Should Army and Marines (or components of) consolidate?

Whatever happened to the space force?

I don’t think it will ever happen. First and foremost look at all the $$$ in the change. Don’t really think it’s needed. AND there would be an uproar from active duty and vets.

Analytics only this is a bad idea. The Marine Corps is solely an attack and kill force. Designed for rapid deployment, short to medium sustainment and ultimately a shock and awe weapon. The army on the other hand is built largely like a long sustaining police force. I have trained in both branches and can tell you this would not work. Completely different mind sets in terms of combat focus and starategy. All branches are needed for their speciality and focus. It seems to me that you are new generation of thinking where we are degrading back to the thought process of hug everyone and judge no one is becoming so prevelant I am concerned for our country.

Consolidation saves nothing. Someone get their feelings hurt? They both have their purpose and history. Their history is unique. From my perspective a Marine . I am and forever will be a MARINE(air,land,sea) Served 6 years in MY Corps. (Vietnam and Cambodia). Served 16 in the USA. I am NOT an Army. It is that simple. Semper-Fi 1970-1995 . God Bless America

The Marine Corps is a naval service. End of discussion.

NO, we are trained to do different jobs and even tho the media thinks they are the same, they are not. The Army will set up & control an area after the Marines drive the enemy away and make it clear for the US to control. Marines work in smaller groups and the Army sends a flotilla and requires many ore for support. NO KEEP THEM SEPARATED and let us do our jobs as trained.

There are a lot of responses here so I may have missed somebody already saying this but ... My two cents. Missions are similar but different. The Marine Corps is purposely meant not to be as widely scoped and equipment heavy as the Army. Hence we no longer have self propelled artillery. The Army has doctors, nurses, veterinarian services, community programs, etc., etc. .... The Corps doesn't have those things on purpose. The Corps also has the amphibious aspect. The tip of the spear vice the whole spear. Both are fruit so to speak but one is an apple the other is an orange. And all kidding aside, 13 weeks of boot camp vice 8 weeks has got to tell you something. I went to boot camp in 1975. We started with 89; 57 graduated. Out of those 57; 29 were original members of the 89. We dropped 60. Physical standards are harder.

Ok before I say what’s on my mind I want to make it clear I don’t want to combine the Army and Marines. I joined the Marines for a reason and that is pride. As a Marine I see myself as faster,stronger, harder, and a better shot then any other branch.
Now to my opinion, the difference between the Army and Marines is not in the way we fight (though there are differences) but in our leadership. We have E2s and E3s consistently as fire team leaders, even when higher is available. We do this because it’s expected of them to do that. We train them “young” so they can be the best when they are NCOs and SNCOs. As an E3 myself I’m expected to teach my jr Marines how to do their MOS, I’m already a leader and I’ve only been out of MOS school 11 months. At one point I was the ranking Jr Marine in my shop so I was expected to and did classes to make sure my Jr Marines could do the job just as well as I could if not better. That’s the difference is the standard we hold ourselves to.
My second point is where do we stop if we combine the Army and the Marines? Why not just make it one big military and then have our airwing (Air Force), sea section (Navy), ground force (Army and Marines) and then we could have all the Special Force under one command, no more SEALs, Rangers, Green Barets, PJs, SWCC, MARSOC Raiders, CCTs, SOWTs, why not just make it all one that way we never have to worry about a spending budget we just get all the money and no one lives in worse conditions then the others or no one trains any harder then the others. Yes I know America doesn’t need a Marine Corps they want one but I think y’all get my point.

Goes to show that you don’t need to be knowledgeable about the subject in order to write an article about it.

The United States Marine Corps already belongs to somebody...... the navy. Hence why in every marine corps shield there is the “Department of the navy” slogan.

The navy and army cannot merge because they have a completely different mission. One is to protect United States interest at sea and the other one on land. The problem is, in a time of war the navy cannot depend on the army for protection. The reason being is said difference in mission. The secretary of the army will take any action that has the Army’s best interest over the navy and navy’s Secretary will do the same. Therefore the navy had to come down with its own fighting force that would keep navy’s mission as a priority. That’s how the United States Marine Corps came to be.

The United States Marine Corps has a different mission than the army as well. Army is a land based fighting force and air borne, the marine corps is an amphibious unit. Why?, because the marine corps come use navy’s ships to go around. Why?, because like I said above, the marine corps is a navy department. That is why there is no Secretary of the Marine Corps.

Well that would be hard to do considering that the Marine Corps are actually classified as a department of the Navy and all funding for the Marine corps comes from DOD to Navy then to Marine Corps.... Second as department of the Navy we Marines provide a security force to the Navy for their ships while at Port in foreign lands also usually when the crap starts Navy ships are usually first on scene and that is what the expeditionary forces are for..... So these are some really really really big hiccup's to overcome that would screw with the system with miscommunication amongst other things getting people killed in the field because no one knows what is going in battle field ..... System works great the way it is leave it alone