A group of combat cameras produced a skit showing how the Corps is adapting to the government shutdown and budget cuts through several key changes: replacing rifles with Nerf guns, feeding Marines cold food instead of hot and forcing married couples to live in the barracks alongside single Marines. [HTML1] It’s titled “Adapt and Overcome” and features a mustached first sergeant telling his Marines how the cutbacks were going to affect the service. The combat cameras have to swap their Nikon cameras for disposable Fujis, he tells them. And their laptops are replaced with Etch A Sketches. “Don’t be a ninny…
Browsing: sequestration
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for the first time detailed the hard choices his department will face if impacted by decade-long budget cuts — and it could include a historically low end strength for the Corps of just 150,000 Marines. This week’s issue of Marine Corps Times examines the true effects the the across-the-board spending cuts — set to continue unless Congress stops them — will have on the Defense Department. Smaller pay raises for troops, major cuts to personnel and reductions in housing allowances are all areas at risk, Hagel said. For Marines, the most jarring news out of Hagel’s…
Commandant Gen. Jim Amos said Thursday in a video released by the Marine Corps that the Marine Corps has enough money to continue training through the rest of the year, but is still working to prevent furloughs to its civilian employees. The video was released one day after the Defense Department’s budget for fiscal 2014 was released amid a federal financial crisis. As laid out here, the new Marine Corps budget calls for $323 million less in military construction spending next fiscal year, affecting some planned modernization and maintenance not directly associated with operational readiness. Amos said in the video…
The Wall Street Journal is starting the day with a provocative opinion editorial ($) by Benjamin Luxenberg, a Marine first lieutenant who says some troops should be willing to take a cut to pay and benefits in order to solve the nation’s fiscal crisis–and he’ll be the first to volunteer. Luxenberg argues that troop pay has become “sacrosanct” in the national dialogue, and crucial defense programs are facing deeper cuts because of that. “National security shouldn’t be sacrificed on the altar of military pay,” he writes. The statement comes with caveats: before wholescale cuts, Luxenberg says pay should be aligned across…
For years, Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command has received attention mostly for its actions in Afghanistan. It’s far from the only theater the elite force has teams in, however. From Africa to the Pacific, Marine special operators have deployed across the globe to work, mostly in the shadows. This week’s Marine Corps Times cover story takes a look at those missions, focusing closely on one high-speed rescue in the Philippines. I caught wind of the rescue recently during a dinner in Washington, D.C., and MARSOC provided enough details afterward to make it clear how dangerous special operations can be,…
Congress is taking a vacation next week — on the eve of what’s been called the biggest potential fiscal disaster to hit the nation in decades, when massive, across-the-board budget cuts begin wreaking havoc on the Pentagon and all other federal agencies. Talk about whistling past the graveyard. The sequestration ax adds big drama to this particular hiatus. But it’s hardly unusual for House and Senate lawmakers; the congressional work schedule has withered on the vine for years. At this writing, there have been 32 regular “workdays” so far this year — Monday through Friday, federal holidays excluded. The House…
Commandant Gen. Jim Amos has made two appearances in a room full of reporters over the last week, fielding questions about everything from the war in Afghanistan to the ongoing manpower drawdown in the Marine Corps. Perhaps more frequently than anything else, one topic came up: What about sequestration? It’s a tough topic. Anyone following public policy, politics or national security issues in Washington is well aware of the automatic federal budget cuts that are looming if the U.S. government doesn’t find another way to reduce its deficit. They were put in place by the Budget Control Act of 2011,…
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s recent assertion that the Marine Corps could be forced to shutter one of its recruit depots has added a new cultural dynamic to the gloomy forecast about sequestration, the series of federal budget cuts looming if the U.S. government doesn’t find another way to reduce its deficit. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told constituents in his home state recently that the Corps may have to consolidate the recruit depots in San Diego and Parris Island, S.C., if sequestration goes through. His comments resulted in media coverage like this, and have raised some eyebrows in Washington. Kevin…
