Men Of Their Own Name
By streiff Posted in User Blogs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
We have been stunned this week by the loss of 21 Marines from the same battalion, 3d Battalion, 25th Marines, 4th Marine Division. Because this battalion was a reserve Marine battalion it was recruited from a relatively small geographical area, in this case from the area surrounding their Reserve Center at Brook Park, OH.
Therein lies one of the strengths and weakness of Reserve and National Guard units. They are recruited locally. Because of this geographic attachment they might receive more local support than regular units. It is also not uncommon to find several family members in the same unit. A Minnesota National Guard unit that my battalion was partnered with had a mortar platoon that included a father and three of his sons. This close knit social environment compensates in cohesiveness and mutual trust for a lot of what reserve and National Guard units lack in training when they first deploy.
The weakness is obvious. If a unit has a run of bad luck, like 3/25 Marines had this week, then the tragedy of the losses is magnified through their concentration among a few families in a small area and sends us reeling.
Read on.
On September 9, 1943 the 36th Infantry Division, Texas National Guard, went ashore at Salerno as part of Operation AVALANCHE.
The division's 143d Regimental Combat Team had a starring role in John Huston's classic Battle of San Pietro. By classic I mean that generations of Infantry officers have had this movie used to teach them how not to fight a battle.
The nadir of its combat tour was the failed forcing of the Rapido River by the 141st and 143d Infantry regiments between January 20-22, 1944 during the disastrous campaign around Monte Cassino. In a bare 48 hours these two regiments suffered 2,128 casualties. One company of the 141st regiment was reduced from 187 to 17 men. Some small towns in Texas had every military age male killed or wounded in this 48 hour period. Some families lost fathers, sons, uncles, and cousins on the same day.
On May 25, 1944 the 36th Division was fed into the meatgrinder at Anzio in at attempt to break the stalemate. By the time it was pulled out of the line in June 1944, after eight months of combat, this locally recruited 15,000-man division had suffered a staggering 27,343 casualties, of whom 3,974 were killed, 19,052 wounded, and 4,317 missing in action.
The popular outcry in Texas against GEN Mark W. Clark, commander of 5th Army, was so high over his mishandling of the 36th Division that a congressional investigation demanded by the Texas congressional delegation. The 1946 investigation exonerated Clark. Army legend has it that Clark never visited Texas after the war for fear of his life. In may be apocryphal but it is a good story.
Throughout history men have preferred to stand in line of battle with, as historian John Prebble terms it, men of their own name, encouraging and drawing courage from friends, neighbors, and kinsmen. This bond, so indispensable to effective, cohesive units, a bond which ultimately results in fewer casualties can tragically deal a body blow to the community it is drawn from.