Blithering On

The timing of the threat against the American Embassy in Mogadishu on January 2, 1991 was far from perfect as Washington’s attention was centered on the approaching January 15th deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. It was with that deadline in mind that on the night of Wednesday, January 2nd, we boarded our aircraft for an evening of NVG training in the Omani desert. However, before we launched, word was circulating around the ship about trouble in Somalia where the civil war was endangering diplomats. President Bush ordered U.S. Air Force C-130s to fly to Mombasa, Kenya with the expectation that they would fly to the Mogadishu International Airport once arrangements could be made for the aircraft to land and for Embassy staff to move to the airport for evacuation. [1]  Somalia had been a place we had paid absolutely no attention to during our time in the region, and with our night training being so important to the liberation of Kuwait, we didn’t give Somalia another thought tha

At about the same time that LtCol Wallace was preparing his squadron for the pre-empted deployment to the North Atlantic in July of 1990, James K. Bishop was being sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to Somalia. But, as Ambassador Bishop assumed his posting in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, the nation was slipping badly into turmoil and ruin. It had become a particularly dangerous place where ethnic groups, street gangs, clans, and others fought and created a breakdown of societal order, [1]  a condition accurately characterized in the Marine Corps’ “Operational Maneuver from the Sea” concept paper as a “war of all against all.” [2] Embassies and Somali government buildings had been bombed, senior law enforcement officials had been assassinated, Westerners had been attacked and injured, and killings increased by the day. Twice in three weeks, a U.S. Embassy driver was shot and his vehicle was stolen. Ambassador Bishop later reported, “Vehicles were being taken and their drivers killed by soldi

“(Operation) Eastern Exit received relatively little attention as it was conducted on the eve of the war with Iraq. In other circumstances, the execution of such a short-notice and high-risk operation might have garnered front page headlines around the world... The military operation itself might seem more like a Hollywood script than reality.” –Adam Siegel “An American Entebbe” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings The arrival of 1991 found us wrapping up our fourth month in the Middle East. I had been a member of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 263 (HMM-263) since July of 1990 when a few of us joined the squadron from a neighboring squadron, HMM-365, for a two-month deployment to the North Atlantic. As members of HMM-365, we had just completed a lengthy and highly successful deployment to the Mediterranean as part of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (24th MEU (SOC)) when the call went out from HMM-263’s new commander, Lieutenant Colonel R. J. Wallace

I’ve used this several times over the years to illustrate the importance of keeping the boss informed and having the courage to act on the fact that what the boss wants to hear isn’t necessarily what he or she needs to hear. ***** The Fable of the Ill-Informed Walrus Author Unknown “How’s it going down there?” barked the Big Walrus from his high rock. He waited for good news. Down below the smaller walruses conferred hastily among themselves. Things weren’t going well, but no one wanted to risk his ferocious bark.  For several weeks the water level in the nearby Arctic Bay had been falling and it had become necessary to travel much farther to catch the dwindling supply of herring. Someone had to tell the Big Walrus; he would know what to do. But who? And how? Basil, the second-ranking walrus, well remembered how the Big Walrus had ranted and raved the last time the herd caught less than its quota of herring, and he had no desire to go through that experience again. (H

This time of year, colleges and universities are holding December commencement exercises which also means that a new crop of young men and women will be commissioned as officers in the military. In September 2019, my wife and I visited the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri where I received my undergraduate degree in 1983. While there, I stopped by Crowder Hall where the Navy ROTC program is administered. During the visit, I met the Marine Officer Instructor and his assistant and after a while, he asked if I would be willing to return to the University in December as the guest speaker for the December Navy and Marine Corps officer commissioning ceremony. I told him that I'd be honored to. As I look back on the speech I delivered, it occurs to me that the encouragement that I offered to those new officers is still valid today. This is the speech I delivered during the commissioning ceremony at the Memorial Union. ***** by Major Robert Doss, USMC (Retired) Satu

" I know the difference between right and wrong, and I can tell good from bad. But I also know that the more difficult decisions come when we have to choose between good and better. The toughest calls of all are those we have to make between bad and worse.” In the summer of 1978, I met the man who, a decade later, would write those words.  I was a sergeant and had just been transferred to K Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment (K Co., 3/8), about to turn 21 years old. Since I was nearing the end of my enlistment, it didn't make sense to put me in charge of another squad only to leave again in a few months, so my new company commander asked me to manage the company training program. That meant, in part, that I wrote our training schedules and firing range and ammunition requests and delivered them to the battalion headquarters about once or twice a week. About every other trip over there, the operations officer, a major and the man whose statement about making tough deci

I wrote the other day about serving with Staff Sergeant B.C. Collins and the impact he had on my life and career in the Marine Corps, so I thought I'd write about two other Marines who put themselves on that same battlefield in Vietnam with B.C. Collins that day, one of whom was also a great influence on me. First, a little background... First Lieutenant Frank Reasoner was a former enlisted Marine, a "mustang." Reasoner was a sergeant when he attended the Naval Academy Preparatory School in 1957, but he couldn't get into the Naval Academy. Undeterred, he walked up to Capitol Hill to the office of Senator Henry Dvorshak of Idaho and told him that he needed an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Senator must have been impressed with Sergeant Reasoner because he awarded him the academy appointment he wanted. Reasoner successfully completed his education at West Point and was commissioned as a Marine second lieutenant in 1962. Reasoner was an infa

There are many men and women who served their country honorably and heroically who later lived and died without seeing their stories come to light so they could be duly honored in their own time. Sometimes, we're able to peer into that sacred fraternity though the bits and pieces we assemble from the lives of their comrades. It's in honoring them that we're able to witness the importance of honoring them all, even if belatedly so. One of those heroes was my father-in-law, the late Colonel Simon J. Kittler. Si grew up in a troubled household in Michigan, but he was still able to secure a Congressional appointment to the United States Naval Academy in 1949 as a member of the Class of 1953. He was one of four brothers who received congressional appointments to the Naval Academy. After he was commissioned as a second lieutenant on June 5, 1953, he fulfilled a dream inspired by his childhood employer and mentor to lead a platoon of Marines in Korea.  Once he returned to the Unit