> Perfectly true, anyone can be a grunt, however when > your in the middle > of no where, have no backup, and need to get the job > done what do you > do? "Though you fly in the clouds, a marine is a > grunt first." The 58th > was heralded as the best of the best. To me they > were flying grunts, > more then once the played in the dirt. A necessity > then, more so then > now, with the earth at the edge of defeat and > loosing more men/women > then we can replace even through invitro's it comes > to a point that > everyone no matter how trained must do the lowliest > job. Of course that > is my opinion.
Still doesn't make sense. If you really are on the ropes, then a trained pilot you invested several million dollars and several months worth of training will be FAR MORE VALUABLE than some draftee pulled off the street, given cursory training and a rifle. To put this in perspective, in 11 months of combat, from 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945, the 1st Infantry Division lost some 212% of its personnel. If you factor in the fact that not all personnel in the division are trigger pullers (probably 1/2 to 2/3 are), then the losses probably approach more like 300% or more. With that in mind, its just not cost effective to expend valuable, trained (and more importantly) EXPERIENCED pilots in something a teen ager with 2 months of training can do equally well. And I find it hard to believe that a carrier (or carrier battlegroup, as although escorts were never shown, they must have been there) wouldn't have embarked Marine platoons, or even assault ships, as part of their fleet, especially if ground combat would be known to be encountered. At the very least, it would be better to gather the cooks and other unessential personnel, give them rifles, and send them into combat, just as it was done at Bastogne, and really throughout the US campaign in Europe when we began to feel the "manpower crunch" when all the better suited troops were either dead or wounded. Damon. ===== ------------------------------------------------------------ Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
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