General officers

Commandant to do LIVE town hall via Facebook

By gpingersoll on March 13, 2014 General officers, Leadership, Pop culture, The CMC, The Sgt. Major of the Marine Corps

Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Amos and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Michael Barrett will conduct a live social media Q&A Friday, March 14 at 4 p.m. via the official Marine Corps Facebook page. “An announcement post will hit the page and the bulk of dialogue will take place within the comments on that post. We will also be answering as many questions as we can on Twitter,” said Staff Sgt. Mark Fayloga, Marine Corps spokesperson, via email. The Q&A thread will resemble the popular AMA format used on the site Reddit.com; commenters will post questions on…

Marine Corps discharges captain tied to sniper scandal

By Hope Hodge Seck on March 5, 2014 General officers, Leadership

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has signed the discharge paperwork for Marine Capt. James Clement, who was recommended for separation late last year for failing to supervise Marine scout snipers who engaged in inappropriate war zone combat during a 2011 deployment to Afghanistan. Clement was the executive officer of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines when scout snipers attached to that unit filmed themselves urinating on enemy corpses in a video later posted to YouTube. Marine Corps Times covered Clement’s case extensively after he was charged with dereliction of duty in connection with the incident. His defense team, led by civilian…

Gen. “Mad Dog” Mattis just gave what may be the most motivating speech of all time

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By Hope Hodge Seck on March 3, 2014 Battle Rattle, General officers, History and heritage

One of the Marine Corps’ most revered generals proved his mettle as a warrior poet recently, delivering a speech that summed up the Marine Corps ethos and experience–from bar fights to earth’s orbit. Gen. Jim Mattis, who retired last year from his post as head of U.S. Central Command after a 41-year career, gave this speech at the Marine Corps University Foundation’s 2014 Semper Fidelis Award Dinner on Feb. 22., where he accepted the award. The speech is just too good to abbreviate, so here’s the whole thing. I’ve put my favorite lines in bold. Long time since we served…

Caught in the act: Marine four-star shovels his own walk

By Hope Hodge Seck on February 21, 2014 General officers

Generals: they’re just like us. Gen. John Paxton may be assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, but a photo snapped surreptitiously outside his home at Marine Barracks Washington shows he’s not afraid to roll up his sleeves and do a little manual labor. The photo, snapped by Marine Cpl. Anne Marie Trecolis and first featured by Brian Adam Jones on the blog Task and Purpose, shows Paxton in jeans and a black coat, shoveling the walkway outside his home. Trecolis and a friend, Cpl. Alina Hollis, were walking to lunch outside 8th and I when they spotted Paxton working, without…

UK media: British 3-star disputes claim his troops failed to prevent Camp Bastion attack

By Andrew deGrandpre on December 18, 2013 Afghanistan, Allies and training, Camp Bastion, General officers

Appearing before members of Britain’s Parliament on Tuesday, a top British general disputed assertions that his forces are to blame for the security failures that led to last year’s deadly Taliban attack on a coalition airfield in southwestern Afghanistan. Lt. Gen. David Capewell, who oversees the planning for British military operations abroad, told lawmakers that even though the Brits were in charge of security for Camp Bastion at the time of the attack, they are not responsible for the deaths of two Marines gunned down after 15 insurgents breached the base perimeter in September 2012. His testimony before Parliament’s Defence…

General: Brass joked about Marine angst over uniform sleeves

By Dan Lamothe on October 8, 2013 General officers, The CMC, Uniforms

As you may have seen, four Marine Corps generals and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Mike Barrett sat down with me recently and discussed a variety of issues, including the commandant’s new tough plans for barracks security, the manpower drawdown and the future of the service after Afghanistan. Times are tough, they acknowledged. But Maj. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commanding officer of 1st Marine Division, said Marines are also afraid of change, or the perception of change. He referenced a hot-button issue — Commandant Gen. Jim Amos’ decision to ditch rolled sleeves for Marines — while addressing it: Marine Corps…

Modern Day Marine exposition kicks off at Quantico

By Dan Lamothe on September 24, 2013 Gear, General officers, Science & Technology, The Sgt. Major of the Marine Corps, Uniforms, Vehicles, Weapons

The Marine Corps’ annual exposition of gear, weapons and vehicles kicks off today at Quantico, Va. It is expected to draw thousands of Marines and civilians from across the country, with a special emphasis on what industry is producing for the Corps. Marine Corps Times prepared for the expo by producing its annual State of the Marine Corps issue. Out on newsstands this week, it leverages insight from 15 general officers to paint a picture of where life stands in the Corps. If you’re on base and looking, you’ll find it available at the expo. Highlights of the event include…

How long will Regional Command-Southwest in Afghanistan survive?

By Dan Lamothe on August 14, 2013 Afghanistan, General officers, I MEF, III MEF, Infantry

Month by month, it increasingly looks like it could be a matter of time before the two-star Marine headquarters in southwestern Afghanistan ceases to exist. Regional Command-Southwest, as it is known, was established in 2010 as the U.S. rapidly expanded military operations in Afghanistan, surging thousands of troops there. The Marine Corps was among the first involved in that surge, seeing its footprint grow in Helmand province from about 11,000 in 2009 to 20,000 the following summer. Maj. Gen. Richard Mills took command that spring of the newly formed RC-Southwest, which split off from the neighboring two star-headquarters in Kandahar…

Gen. Joseph Dunford, Afghanistan war commander, profiled by Boston Globe

By Dan Lamothe on August 6, 2013 Afghanistan, General officers

Gen. Joseph Dunford has a father who fought in Korea as a Marine, loves his hometown Boston Red Sox and was lured to join the Marine Corps after seeing a recruiting poster at college. Those are among the details published in a new Boston Globe story about the Marine general who leads the war in Afghanistan. Dunford, a Boston native, was profiled by the newspaper on Sunday, and met with a Globe reporter in Kabul. The story is short on details about the war, but highlights the general’s rise from South Boston to four-star general. He played a fair amount…

Handwriting experts: you shouldn’t cross the commandant

By Hope Hodge Seck on July 29, 2013 Battle Rattle, Commandant, General officers, Pop culture

Dynamic. Self-assertive. Self-protective. These are words some experts used to describe Marine Corps commandant Gen. Jim Amos–or at least, how they believe his signature describes him. Writing for MilitaryTimes’ Off Duty section, handwriting experts Sheila Lowe, Kimon Ianetta and Reed Hayes took a look at the John Hancocks of all the military service leaders, including the Commander-in-Chief. President Barack Obama’s mostly-illegible signature “signals a strong need for privacy,” Lowe said, while Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is “unable or unwilling to tell it like it is” judging from his autograph, she said. As for…

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