Should Army and Marines (or components of) consolidate?

This will never happen.

The combining of armed forces is just no going to happen. It seems the roles have been expanded a bit that each have the same missions parameters. What they should do is combine some of the basic material requirements, vehicles and training facilities. I think it is a bit redundant to have a Navy and Marine Aviation when they can be made into one. They both train for ground support and aerial conflicts. Air Force is too diversified for the missions it are tasked for.

Leathernecks have always been different than the Army. The training and lifestyle is different. Just like the Navy's Air Corps is different than the Air Force. So are the differences between the Marines and the Army. If the Congress really wanted to save money. Stop funding programs for illegal residents and deport them, and only send support to nation's that openly support the United States of America. While we are discussing duplicates...NSA and CIA. And why does FEMA need to their own clandestine organization? Just wondering...

It's logical to combine them. The Army has a ranger regiment that has basically the same motivation, pride, tradition, and achieves the same combat readiness that the Marines do. They just have a different mission set. Establishing a "Marine Regiment" within the Army to carry on their established tradition and mission set of amphibious assaults really wouldn't take away from what the Marine Corps is. It may even make it stronger as they would fall under the Army administratively and logistically. The Marines might actually get fielded new issue equipment rather than the hand me downs from the Army that they currently get.

After reading the comments I find it funny that everyone assumes that if this were to happen that the army would somehow absorb the Marine Corps. Never happens. Marines could however absorb, retrain, and bring up to par the army. Along with a much larger budget.

On the surface the Army and USMC have very similar missions but scratch that away and they have very different missions and cultures. Yes at small unit level they are interchangeable in most missions but it’s the heavy hitting of the Army’s armor units and the light rapid global response of the USMC MEU’s that makes each branch distinctive. The USMC does not have the heavy sustained punch needed to fight a mechanized conflict, nor do most army units have the light flexibility to respond as rapidly as the USMC can. Both branches serve a distinct mission and both are needed separately. And no just because the USN has the 2nd largest Air Force in the world does not make the air elements interchangeable any more than the Army and Marines. The USAF offers heavy lift, long haul refueling, recononosince, theater control, heavy bombers and logistical support that the Navy cannot, and a Cartier battle group offers the of your coast force projection that land based aircraft could never do. Both compliment each other but one cannot take over the others missions beacuse of how they are structured. Let the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines stand as the individuals on the same team that they are.

No but not for the reasons stated
1) Orginally we had the army/Army air corps then the Marines sprung forth out of the navy due to the requirements of battle .
2)The Marine Corps is a specialty branch they are the embodiment of precession cross utilization. They are capable of working along side any of the other branches in a way that works as a force multiplier . The army can’t work with the navy as is and the Air Force isn’t really equipped to work with the navy or army on a wide scale basis . Look at just the training requirements and you’ll see Marines are more like special forces than regular infantry . Notice when people say can the army do it and yes the u it’s they say do it already are special forces units .
2) The Marines belong to the president by congressional act which means he can move a large number of people and equipment quickly anywhere without getting into the red tape and quagmire of congressional advise and consent which buys us more time to plan and to move the larger forces into an area
What we should do is have separate branches as currently stated but increase the amount of personnel from each that are sent on TDY to joint operations.
Increase the size of the USMC to 600,000 taking the additional 100,000 and adding them to joint operations .

Actually a US military with air, land and sea components could be more efficient (Russians, Germans and Israelis). Those nations often refer to specific components as Air Force or Army, but they are actually components of a single military.

If there’s going to be talk about rolling the Corps into another branch the army shouldn’t be on the table. If it were to happen, Marines should be brought back to their Navy roots. Make the Marines more combat oriented with less administrative MOS’s and roll those jobs over to the navy with the Marines taking care of only combat or direct support positions (arty, engineers, etc.)

The Army believes in quiet professionalism at its higher trained levels, and we carry more than one ball.