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MCWP 6-

Leading Marines

U.S. Marine Corps

PCN 143 000129 00

MCCDC (C 42)

27 Nov 2002

E R R A T U M

to

MCWP 6-

LEADING MARINES

1. For administrative purposes, FMFM 1-0 is reidentified as MCWP 6-11.

come to terms with their own personal leadership style. The indispensable condition of Marine Corps leadership is action and attitude, not words. As one Marine leader said, "Don't tell me how good you are. Show me!"

Marines have been leading for over 200 years and today continue leading around the globe. Whether in the field or in garrison, at the front or in the rear, Marines, adapting the time-honored values, traditions, customs, and history of our Corps to their generation, will continue to lead—and continue to win.

This manual comes to life through the voices, writings, and examples of not one person, but many. Thousands of Americans who have borne, and still bear, the title "Marine" are testimony that "Once a Marine, Always a Marine" and "Semper Fidelis" are phrases that define our essence. It is to those who know, and to those who will come to know, this extraordinary way of life that this book is dedicated.

C. E. MUNDY, Jr. General, U.S. Marine Corps Commandant of the Marine Corps

• DISTRIBUTION:

Appendices

Marine Corps Manual , Paragraph 1100 — Core Values — Leadership Traits — Leadership Principles — The Oaths — Trust

Notes

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Introduction

Leading Marines describes a leadership philosophy that reflects our traditional strengths as an institution and attempts to define the very ethos of being a Marine. It is about the inseparable relationship between the leader and the led, and is as much about the individual Marine—the bedrock upon which our Corps is built—as it is about any leader. There is less a line between the leader and the led than a bond. It is also about the Corps; about that unspoken feeling among Marines that is more than tradition or the cut of the uniform. It flows from the common but unique forge from which Marines come, and it is about the undefinable spirit that forms the character of our Corps. It draws from the shared experiences of danger, violence, the adrenaline of combat, and the proximity to death. All of this is based upon certain fundamental traits and principles of leading. Marines are not born knowing them, but must learn what they are and what they represent.

When teaching Marines, we have always drawn from a wealth of material that lies in our heritage and in our traditions. To capture some of that legacy, this manual

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the ethical standards by which all Marines are judged. They are, ultimately, why Marines fight. The third chapter helps Marines understand some of the challenges to leading and discusses how Marines can overcome them. It relies on the stories of Marine heroes—some well known, others not so well known—to serve as anchors that show Marine character and vividly depict, through action, what is required to lead Marines.

Our leadership style is a unique blend of service ethos and time-tested concepts that support Marine leaders in peace and war. The epilogue summarizes our discussion of leading Marines and asks Marines to spend time in reflection, looking closely at their legacy, at who and what we are, and at who and what they are.

Inescapably, this manual is based on the firm belief that, as others have said in countless ways, our Corps embodies the spirit and essence of those who have gone before. It is about the belief, shared by all Marines, that there is no higher calling than that of a United States Marine. It is about the traditions of our Corps that we rely upon to help us stay the course and continue the march when the going gets tough. It is about a "band of brothers"—men and women of every race and creed—who epitomize in their daily actions the core values of our Corps: honor , courage , commitment.

It is about Marines.

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Chapter 1

Our Ethos

"Marine human material was not one whit better than that of the human society from which it came. But it had been ham- mered into form in a different forge, hardened with a different fire. The Marines were the closest thing to legions the nation had. They would follow their colors from the shores of home to the seacoast of Bohemia, and fight well at either place."

"A Marine Corps officer was still an officer, and a sergeant behaved the way good sergeants had behaved since the time of Caesar, expecting no nonsense, allowing none. And Marine leaders had never lost sight of their primary—their only—mission, which was to fight."^1

— T. R. Fehrenbach

This matter of being different lies at the heart of our leader- ship philosophy and has been nourished over the years by com- bining the characteristics of soldiers, sailors, and airmen. The result is a sea soldier—an odd conglomeration that talks like one, dresses like another, and fights like them all. The determi- nation to be different, and remain different, has manifested it- self in many ways over the years—from military appearance, to strict obedience to orders, to disciplined behavior, to adher- ence to traditional standards, and most of all, to an un- yielding conviction that we exist to fight. Marines have been distinguished by these characteristics from the beginning. A sense of elitism has grown "from the fact that every Marine, whether enlisted or officer, goes through the same training ex- perience. Both the training of recruits and the basic education of officers—going back to 1805—have endowed the Corps with a sense of cohesiveness enjoyed by no other American service."^3

This matter of being different is at the very heart of leading Marines. It defines who and what we are by reflecting the mystical cords of the mind that bind all Marines. What we are, what we have been, what Marines will always be, is enduring.

There is yet another element of being different that defines Marines, and that is selflessness: a spirit that places the self- interest of the individual second to that of the institution we know as the Corps. That selflessness is stronger nowhere in American society than among Marines.

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Our ethos has been shaped by ordinary men and women—heroes who showed extraordinary leadership and courage, both physical and moral, as they shaped the special character that is the essence of our Corps. They are heroes and leaders who are remembered not by their names, or rank, or be- cause they received a decoration for valor. They are remem- bered because they were Marines.

The story is told that in June 1918, during the First World War, an American lady visited one of the field hospi- tals behind the French Army. "It happened that occasional casualties of the Marine Bri- gade... were picked up by French stretcher-bearers and evacuated to French hospitals. And this lady, looking down a long, crowded ward, saw on a pillow a face unlike the fiercely whiskered Gallic heads there displayed in rows. She went to it. 'Oh,' she said, 'surely, you are an American!' 'No, ma'am,' the casualty answered, 'I'm a Marine.' "^4

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THE U. S. MARINE

"Success in battle is not a function of how many show up, but who they are."^6

Individual Marines—like those described above—are the bed- rock upon which our Corps' spirit is built. From the first day of recruit training, to their first assignments, to their first cele- bration of the Marine Corps birthday, each Marine is infused with an understanding of the deeds of his or her predecessors. "Recruit training, both officer and enlisted, has long been 'the genesis of the enduring sense of brotherhood that characterizes the Corps.' New recruits are told the day they enter training that, as one Marine leader put it, 'A Marine believes in his God, in his Country, in his Corps, in his buddies, and in him- self.' " 7 What happens on the parade decks of Parris Island and San Diego or in the woods of Quantico is what makes Marines—it is the instillation of "an intangible esprit along with the complicated, specific knowledge of soldiering."^8

Marines undergo a personal transformation at recruit train- ing. There, they receive more than just superb training; they are ingrained with a sense of service, honor, and discipline. It is there, as a former recruit depot Commanding General said, that Marines develop a "sense of brotherhood, interdepen- dence, and determination to triumph." The Corps' history is full of tales of individual triumphs—Daly, Butler, Puller, Basi- lone, Streeter, Huff, Vargas, Petersen, Wilson, Barrow, and

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countless others—that exhibit the indomitable spirit of Marines in combat and in surmounting day-to-day challenges. Sustain- ing that spirit are "old battles, long forgotten, that secured our nation... scores of skirmishes, far off, such as Marines have nearly every year... traditions of things endured and things accomplished, such as regiments hand down forever."^9

This spirit was clearly evident in the dark, opening days of the Korean War. In July 1950, the 1st Provisional Marine Bri- gade was rushed to Korea to assist the Army in stemming the North Korean tide. In August, a British military observer of the desperate fighting in and around Miryang sent the following dispatch: "The situation is critical and Miryang may be lost. The enemy has driven a division-sized salient across the Nak- tong. More will cross the river tonight. If Miryang is lost... we will be faced with a withdrawal from Korea. I am heart- ened that the Marine Brigade will move against the Nak- tong Salient tomorrow. They are faced with impossible odds, and I have no valid reason to substantiate it, but I have the feeling they will halt the enemy.... These Marines have [a] swagger, confidence, and hardness.... Upon this thin line of reasoning, I cling to the hope of victory."^10

The following morning, the Marines attacked under the close air support of Marine gull-winged Corsairs. Two of the lead battalion's undermanned "thin rifle companies pushed

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Men—the man, the individual who is the Marine Corps symbol and stock-in-trade—constitute the one element which never changes."^13

EVERY MARINE A RIFLEMAN

There is both a practical and moral dimension to the credo "every Marine a rifleman." 14 The force structure of the Corps reflects its central purpose: an expeditionary force in readi- ness. And because it is expeditionary, it is also austere. Aus- terity places a premium on the role of every Marine. There are no "rear area" Marines, and no one is very far from the fighting during expeditionary operations. The success of each of these operations depends on the speed and flexibility with which Ma- rines build combat power. Marines fighting with maneuver elements are backed up by fellow Marines who labor unceas- ingly to support the mission by building logistic bases, running truck convoys, distributing supplies, and fighting when needed to.

This is nothing new. The first Marine aviator to earn the Medal of Honor in World War II, Captain Henry "Hank" Elrod, was a fighter pilot on Wake Island. His aircraft de- stroyed after 15 days of heroic defense of the island, he died leading a platoon of Marines. Actions of Marines like Captain Elrod, and others, continue to demonstrate that every

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Marine is a rifleman. These actions occur with such regular- ity, that non-Marines often show surprise on learning that there are any specialties in the Corps other than the infantry. This perception on the part of others is part of what makes the Corps the Corps and transcends the issue of occupational specialties.

There is almost nothing more precious to a Marine than a fellow Marine. This traditional bond flows from the combat training which all Marines receive, officer and enlisted, and the shared danger and adversity inherent in expeditionary operations.

"Those men on the line were my family, my home. They were closer to me than I can say, closer than any friends had been or ever would be. They had never let me down, and I couldn't do it to them. I had to be with them, rath- er than let them die and me live with the knowledge that I might have saved them. Men, I now knew, do not fight for flag or country, for the Marine Corps or glory or any other abstraction. They fight for one another. Any man in com- bat who lacks comrades who will die for him, or for whom he is willing to die, is not a man at all. He is truly damned." 15

This cohesion between Marines is not a function of a par- ticular unit within the Corps. It is a function of the Corps it- self. When a Marine reports to a unit, he or she may be unknown personally, but is a known quantity professionally.

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