Reflection on First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps by Victor Krulak

               This is a pretty cool book all about the Marine Corps, mainly focusing on the period from the 1920’s to the 1960’s in Vietnam. Krulak was a Lieutenant General and most of the book is told from the first-person perspective as he takes you through his long career in the USMC. He also covers earlier history, detailing how in the 19^th century, the Navy wanted to get the Marines off their ships and insisted that a sailor could do anything that a Marine could do. At the turn of the century, the Navy had a good idea, that Krulak says the Marines should have realized first—that the Marines become an expeditionary force in support of the US fleet, clarifying their role, which had been as a sort of raiding party or naval police. The Marines fought it at the time, but started to evolve into that role in Mexico and Cuba, where they earned a reputation for themselves as great fighters. Within the Department of Defense (or Dep. of War), there have been numerous attempts to eliminate or diminish the role of the Marines. Krulak counts 15 times when the Corps was saved by Congress or public opinion due to its exceptional reputation, the most intense occasion occurring shortly after World War Two. Part of the reason that the Marines developed a culture of elitism and high physical requirements was to justify their existence.

               A lot of the Marines’ influence lies in straight-up propaganda. Like how the Spartans used Thermopylae to boost their reputation, the Marines did the same with the “Halls of Montezuma,” Belleau Wood, Okinawa, and Guadalcanal, among others. Harry Truman once said, “They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s…” But the propaganda contains a core of truth, Krulak writes of the 1980’s recruit that, “During his twelve weeks of sixteen-waking hour days a recruit will run ninety miles, run the obstacle course ten times, do at least seventy hours of calisthenics, at least sixteen hours of swimming, and spend ninety hours in field training. It is an intensely physical experience, fueled by a daily thirty-three hundred calorie diet. On an average he will lose eight pounds of fat and gain twelve pounds of muscle.” That is intense!