Should Army and Marines (or components of) consolidate?

If you look at job description only then yes. If you look at what actually seperates the two like when I see Marines I see well dressed and motivated and in shape but when I see Army I see quite the opposite. I think by keeping them seperate that allows the Marines to continue to get the quality force they have now and the Army gets the rest. If you combine you will bring one group up but another down.

Yes. The Marines share their budget with the Navy and because of this the Marines are not as well equipped as the Army. Both forces are ground forces the only two differences are (1) that the Marines are trained for amphibious landings. Soldiers can also be trained for amphibious landings as well, example; Normandy D-Day. (2) Marines are tasked with protection of the White House and US embassies. Soldier can do that as well.

Yes, the Armicorps sounds tough.

Most of these responses are based on what branch your in. I feel there should not be a merge at all. There is too completely different mind sets, 2 different capabilities, and the responsibilities each branch takes is 2 different ranks depending on your branch. What the Marine Corps and Army see as for ranks in certain positions are completely different. So does this mean one person loses his responsibilities are or his position because his rank doesn't match what his responsibilities should be based on the organization he was forced to join? There is too much history and legacy on each branch for one to buy into the other. If you a Marine you know what im talking about. We fight to put ourselves in that long line of history as the Marines that went before us. We have our traditions that we keep every day. If your an Army Solider i can only assume its the same. If i was forced to be in the Army id lose the pride that i have and vice versa for you Army Soliders. Im not going to sit here and say the Marine Corps is better and i expect the maturity back that Army Soliders wouldnt do the same. The fact is we do the same job essentially with different capabilities and limitations, with different personel. yes we do similar missions but not exactly the same ones. They need to be there own identities because you cannot combine the two. Its just different.

I've had a couple of Purple billets and this topic has come up frequently. We did have a partial merger in the creation of SOCOM following the failed Eagle Claw Operation. My subsequent encounters with that outfit left me with the impression that it was tapped out insofar as being able to manage all the skill sets, capabilities, etc. to its mission set. Doing amazing things while keeping your people alive is hard work. That was just for SPECOPS. So my Systems side told me that to run an Army/Marine or AF/NAVAIR organization would ultimately create a slower response ponderous beast. You want a critical mass of people, equipment, training, etc. to meet a defined mission menu. Full merger would be like telling all the NGO/PVOs out there to merge and solve world hunger next week.

The studies I read up on in the 90's never drilled down to what it would actually take to create and run the organization and tended to be "We'll have an Army and then a Deputy to run the Marine "stuff"". Kinda reminded me of staff work resulting in giving the Commander one option and two throwaways. Not helpful.

Great question. I read a lot of responses. Most are good, many are we train harder, say it louder, was told we were better. Each branch does a job and does it well. The Army has it share of fat bodies, so does the Air Force and Navy. There seem to be fewer in the Marines, but they are there. Does that make them bad service members? I picked up AWOLs from each branch and the stories were pretty much the same; these people had a break down in their chain of command or NCO support channel (For shame on both). That tells me all these branches do things well and can screw things up too. Most service members say they are in the Army, Navy or Air Force, only the Marines say I'm a Marine, are they part of sometime greater than themselves, or did they lose their identity? I think there could be some consolidating. Army, Marines, and Air Force. Navy and Coast Guard. Maybe. Money I'm sure will drive it at some point. But there will be some pretty pissed off Generals and Admirals.

Great idea! I'd be a little sad to see the loss of the Hospital Corpsman but this would be better for the services

There are two reasons that I can think of as to why they should not be amalgamated.

1) They have different missions and should they be joined there would be "mission confusion".

2) Right after WWII there was a movement to abolish the Marines completely, just as the Rangers and Special Services Force were. Fortunately there were still enough people with brains in Congress in those days that they passed a bill making the Marines a permanent fixture of the US military. When you start removing elite units where does it stop and how much time and money does it take to reform these units when it is discovered years later that these units are indeed needed such as we did in Korea and Vietnam?

They have completely different missions so why would this question even be asked?

Yes. There functions are the same, plus it would make them more organized and efficient.