"Advance into contact with the Enemy, and defeat him."
I am a former Sailor, and thus am unable to avoid giving the Marines all the grief I can at every possible opportunity. It has been said that Sailors and Marines will always fight each other, until they unite against a common foe: Shore Patrol.
That being said, my respect for the Marines as a fighting unit is nothing short of immense. A Marine will get the job done, period. By airstrikes, artillery, precision rifle fire or using only his K-BAR after his ammunition is gone; a Marine knows only one order: Advance into contact with the Enemy, and defeat him. The Marines are the shock troops of our fighting forces. As a force, they are second only to the Navy SEALS/Force Recon.
Marines embody the phrase, “No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy.” I assure you, the last place you want to be on this planet is on the bad side of a Marine. Piss him off and he will find a way to fit your left foot into your right ear.
My attention was recently brought to a document published by the Marines, labelled simply, “Warfighting.” It distills over 200 years of knowledge and lessons learned by Marines, together with thousands of years of history to bring to the forefront a succinct manual on how to win a war. Not just the battles, the entire war.
I also discovered the Power Point presentation of this knowledge. This is a good primer to put you in the right mindset before actually trying to digest the manual itself.
I have no doubt that if you study, learn and take to heart the lessons taught therein, your fighting ability will improve.
Here they are: