Quote:Gen. Mark Milley is set to retire as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, with his term ending this October.

President Joe Biden is weighing two options to replace him as the country’s most senior military officer.

According to the New York Times, Biden is looking at either Gen. Charles Q Brown Jr or Gen. David Berger to replace Milley.

Brown is the Air Force chief of staff, the first African American to hold the position. Senior administration officials said that Brown is currently the leading contender.

Brown’s colleagues say he is firm and methodical, and say that he has a proven track record in the Pacific, coming at a time when tensions in the region are high.

Berger is the 38th Marine Corps commandant and a four-star general. Berger has combat comment experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has brought about a massive restructuring of the Marine Corps to focus on potential future physical conflicts in the Indo-Pacific region.

Officials said that Biden is on the verge of making a decision, and the pick must be confirmed by the Senate. The New York Times notes that this is the second time the country’s most senior military officer was a black man, and the role last being filled by an Air Force general in 2005.

Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, "As the symbol of the U.S. armed forces amid the ebb and flow of political tides, I think General Berger would be more unflappable but that General Brown might be more inspirational."

The Joint Chiefs chairman is "the foremost military advisor in the land, preparing American personnel and capabilities for conflict should deterrence fail" and instilling fear in potential adversaries across the globe, Cronin explained.

Brown, amid the nationwide riots in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, released a video in the days leading up to his confirmation vote in the Senate, saying "I’m thinking about how full I am with emotion not just for George Floyd, but the many African Americans that have suffered the same fate as George Floyd."

“I’m thinking about protests in ‘my country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty,’ the equality expressed in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that I have sworn my adult life to support and defend. I’m thinking about a history of racial issues and my own experiences that didn’t always sing of liberty and equality.”

Brown was also featured in an Air Force recruiting ad that aired during the 2021 NBA finals, in which he said, "When I’m flying, I put my helmet on, my visor down, my mask up. You don’t know who I am, whether I’m African American, Asian American, Hispanic, white, male or female. You just know I’m an American airman, kicking your butt. I’m General C.Q. Brown Jr. Come join us."

The New York Times also noted that Brown during last summer’s Aspen Security Forum said that the US might give fighter jets to Ukraine and train their pilots to fly them.

Berger, upon assuming the top job in the Marine Corps, announced that he would be getting rid of tanks, reasoning that any war fought with China would most likely be fought on Pacific islands near Taiwan, rendering the usage of tanks difficult.

Berger stated that he could save around $3 billion by getting rid of the tanks and amphibious vehicles which could instead go to new precision missiles and upgrades for Marine infantry units, outraging a group of retired generals.

"Army is huge," General Berger said at an expo in 2020. "They win our wars. The Marine Corps doesn’t win the wars. We win the battles."

Link

More good news. Hope he enjoys retirement.

Tweedle Dum checking out. Best news of the day. Who knows maybe he can be replaced by a Transgender man now woman. Oh yeah I forgot make sure it’s a minority as well. Qualifications never matter to Regressive.

Buh bye Aunt Milly.

Thanks for making a complete cluster of damn near everything you fooled with publicly

Dylan Mulvaney is his replacement.

Good riddance, General Cuck.

Out before Trump gets back in. Smart move.

He's an embarrassment, I'm surprised he even earned the Infantry Combat Badge. I applaud him for that but the rest is a cluster. Too woke for leading our fighting forces. Lipstick instead of bullets, is his motto.

Good Riddance you fat freak.

I don't know much about GEN Brown, but I do know about GEN Milley and GEN Berger. As for Milley, good bye and good riddance.

As for Berger, I really do not like the changes he has made to the Marine Corps. After giving up tanks and artillery, I'm not sure that he is left with much more than a bunch of Boy Scouts with BB guns. To be fair, a lot of this is imposed from elsewhere. Ever since Westmoreland sent the Marines north to I Corps instead of south to the Mekong Delta to conduct riverine ops with the Navy, Marines have sort of morphed into a baby army with a baby air force, instead of a unique naval infantry. Form the Navy side, the fascination with "large deck amphibs" has led to the LHAs/LHDs, which can carry a lot of Marines and equipment from point A to point B, but which don't have any effective means to get tanks and heavy artillery ashore. So Berger got rid of tanks and artillery. With Berger's changes i think the Marines are pretty close to becoming irrelevant.

What a load. Good riddance.

(04-14-2023 08:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  With Berger's changes i think the Marines are pretty close to becoming irrelevant.

Probably not a coincidence. They are the branch which was most deeply ingrained in the warrior ethos, and the most resistant to the new ways: Clinton, Obama, the alphabet people, and so forth.

So much for that.

(04-14-2023 09:28 PM)Cardiff Wrote:  

(04-14-2023 08:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  With Berger's changes i think the Marines are pretty close to becoming irrelevant.

Probably not a coincidence. They are the branch which was most deeply ingrained in the warrior ethos, and the most resistant to the new ways: Clinton, Obama, the alphabet people, and so forth.
So much for that.

My thought for USMC. You really respect the Royal Marines (about the only force that you truly do respect), so take a page from their book. When the RMs were faced with budgetary extinction after WWII, they reinvented themselves as a combination commando and amphibious infantry force.

Let the Army focus on large unit (division and above) continental overland frontal actions (Russia attempts to invade western Europe) and Marines focus on small unit (regiment or battalion or smaller) littoral and asymmetric actions.

Let the Marines take over AFSOC the way the RMs took over UK's commando forces. Have about 30,000 Marines in AFSOC, supported by about 10,000 each SEALs, Green Berets, and AFSOC, the way SAS and SBS support the RMs. Every Marine E5 and above would become commando trained and qualified.

On the amphib side, make the basic unit a new combined arms (infantry, tanks, artillery, amphib armor, air) Marine Expeditionary Regiment (MER). Have 27 active (with 3:1 rotation that means 9 ready to go at any time) and 9 reserves. That 108,000 active Marines and 36,000 reservists. Have 10 Navy amphib squadrons, 1 in maintenance and 9 deployable at any time, each able to carry one MER.

That's 138,000 active Marines, add 20,000 training and admin for a total Corps of 158,000, roughly a 15% decrease in active numbers, with a doubling in size of the reserves.,