The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

106 Chapter 4
made an acronym of their pickpocket practice: STEAL (Strategically Taking
Equipment to Another Location). 125 One Vietnam- era CAP Marine fondly
recalls a “hero” from his unit:
Lt. Silvia, our Delta Company Commander, was kind of a legend
for two reasons. First, he was a great thief, he stole one of those big
generators from the Air Force Base just so he and the guys could
keep their beer and pop cold. Second, [h]e was coming back down
. . . [Road One] and took small arms fire . . . so he called in artillery
. . . waited for a reactionary squad and checked out the enemy KIA’s
[killed in action] with just a pistol. . . . Got to love that. 126
Thieving and fighting credentials both. A solid Marine.
By necessity, the frugality norm mandates an attendant valuing of ingenuity
to make up for material shortcomings. In this the Marines seem to defy
Colin Gray’s characterization of US armed forces: “Strategic necessity is the
mother of military invention, and since the 1860s, at least, Americans have
had little need to invent clever work- arounds for material lack.” 127 Marines
would beg to differ. Marine lore is full of work- around stories, the necessity
of which seem to defy explanation given the largesse of Big Tent Army. 128
The explanation is not just the American military’s material contempt for
the Marine Corps—it is also a natural repercussion of being out in front of
supply lines. Again, the Corps has made a virtue out of material shortages
and publicizes it as a natural fit with life in the “seams.” Commandant Amos
points out that the Corps is ideally suited for expeditionary crisis response,
in part, because “we’re trained and willing to live pretty austerely.” 129 Austerity,
in this case, might be best captured by Fick, who lived it. Marines are
frugal not only in substance, but in other dimensions as well: “The Marine
Corps has an institutional culture of doing more with less, and that includes
not only less money and less equipment but also less time, less certainty, less
guidance, and less supervision.” 130
Suffering
Doing more with less comes with a dose of externally imposed misery.
Marines deem this insufficient and impose more. In Spooner’s tales, “sweating,
tired Marines wearing gas masks and marching along a dusty road
under a blistering tropical sun” are made to do air raid drills over and over
again. Disgusted, “Fearless Frank” asks, “Why do we always have to practice
to be miserable?” Ross shoots back with, “’Cause when we really are
miserable we’ll be so accustomed to it that it won’t seem so bad.” 131 Ross
may be right.