Congress will Kill More Marines than the enemy

"U.S. Marines, while fighting valiantly in Iraq, are on the verge of serious defeat on Capitol Hill. A Senate-House conference on the Armed Services authorization bill convening this week is considering turning the Navy's last two battleships, the Iowa and Wisconsin, into museums. Marine officers fear that deprives them of vital fire support in an uncertain future.

Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the current Commandant of the Marine Corps, testified on April 1, 2003, that loss of naval surface fire support from battleships would place his troops "at considerable risk." On July 29 this year, Hagee asserted: "Our aviation is really quite good, but it can, in fact, be weathered."

www.suntimes.com...

Would be Donald Trump want-a-be types on capital hill wanting to line their own pockets from fat militarty industrial complex contracts yet again ignore the guys doing the fighting. If these moron win and the fire support needed for places like N Korea is put into mothballs, amny, many good Marines will die.

The Iowa BB's, while beautiful awe-inspiring ships, are obsolete and insanely expensive to operate. The "killing Marines" spin is a new angle on the story, but the truth is that almost noone in the military wants to put them back into active service. It's not just Congress, but the DoD and the Navy that have retired them.

As for fire support, that's the primary purpose of the DDX destroyer, which will be able to provide it much further inland than the BB's could. Bringing Iraq into the equation is silly, how much of Iraq is within 20nm (the 16" guns' max range) of the ocean?

If sentiment had anything to do with it, I'd love to see the BB's back in service. I got to see USS New Jersey (the Japanese called her the Black Dragon) pulling out of port when I was visiting the Arizona memorial back in the late '80s. Truly a sight I'll never forget.

But it's not WW2 anymore, and the money spent operating a huge manpower-intensive ship like a WW2 BB could save a lot more lives if they were spent elsewhere. Like replacing the creaky old CH-46's, which have been killing Marines at a rate any enemy would envy.

I hope they keep the firing pins installed...

with N Korea, Iran, China, and the entire middle east wanting a piece of Uncle Sam, it might be best to keep our guns loaded... or at least loadable...

it wouldn't be the first time that we were glad that we mothballed a few units for a rainy day.

While aboard the USS Ogden, I saw the USS Missouri, which according to the announcement, was three miles away and I was astounded at it's size. After our landing, the Missouri provided fire support and the sound of those 2000 lb. rounds flying over was incredible and the earth shook when they hit. It was a remarkable experience. I think the Navy should listen to Commandant Hagee.