overturned my court martial, and a copy of the four-page letter of apology wrote to my mother, which then enabled me to go back to counterintelligence work.

And we have some service chiefs who are alarming, even though Hegseth has moved most of them out.

And I can just sit there and tell you that the Marine Corps Commandant is probably just wrestling with himself because he wants to do something, and he wants to do something in the vein that Marines are most competent in, and that's amphibious operations.

You put all that together, and you might see some real insanity come out of this Pentagon, even though you and I both know that we ain't anywhere near the military establishment we were in 1990-91.

In fact, we are a faint shadow of our former self.

Obviously, there was a pop and a rock and a film music element to all of that, certainly at the White House.

And then I found myself playing fiddle in the country band that was formed because one of the Marine Commandants wanted this.

And just one thing led to another, and many called me the utility violinist of the Marine because I was the one guy that was willing to go down that rabbit hole with whatever style of music there was to learn.

So I played fiddle in the Irish band that we had and a mariachi band.