Adding History : Marines: Major role is expected of the 20,000 Southland troops in 1st Division, which has fought in both World Wars, Vietnam and Korea.
As the U.S.-led allies proceed with a final land offensive, a major role almost certainly will be played by the 1st Marine Division, comprised of 20,000 troops housed in peacetime at this sprawling base in rural San Diego County and at Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino.
The division--the largest Marine contingent in Southern California--is the ground combat arm of the I Marine Expeditionary Force, an umbrella organization that also includes aircraft units from the Marine Corps air stations at El Toro and Tustin in Orange County.
About 30,000 Southern California Marines and reservists were shipped out from Camp Pendleton in two large deployments in August and December. Commanding the I MEF is Lt. Gen. Walter Boomer, and under him, Maj. Gen. James Myatt, who heads the 1st Marine Division.
Also serving under the I MEF is the 2nd Marine Division, based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The total expeditionary force brings about 90,000 Marines to the war, roughly half of the entire Marine Corps but 90% of the corps’ combat and support services, according to retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Marc Moore.
The 1st Division--with its own infantry, tanks, artillery, reconnaissance and amphibious units--is a largely self-contained force that Moore, a commander in the division in Vietnam, expects will be used to cut off entrenched front line Iraqis and move against the Republican Guard.
“I think it’s going to be very swift. . . . It’ll surprise a lot of folks what they can do,” said Moore. “The main battle will be in the rear with the Republican Guard.”
Already, the Marines have been involved in skirmishes. In one, a battle earlier this month near the border town of Khafji, 11 men were killed.
Unlike their bigger and more heavily equipped Army counterparts, the Marines carry lighter weapons, allowing them to specialize in quick thrusts to test the enemy and discover weak spots.
Although the division has air and logistical support, the greatest danger would be to become overextended, to penetrate too far and risk getting cut off, according to Maj. Mark Thiffault, a Camp Pendleton spokesman and a Vietnam veteran.
Over the years, the highly decorated 1st Division has earned a special place in Marine history.
“It’s a fraternity that’s very strong,” said Col. Robert Tilley, who served in three command positions within the division and now, as he holds an administrative post at Camp Pendleton, is frustrated that he cannot rejoin his old outfit on the battlefront.
He recalled a recent gathering of the 1st Marine Division Assn., which was formed in 1947 and now has 14,000 members nationwide, including 2,275 in California. “I met guys from World War I--they fought in 1917. Here they are, exchanging all this brotherhood.”
What has bound the Marines to each other and this division began on Feb. 1, 1941, nearly a year before America’s entry into World War II, when the division was activated aboard the battleship Texas.
It was melded from old regiments of crusty grunts in khaki and leggings who had fought in remote places like Vera Cruz in 1914 and the Dominican Republic in 1916, to the battles of Belleau Wood and Chateau-Thierry in World War I.
Moore calls the 1st Division the “wellspring” of the modern Marine Corps because its lineage goes back to the early part of the century.
It gained renown for its performance during the campaign against the Japanese at Guadalcanal, and afterward at Peleliu and Okinawa. Later, in 1950, the 1st Division landed at Inchon in Korea and survived a grueling fight out of the Chosin Reservoir, where it encountered overwhelming numbers of Red Chinese troops.
One war later, the 1st Division, dubbed “The Old Breed,” served for six years in Vietnam, including during the 1968 Tet offensive, when Marines resisted the strongest all-out attack of the war. The 1st Division returned to Southern California in early 1971.
It has shed a lot of blood and amassed powerful memories.
“The camaraderie is always there. The semper fi thing means the world to us, it never leaves,” said Bill Ping, who was seriously wounded at the Chosin Reservoir and is national vice president of the 1st Marine Division Assn.
Marine veterans acknowledge that the corps has undergone profound changes since Vietnam.
“I would say, with the lethality of our weapons, they are the best-trained Marines that have ever been on the face of the earth,” Tilley said.
Emerging from the military’s painful Vietnam experience--with its domestic opposition, political restraints and America’s eventual withdrawal from the war--the corps found its quality somewhat diminished because it had resorted to the draft to meet wartime manpower needs.
Like other branches of the service, it experienced some racial friction and drug abuse.
Russ Thurman, who saw combat in Vietnam and rose to become a young master sergeant, recalled how the war’s bleak aftermath discouraged many career-minded Marines. “A lot of good Marines left the service,” he said.
Slowly, the corps has been reshaped.
It returned to being an all-volunteer force that demands that all new Marines hold a high school diploma. And it has changed its training.
It learned in Vietnam that successful small-unit combat in the jungle required lower-ranking Marines--young lance corporals and lieutenants--to be given some discretion.
The new corps now seeks to issue commands that give a mission’s purpose, but largely lets those in the field decide how to accomplish its goals.
“In the old corps, there was always someone staring down your leg, telling you how to do it,” said 1st Lt. Chuck Lindberg, a training officer at Camp Pendleton. These days, “I’m going to tell you what’s important, then I’m going to set you loose to accomplish it”--all within a clearly defined operation.