Ah, the Marine Corps: amphibious experts, “small war” innovators,and very possibly the most insecure military outfit in human history, perennially afraid that its missions and equipment will be absorbed by the Navy or the Army.
Or maybe the Marine Corps will get its own cabinet department! That’s according to a two-week-old post making the rounds the past few weeks on social media, from the click-manufacturing insurgents at something called Vet TV. Author “Jesse James” drops some hot willy pete on readers with this lead paragraph:
President Trump will sign executive order 13801 this November 10th on the 242nd birthday of the Marine Corps, freeing the Marines from the Department of The Navy. The Marines will now fall under the newly created Department of Expeditionary Warfare.
Zounds! The Corps, far from being turned into Army infantry — as Presidents Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman notoriously suggested — gets its very own department and cabinet secretary. Yut yut your brains out!
Except if it sounds like bullshit, that’s because it is. Presidents tend not to preview executive orders five months in advance, and the Corps, which you’d expect to be pretty stoked about a promotion in the executive bureaucracy, says there’s no truth to the post.
“We have not heard anything about that,” Marine Capt. Ryan Elizabeth Alvis, a public affairs officer Headquarters Marine Corps, told Politifact June 7.
Alvis added: “Semper fidelis.”
Politifact ruled the claim “Pants on Fire,” internet shorthand for being false… only more so.
The site that published the article bills itself as “THE COMEDY CENTRAL OF THE MILITARY,” which is impressive, given that the site also doesn’t officially launch until June 23. Its attempts at satire in this Marine-masturbation fantasy sound more like a rant from that twice-busted bocephus PFC over in the mortar platoon that everybody avoids on liberty:
The Marines will have an entirely new ROE and mission. Marine units that don’t accomplish the mission within the 2 month window will be reassigned by the Marine Corps, and will have to watch as another unit finishes the job. “The Marine Corps is a competitive place, we have no room or respect for weak bitches that can’t get in there fast, kill everyone, and get back to the ships in time to get to make the port calls in Asia.” Sgt Major Garrett explained.
Har har! Great joke. But your funnysad rants will be more believable if you make shit up about liberal presidents screwing with the Corps. Congrats on the pre-launch publicity, though.
Anyway, now you know what to tell your aunts when they forward you the “story” and ask what you think not having to be shipboard anymore. In the meantime, here’s some fun reading about people who still want to do away with the Corps, and here’s a legitimate piece about the lone politician who’s actually fighting for a separate Marine department. Semper fake news!