Does one US military branch think it's superior?

Yes there is, but now it's more espirit de corps. Don't get me wrong I love my service branch brothers, but trying to equate a sailor with an Ranger just doesn't work. Its now more like a sailor is like a Fobbit- got to have them but they just aren't in your league so to say. Stronger ties now between, SOCOM units (MARSOC, SEALS, Rangers, Green Berets).

As a Navy veteran, my USMC, AF, Army and CG friends enjoy "beating" each other with "rivalrous rhetoric". It's all in good fun, and we know we are BIA's.

I've always thought of it more as a good natured, give the other guys a hard time type deal. Heck, we're sending our own guys off to get boxes of grid squares from supply and to the flight line to get buckets of rotor wash. We're certainly going to be giving the other services a hard time.

Well, of course the Air force is better. We learned a long time ago that it's far better to send our officers out to fight while we sit back and play vidya.

They probably do, but they all have their own missions to accomplish, they all know they can count on each other.

Absolutely! It can be fun to sit around with fellow vets and (laughingly) rib each other over our different branches. In the end though I make sure everyone knows that despite the ribbing each branch does their job. (Mostly ;) )

Department of the Navy. That would include the Marines. But, seriously, each branch has it's own specialty, so to say one is better than the other, it depends on the job being done.

"inter Service" rivalry will always exist to a certain extent and competition can be healthy but even in the 80s and 90s I didn't see that much. There will always be a few who don't understand the team concept and that we all need the special talents and abilities of each service.

Well to be fair, you have to look at it from several angles. What are YOU looking for? Comfort? Training? Money? Prestige? "Superior" meaning "best" would have to be "best" for YOU. If you were after the most money, then the branch you chose - after all of your exhaustive research - would be the "superior" branch. So were you joining a branch strictly for the money it offered and settled on branch X, why would you feel that "all" branches were equal? If you were joining from a family heritage perspective ("my dad, grandad and his dad were all Marines, etc") then joining THAT branch would be "superior."

My experience is no. I work in a joint command with a Marine Infantry Officer as my direct supervisor with a Navy Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) as our element's vice commander and an Army Ranger as our element lead. Our whole organization is commanded by a USAFR B-52 pilot.

In that experience I have never got the vibe so far that one is better than the other. Each service provides a specific function that is integral to a mission. The Marines can do a lot initially without the AF or the Army. But chances are that they get crucial intel from all of the above. The MEU's are poised for rapid response, but the Army is poised for long term engagement. The Air Force provides a good deal of long range persistent surveillance as well as the ability to conduct deep strike interdiction with our B'2s. In addition the AF provides crucial rapid global mobility mobility capabilities.

In the joint planning world I have the opportunity to see where all of the pieces fit together. It is never a one size fits all or else we wouldn't have a job. We find that in most cases to solve a problem it involves the engagement of several parts that include the whole spectrum of the DOD's capability.