If every Marine is a rifleman, then what does that translate to in the real world of combat? In other words, what is a Marine's primary role?
Answer Wiki
It is said that "every Marine is a rifleman" just as it is said "every Marine is a leader." Both of these are critically false notions that are overemphasized. Every Marine is given an opportunity to shoot and every Marine is placed in leadership positions. Not everyone succeeds with either.
The most common definition of a rifleman is someone who is skillful with a rifle. Granted, I'm just a silly POG who was lucky to see a rifle for a week every year, like a majority of Marines in non-combat MOSs, but there are a lot of "pizza boxes" out there and people who struggle to qualify at all on the rifle range. With the way that many of the rifle ranges are ran in the Marine Corps, some people are gifted their qualifications and can not shoot, literally, to save their own life. This throws a cog in the very idea that "every Marine is a rifleman."
Let's get back to your question though. Per the Marine Corps, the mission of a Marine Rifle Squad is to -
locate, close with, and destroy the enemy, by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat.
The Marine's purpose in combat is not always this direct, as ROE and other pertinent factors to the mission can alter this. I think your question is torn between the philosophical view of what a Marines' role should be and what a Marine actually does in theater.
Related QuestionsMore Answers Below
If you trace back through history, the Marine corps was formed for only one purpose and one job, which was basically to protect U.S. interests by providing security. As history goes on, the sole purpose of Marine Corps is to win battles which could only mean infantry, or riflemen.
There is a saying, Marine Corps was born on America's need for wars, this branch of military is not created because people needed it, it was because people wanted it. And with years of wars throughout America's history it was only apparent that Marine Corps is an very effective war machine. Such the reason as to why all Marines are basic riflemen unlike other branches where if you are any MOS other than infantry, you definitely won't receive as much field training.
So you can read all about USMC history, but as to the your question about what is a Marine's primary role; a rifleman, a damn proud rifleman. (You can ask any Marine that and he'll tell you pretty much the same)
P.S: modern difference of a rifleman and infantry, when the sh** hits the fan, every Marine is a capable rifleman.
This is my rifle…
There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will…
My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit…
My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will…
Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy, but peace!
This question has been answered several times, so I'm not going to answer it I'm going to give one of my stories.
I was a Marine Reservist with an MS of 0811 (artillery). When the war in Iraq kicked off, my unit was not slated to deploy for several years. That was unacceptable for me. I wanted to help. I wanted to fight.
So I agreed to be an individual augmentee. This means I signed a short contract that said I was willing to be deployed with any unit that would take me. After a month or so I received a call saying that 3rd CAG (civil affairs group) needed bodies and I was to report to camp pendleton for assignment with that unit. I went and received a few months of pre-deployment work up training and then we went to iraq.
The first month or so was acclimatization in Kuwait and then going to RamadI and doing my job. My job was PSD (personal security detail) for a Lt. Colonel. His job was meeting with Iraqi leaders and paying money to them for damage caused by the war. This was a good job but entailed maybe 2 missions a week. This caused a lot of downtime and as the saying goes "idle hands do the Devils work".
I had lots of time to meet others in and around our camp and made friends with a few army infantry types that went on night patrols and raids. It didn't take long for me to bring up the idea of going with these units to my boss, Lt. Col. "Money". His response was, "OK, so long as you are able to still go on CAG missions".
So here I was a lone Marine gearing up with a platoon of Army Soldiers to assist them in their missions. Without going into any detail about the missions, it didn't take long for the Army officer-in-charge to put me with his point/assault team. This lasted for the rest of my deployment, over 150 missions with this Army unit. I was also able to go on my 2 missions a week with my unit.
The moral of this story is, I was able to become a very good "soldier" in a little amount of time. Even though I was a reserve artillery guy and these were active duty Army infantry. Now, this isn't to downplay or talk bad about the Army soldiers I went on missions with. They were good at what they did. This is just to point out that a Marine "rifleman" POG has enough training to hold his own and possibly excel in a combat zone as an infantryman.
I would never talk bad about anyone in the Army, so please don't go there in the comments. My father was 101st in Vietnam, one brother was a Sniper with an Army unit, and my youngest brother was with the 75th Ranger Bat. So I'm the oddball of the family.
Every single enlisted Marine learns, both at bootcamp and at the School of Infantry (SOI), the basics of how to be an infantryman.
At bootcamp new Marines get training in marksmanship and combat marksmanship. They learn hand to hand fighting and bayonet techniques. They learn how to operate as a fire team and as a squad (a fire team is the smallest component of a Marine fighting unit, composed of 4 Marines, one armed with an M249 light machine gun and another with an M203 grenade launcher. A squad is composed of 3 fire teams.) At the end of bootcamp, every Marine recruit goes through "the Crucible", which is 52 straight hours of combat simulation, where the recruit will have to put all of his new-found knowledge to use. Severe sleep deprivation, food deprivation, long hikes with heavy loads, simulated gas attacks, etc... all add up to test the new Marines on their combat proficiency .
After graduating from boot camp, those new privates then immediately go on to the SOI. Marines who will NOT be infantrymen go through the Marine Combat Training course, which is a 4 week-long seminar on learning even more about the role of Marine infantrymen. Here they learn to shoot such varied weapons as the M249 machine gun, the M203 grenade launcher, the AT4 rocket, 60mm mortar tubes, 155mm Howitzer artillery and more. They also learn basic skills like how to spot an IED, how to patrol, how to properly navigate, urban combat, anti-tank warfare, how to use smoke, fragmentation, and pyrotechnical grenades. Only after completing the month-long course do these Marines then go on to their MOS schools, where they will learn the skills they will actually need to know for their real jobs in the military.
Those Marines that WILL be deployed in the regular infantry enter the Infantry Training Battalion for an 8 week course on everything they will need to know for a successful combat deployment. They do everything described above, but more in depth and to a more advanced degree, so that they will be experts by the time they hit the fleet or deploy.
This bears repeating again: all Marines, regardless of whether they will be on the frontlines in Afghanistan or repairing Cobra helicopters at Camp Lejeune, go through at least 4 weeks of advanced infantry training, in addition to what they learned in boot camp.
This costs the Marine Corps a lot of money. It costs Marines time spent away from learning skills they need for their MOS. The Army, Navy and Air Force doesn't do this. So, why does the Marine Corps do it? There are 2 primary reasons.
1. Everything in the Marine Corps revolves around helping the infantryman accomplish his mission, whether that be killing Taliban or helping earthquake refugees in Haiti. Pilots fly missions to resupply the infantry or to bomb the enemy so that the infantry can assault them. Artillery is there for the same reason. Guys whose job it is to deliver food and fuel do it so that the infantrymen are properly supplied and so that those supporting the infantry are supplied as well. You get the idea. We are a military organization, and so our meat and potatoes is that Marine infantryman on the ground pulling his trigger at the enemy.
Sending everyone to infantry training helps that Marine understand and experience the unique needs that the infantry has. Marines in a supporting role can tailor how they go about their jobs to better suit the infantry precisely because they have experienced it themselves first-hand.
2. Warfare is a dangerous business. Casualties are taken, units get depleted and lose manpower. The fact that every Marine has a good knowledge of the workings of infantry (the fact that every Marine is indeed A RIFLEMAN) means that in dire cases, you can slot any Marine into a combat unit and not lose a step. If a commander needs someone to quickly neutralize an enemy mortar team, for example, but he only has a communications platoon on hand, he can send that platoon knowing that they are capable of accomplishing the mission almost as well as a regular infantry platoon would be.
During the Korean War, during the withdrawal of the Chosin Reservoir, there were numerous cases of cooks, repairmen, transportation Marines, etc. picking up weapons and defending their positions against enemy forces and repelling numerically stronger forces, saving their fellow Marines' lives in the process.
So, in a roundabout way, I hope I've answered your question. Today, in Afghanistan, as in other combat zones, the fighting is mostly done by infantrymen, even though "every Marine is a rifleman". But, since every Marine has basic combat skills and has achieved a certain threshold of combat marksmanship (unlike Army soldiers), any Marine can in theory step into a combat role and do the job.
This means that there are few "soft spots" for the enemy to attack since everyone can defend themselves, and it gives a commander greater flexibility in accomplishing a mission since anyone is capable of doing it.
Bonus answer:
Every Marine is a rifleman. Another (less catchy) axiom we have is, "Every Marine officer is a provisional rifle platoon commander." This means that every Marine officer (even lawyers and pilots), regardless of what their job will be, upon commissioning, goes to The Basic School and over the course of 6 months learns everything they need to know about leading an infantry platoon into combat and beating the enemy. 6 months of learning how to shoot every weapon under the sun, how to properly navigate a platoon through hostile and unknown terrain, how to come up with a tactically sound plan and deliver the mission order to his/her subordinates.
What's the difference between a Navy JAG and a Marine JAG? The Marine has been through 6 months of hell learning how to kill the enemy and how to lead a platoon to victory.
That's what makes every Marine a rifleman, and that is how it plays out on the battlefield.
in.
For example, when a Marine Corps band is deployed they act as a provisional infantry unit.
The difference from the Marine Corps and say the Army is in the Army if you are logistics then you are logistics and trained in logistics. In the Marines if you are logistics then you are first trained in infantry and are a riflemen first then trained in logistics and work in logistics.
Hope this answered your question.
A Marine's primary role is to complete the mission. They can either participate through combat operations or support of combat operations, and how a Marine participates in the mission is dictated by the needs of the mission. If there is a need for a particular MOS (Military Occupation Specialty), then a Marine with that MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) will be tasked with filling that role, but if there isn't, they will be used to augment the rifle companies.
The additional training all Marines receive ensures that they are combat ready and have at least a basic level of understanding how to lead a unit in combat. This training does two things:
1.) Since combat generally doesn't happen on a "front" anymore it ensures a higher level of survivability for "non-combat" troops.
2.) It allows for greater decentralization of authority at all levels of command. This is fairly unique internationally. Read up on BGen Evans Carlson to learn more about where it came from.
3.) The additional training generally weeds out Marines who wouldn't be fit for combat duty... either through injury or lack of promotion.
In Iraq it was pretty evident in my unit - a provincial convoy security team made up of a hodge-podge of non-infantry Marines. Our Army counterparts were essentially sent through truck driving or logistics schools - however we *were* the infantry escorts for the convoys we accompanied. In a fight we were the first and last line of defense.
The result was lower casualty rate on our missions. My understanding is that the Army has since been rectified by implementing more intensive "work up" training ahead of deployments. However the reputation the Marines (or as we got called a lot "Sea Commandos."
That said - as a non-infantry unit we definitely didn't carry the experience, training, or firepower of "actual" infantry. In the end all it does is improves the odds and makes things a hell of a lot safer if things go wrong.
Related Questions
Still have a question? Ask your own!