The Feather Merchants: Senior Leaders Subverted the Marine Corps | The American Spectator

In the Marine Corps of my father and uncles, the term “Feather Merchant” referred to marines who were considered to be lightweights. These usually were folks who were “in the rear with the gear,” such as clerk-typists and supply types along with staff officers with no front-line combat experience.

The term generally fell out of use during the Vietnam War and the War on Terrorism when marines found other, more colorful ways to describe anyone who wasn’t on the front lines. In many cases, this was unfair. Every marine is trained to be a rifleman. In many emergency situations from WWII to Vietnam, most Feather Merchants used their rifles to devastating effect on Japanese, North Koreans, and Vietnamese Communist forces in emergency situations.

However, there is a new breed of Feather Merchants, those being the three and four star generals who have turned the Marine Corps from the nation’s 9-1-1 force to a China-oriented missile force that has failed the nation’s call three times in the last six years, leaving the other services scrambling to make up for their lack of availability. And the Corps doesn’t even have the missiles to accomplish the new mission yet.

The last commandant told the nation that amphibious operations were obsolete and the Navy could get by with fewer amphibious ships. Consequently he released it from the commitment to maintain enough ships to maintain a 24-7 amphibious presence in the world’s most likely trouble spots (the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and the Western Pacific).

Now, the current commandant says we need more big deck amphibs to maintain the 24-7 commitment; but he enthusiastically supported the last guy’s position when he was the Assistant Commandant. When asked how many amphibious ships the Marine Corps’ current Assistant Commandant could not come up with a number.

The senior marine leaders have now admitted that they cannot logistically support the new anti-China force — that they call Force Design — due to Navy procurement failures in contracting the new small amphibious ships needed to support the concept. After six years not a single keel has been laid even though the Marine Corps gave up much of its conventional combat power to create the new concept called “Force Design.”

Worse still, none of the nations in the region (with the exception of the Philippines) have agreed to host the anti-China force; and they will not allow their territory to be used in the defense of Taiwan, which is the most likely regional conflict. In addition, the missiles that the Marine Corps is buying to implement the concept are sub-sonic and likely obsolete against current Chinese technology. The question that should be asked of the current senior Marine Corps leadership is, “can’t anyone here play this game?”

There is a deeper moral question here, and that is one of integrity. There is ample evidence that the war games that “validated” the Force Design concept were manipulated to get the “right” answers that the the commandant at the time wanted. This whole idea was his and was supported by some handpicked sycophants.

The current commandant blatantly lied to a group of Pentagon reporters when he told them on January 15th that the Marine Corps had never bought in to DEI, while his staff was trying to expunge the record of that collusion. Apparently, the line in the Marine Corps Hymn that talks about “keeping our honor clean” escaped these two characters.

The rank and file of the Marine Corps is still made up of superb warriors, but the current senior leadership consists of careerist flunkies and is seriously in need of an enema; but who will perform the procedure?

It would be easy to totally blame the Biden administration for the current state of the Corps, as most of the damage occurred on Biden’s watch, but the current administration and Congress seem equally clueless and uninterested. This is probably because most former marine veteran congressmen were relatively junior and were taught to regard their senior leaders as infallible; this includes Vice President Vance. Their loyalty has been betrayed. The current state of Headquarters Marine Corps more resembles the pre-reformation Vatican than the leadership of a competent military organization.

There are many competent and combat tested senior leaders in the Corps that were forcibly retired for objecting to the situation that the organization is currently in. President Trump wisely brought a general officer out of retirement to head the Joint Chiefs. The Marine Corps badly needs the same treatment. Get rid of the Feather Merchants and restore the honesty and usefulness of one of America’s great institutions.

READ MORE from Gary Anderson:

On Iran, Trump Made the Only Decision Possible

We’ll Need Innovation to Fight China, But Will We Have it?

Gary Anderson retired as the Chief of Staff of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab and served as a Special Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.