THE FIST FIGHT IS NOT GOING AWAY

THE FIST FIGHT IS NOT GOING AWAY

By Andy Weddington

Wednesday, 31 August 2022

It's a fist fight - the idea is to go out there and impose my will. - Eddie Alvarez

The last day of April and first two days of May 1968 I was 11, living a carefree life, and finishing 5th grade at a small parochial school in a North Carolina mill town. I knew one Marine. A classmate's father was the local recruiter. 

And was clueless young men, not so much older, in their late teens and into twenties far away in Vietnam were in a fight for their lives. 

Those three days the Marines and Corpsmen of 2d Battalion 4th Marines (2/4), grossly outnumbered, fought the North Vietnamese at Dai Do. Despite heavy casualties, the Marines prevailed. 

Earlier this week a retired Marine friend sent a recent article published in the Marine Corps Gazette written by two of the 2/4 Marines. [Marine Corps Gazette: mca-marines.org  (August web articles)]

In 1968 the two Marines were captains. Each in command of a rifle company. Captain James Livingston commanded Echo 2/4 and Captain Jay Vargas commanded Golf 2/4. [For context and my visual, at the time both Marines younger than my dad.]

Their article written to detail experience in battle including close combat, stress the importance of tanks and artillery, and thereby challenge the direction of the ongoing radical Force Design 2030 (FD2030). 

Since reading the article it's been difficult to think of much else other than imagining what the Marines of 2/4 faced and conquered.  

When assigned as the Marine Officer Instructor at Ole Miss in the mid to late 1980s I taught a course titled, 'The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare.'

Thirty-six years since first teaching, specifics have escaped me. But the essence of the course: Since dawn of man, the fist fight. And every weapon - rock, stick, knife, rifle, grenade, machine gun, mortar, flamethrower, artillery, et al. - brought to the battlefield thereafter supports the fist fight.

At Dai Do guns and fists and knives but artillery proved crucial. 

Now long retired Major General Livingston and Colonel Vargas - each awarded the Medal of Honor - question the FD2030 move eliminating ground combat power (infantry, tanks, artillery, etc.). 

Their concerns align with those publicly aired by many a Marine including 32 (as I recall the number) retired (Marine) four-star generals (some combatant commanders and commandants) - many with ground combat experience. 

I shared the article early this morning with a retired Army Guard general friend once a young enlisted infantryman. 

In reply he mentioned good natured banter with a retired aviator friend who believes war can be won solely from the air. 

His counter, "If you want to impose your will on the enemy, you must seize his terrain and put your boot on his throat." 

That's the fist fight. 

The idea is to impose your will on the enemy. 

Tanks and artillery impose will like fists and rifles and bayonets cannot. 

And the weapons necessary to support that fist fight with chance of winning, as lived by the Marine captains and their incredible men, have been dismissed as irrelevant.

As to fist fights, had 15-20% of 2/4 been female would the battalion have stood any chance of winning - supporting arms or not?

That variable was not addressed in the article. Nor did it need to be. One need not be a Marine to know the answer. 

Pardon the graphic comment but slaughtered comes to mind. 

Trained an infantryman - to use rifle, bayonet, and knife and adjust mortar, artillery, and naval gun fires - I did not face an enemy like those 2/4 Marines. Not many Marines will ever face such a horrific situation. So I can only imagine the ferociousness and brutality.

It's befuddling Marines (especially Medal of Honor recipients) who have been in and survived serious fist fights, and 32 generals, garner what appears mere token attention in this contentious matter of FD2030 - critics argue is weakening the Corps as fist fighter. 

Yet, with certainty, young Marines will be in a serious fist fight.

Yesterday afternoon during conversation with the friend who sent the Gazette article, getting to the essence I asked ...

"When was the last time 32 retired Marine four-star generals (retired or not) unanimously agreed on anything?"