You might ask why we even have a Marine Corps, if all they do is use other folks' equipment and wear their clothes. Well, the answer is that Marines are more than the sum of their equipment. They are something special. They take the pieces that are given to them, arrange them in unique and innovative ways…and throw in their own distinctive magic. There is more to military units than hardware. There is the character of the unit's personneclass="underline" their strengths, experience, and knowledge, their ability to get along and work together amid the horrors of the battlefield. There is an almost undefinable quality. That quality is the Marine Corps' secret weapon. Their edge. That quality is their ethos.
Ethos is the disposition, character, or attitude of a particular group of people that sets it apart from others. It is, in short, a trademark set of values that guides that group towards its goals. The Corps has such an ethos, and it is unique. And it explains, among other things, why the Marines' reputation may well frighten potential opponents more than the actual violence Marines can generate in combat. Now, you may be thinking that I've gone off the deep end, comparing an abstract concept like ethos to hard-core technologies like armored vehicles or stealth fighters, but the "force-multiplier" effect on the battlefield is similar — an overmatch between our forces and those of an opponent. Trying to quantify such a concept is a little like trying to grab smoke in midair. To say that it is "X" percent training or "Y" percent doctrine is to trivialize what makes Marines such superb warriors. It is also probably inaccurate. Therefore, I think it is quite appropriate to explore what makes a Marine, any Marine, different from an Army tanker or an Air Force fighter pilot.
Though most Marines are unable to fully explain this mystical power, the Marine ethos is a combination of many different shared values and experiences. And it comes from what all Marines have in common, much like the brothers and sisters of a large family. In fact, this is how they refer to each other: as brother and sister Marines. Marines are unique among American service personnel in that they all must pass the same tests, no matter whether they are officers or enlisted personnel. This is in stark contrast to the other services, which rigidly separate their officers and enlisted personnel, maintaining separate career tracks, professional responsibilities, and even standards of performance and behavior to which they are held. In the Corps, everyone is a Marine!
This means that the leadership of the Corps works hard to give every Marine a common set of core skills, capabilities, and values to draw upon when they face the emotional crucible of combat. For example, once a year every Marine from the guards on American embassy gates to the Commandant of the Corps has to pass a physical fitness test (running and various other exercises), or be drummed out. In addition, every Marine always has to be fully qualified as a rifleman with the M16A2 5.56mm combat rifle; and officers also have to be fully qualified with the M9 9mm pistol. You might consider such standards petty, but when the call of "Enemy sappers on the wire!" is shouted, you want everyone from cooks to fighter pilots armed and ready to fight, shoulder to shoulder. This is the Marine way of doing things, and it has been for over 220 years.
Along with common standards and skills, every Marine shares a common heritage. This is more than just textbook history, for the Corps leadership believes that Marines need to know they are part of a team with a past, a present, and a future. What they do today is based upon the lessons of the past, just as the future should be based on a firm foundation of present experience. For Marines, their rich past is a living, ever-present reality. The Marines, alone among the services, require basic recruits and officers candidates to study their history as soon as they enter training. They all learn the important milestones that have defined the character of the Marine Corps and its ethos.
There is much to study in the Marines' twenty-two decades of existence, but a few defining moments stand out. These milestones — some predate the creation of the United States itself — are the historical structure which holds that ethos together. Let's take a look at them.
The Beginning: Tun Tavern, 1775
If you want to understand the Marine Corps ethos, it helps to start at the beginning. Created on November 10th, 1775, by the Second Continental Congress, the Corps served the new Continental Navy in the role Royal Marines had traditionally filled on board ships of the Royal Navy. Royal Marines were (and are) tough soldiers who suppressed mutiny and enforced discipline among the "press-ganged" (in effect, kidnapped) ships' crews, manned heavy cannons, and gave the ship's captain a unit of professional soldiers for boarding enemy vessels or landing on an enemy shore. These missions were rooted in the history of the Royal Navy, and the leaders of the Continental Congress felt their new Navy should also have Marines.
Four weeks after their legislative creation, the first Marine unit was formed in Philadelphia, at an inn called the Tun Tavern. The beginnings were modest: just one hundred Rhode Island recruits commanded by a young captain named Samuel Nicholas, a Philadelphia Quaker and innkeeper. These early recruits were all volunteers (beginning a tradition that continues in today's Corps). They fought their first action in March of 1775. Embarked on eight small ships, they sailed to the Bahamas and captured a British fort near Nassau, seizing gunpowder and supplies. Later, during the Revolutionary War, Marines fought several engagements in their distinctive green coats, such as helping George Washington to cross the Delaware River, and assisting John Paul Jones on the Bonhomme Richard to capture the British frigate Serapis during their famous sea fight.
From these humble beginnings came the start of the traditions that make up the Marine Corps that we know today. Its ranks are filled primarily with volunteers, and its missions are joint (i.e., in concert with other services like the Navy) and expeditionary in character. But perhaps most important is that when duty first called, Marines were among the first organized forces of the new nation to be committed to combat. This tradition of being "first to fight" is the first characteristic that their history brings to the ethos of the Corps.
The Halls of Montezuma…and the Shores of Tripoli
For a time following the Revolutionary War, the Marines were disestablished. But they were reborn with the revival of the United States Navy and its "big frigates" like the USS Constitution and USS Constellation. Once again, Marines went aboard to support the Navy in missions to protect American shipping and interests. As the 18th century came to a close, the interests of the United States assumed a more global character, and the Navy and Marines had to protect them.
During this period the Marine Corps conducted a series of operations, known as the War against the Barbary Pirates, that defined its role for the next two centuries. Four outlaw states along the coast of North Africa (the "Barbary Coast") — Algeria, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripoli — drew their primary source of income from capturing and ransoming merchant ships and their crews transiting the Mediterranean. For a time, the U.S. Government paid the ransoms, as other nations had done for years. But by 1803, the American and British governments had tired of this, and sent squadrons of combat vessels to suppress these maritime outlaws. Over four hundred Marines and other soldiers were committed to the effort, which inspired the line "to the shores of Tripoli"[1] in the Marine Corps Hymn. Their early achievements included the destruction of the captured American frigate Philadelphia. Later, in 1805, an expedition against Tripoli included eight Marines and a force of Arab mercenaries, which marched across six hundred miles of desert to storm the town of Derna. The war against the Barbary States was America's first overseas military operation, and Marines were in the thick of the action.
1
There are two ports on the Mediterranean named Tripoli. The one in the song is Tripoli, Libya, not to be confused with Tripoli, Lebanon.