In the Navy

"That's probably the smart play insofar as one wants to continue this war (which one really shouldn't want), but it's yet another reminder of the damage persisting in this futile policy is doing."

It might also be a warning to those who enlist in certain branches of the armed forces believing there is little possibility they will be dispatched to Iraq.

You may be overstating the case a bit. Anbar operations are largely being conducted by the Marine Corps. Historically, since the Marines are under the Department of the Navy, all their medical personnel have always been Navy, including the medics in the field with Marine combat squads. If you've seen the Iwo Jima movie, Flags of Our Fathers, you will note that one of the flag raisers is a Navy corpsman (medic).

dave

Many ground Air Force and Navy personnel have been used in Iraq to fulfill support roles so that Army and Marine personnel can assume combat roles.

Mr. Todd is right: Marines' medics are from the Navy. This particular casualty is not another of those sneaky personnel maneuvers that the undermanned mission brought about.

This isn't as big a deal as you think. Like Dave said, he is a corpsman supporting the Marines.

Now, if you could find a non-seal, non-corpsman who was killed, that would be a big deal.

There are bunches of navy personnel in technical positions (like mine) who have been deployed to Iraq and as far as I know none of them have died or even been close to injury. I was set to deploy in September but the deployment was was canceled two weeks after it was assigned. So, unfortunately, I have no first hand knowldege. I will say that a fellow sailor I work with would rather be in Baghdad than here in Georgia.

Yup. Probably a Navy Corpsman. These medics are the only naval personnel Marines respect and, generally, like.

If you're looking for some significance in this, Marines are ty

Yup. Probably a Navy Corpsman. These medics are the only naval personnel Marines respect, typically.

Medical probably. Remember, the Marines rely on Navy medical corps. (the joke around the Navy base is that the Marines are too stupid to have medics - while of course the truth is that Marine training is for high-intensity combat, of short duration, and therefore medical training detracts from that.)

My cousin is one of these. A few of his buddies were in Fallujah, with the Marines, back in 2004.

He hasn't gone over yet, but it looks soon.

Matthew,

Also, this is pretty basic. You should know this type of stuff, if you are going to comment on military matters.

Includiing various brigades, the types of brigades, the various expeditionary forces of the Marines, general numbers, etc.

Otherwise, you shouldn't comment.

Otherwise, you shouldn't comment.

It's a blog not a papal bull.

Eh, yeah, that's too harsh.

And actually, the previous comment is exactly wrong - by commenting, you LEARN.

The concern I have is, if you are writing a book on IR, that includes military matters, while Clausewitz is at a different level than being able to recite the ranks of the Army - I think it would help to know some history of the military, as well as some details about military life and structure.

He's a corpsman. Corpsmen often serve with the grunts. I should know, I was one -- though I wasn't a field corpsman.

Gotta say, this is one of those posts that makes a liberal like me wince. It's pretty damning evidence of how far removed Beltway pundits are from even the most casual acquaintance with the military, and by extension, the middle and lower-middle class folks who enlist.

Yammering on... JC's comment may have been harsh, but it's pretty much spot-on.

Beyond Matt's obvious lack of familiarity with his subject matter, this comment thread suggests that he doesn't check in on his comment threads as often as he should. A face-saving correction is very much in order.

I'll put money on MY not making this mistake again.

And that's one difference between him and right-wing bloggers like Jonah, Instafascist, and their ilk:
they repeat the same unbelievably stupid errors day after day, without every learning.

Commenters, don't give Matt a hard time for not knowing something as arcane as USMC and navy corpsmen. It's not as if he's setting himself out to the public as an expert writing a book on National Security Policy.

It's not the not-knowing per se that's the problem; it's the fact that the particular erroneous inference that Matt has drawn is the linchpin of the entire post. There are plenty of anecdotal symptoms of Rumsfeld's batshit-crazy style of war, but this particular one doesn't exist.

kids, i know that matthew being correct so often can be irritating, so i get the desire to pile on when he isn't, but really: the idea that you can't comment on national security policy if you don't know that navy medics serve the marines is ridiculous.

Hey, did anyone mention that this guy was probably a Navy medic? I don't think anyone mentioned it yet!

kids, i know that matthew being correct so often can be irritating, so i get the desire to pile on when he isn't, but really: the idea that you can't comment on national security policy if you don't know that navy medics serve the marines is ridiculous.

It indicates a real unfamiliarity with basic military institutional realities. It's a little like somebody calling MY "Professor" because he went to college. Get it now?

howard -- I have to disagree. This is a pretty basic fact -- not arcane at all. And, as dj moonbat pointed out, it's the lynchpin of the post. This one should've been crumpled up and put in the circular file.

MY could've saved a lot of trouble if he had just asked "can someone explain this to me?" In fact, he seems to do that occasionally.

"A face-saving correction is very much in order."

Yeah, it's my feeling Mr. Yglesias should return that Harvard degree. He should also be ineligible for property ownership in the continental United States, and probably consider castration too.

jw, i think linus has it right: why stop with merely disqualifying matthew from talking about national security if he didn't know this? (hell, i didn't: i probably should never opine on iraq or iran or north korea or any other security matter, and probably should return my degree too.)

yes, he got the post wrong: it happens (relatively rarely in matthew's case), but what we're talking about here is an issue of military procedure, not national security policy.

now, if you want to tell me that matthew has no business discussing military procedures, i betcha he'd even agree: that's probably outside his cricle of competence....

he doesn't check in on his comment threads as often as he should

It's possible that he went out or something and hasn't been on the internet.

"It's possible that he went out or something and hasn't been on the internet."

It's possible he (gasp!) has a life.

Posted by: howard 11:04 PM:

....I probably should never opine on iraq or iran or north korea or any other security matter...

Posted by: moriarty 10:42:

MY could've saved a lot of trouble if he had just asked "can someone explain this to me?" In fact, he seems to do that occasionally.

Thanks guys, you really clarified some things for me about what I like and what I intensely dislike about the "blogosphere." More and more, I really really really regret all the time I have spent reading exactly how every person with an internet connection would run the world (I coulda got the same data input in one millionth the time by reading a few polls and a smattering of comments as selected by pollster and read some really good books and periodicals instead) and really treasure the increasingly rare stuff, that used to be more common, which says "hey, can you help me figure this out, what do you all think is going on here, could it be this?"

I still check what Yglesias is posting because he more often takes the latter tactic rather than the former. I am increasingly getting easily turned off to much of the "blogosphere" by the "if I was king of the world" stuff after a couple of years of it. It's pretty useless, only marginally "infotainment." Just my own druthers, but I suspect that there are a lot more out there like me. Actually, that's because I am slow and eternally naively hopeful--more astute people saw the Rush Limbaugh/Tom Friedman wannabes in the "king of the world" stuff and gave up on participating heavily in the blogosphere commentariat long ago.

I got to keep remembering that what I first came to "the net" for was the "what do you all think is going on here?" thingie, and somehow avoid try to avoid the "if I was king of the world" stuff. Actually, I recall now that Chris Allbritton just recently said it better than me.

I hope this thread gives Yglesias some thoughts about his approach, not to let what appears to be his natural bent get too influenced by reading other bloggers and pundits.

Jeez! We kid because we love.

The main problem I have with Matt is that sometimes he is right and sometimes he is wrong and he acknowledges both situations.

Infuriating. Plus, he knows a lot of stuff, and doesn't know a lot of other stuff.

Maddening. In addition, he has grammar and spelling problems which he knows about and makes light of.

Unserious.

And he has a beard.

There you go, he probably shouldn't say anything about anything. And if he is true to form, I am sure he will admit that he didn't know that Navy corpsmen served as medics in yet another effort to try to prove that he listens to people and tries to correct his mistakes and, horrors, is actively trying to learn more, get smarter, and offer his thougts and ideas.

Pandering.

So it goes. A truly shameful post on so many levels.

Meanwhile...I have proof that he knows that Shiites and Sunnis have slightly different takes on the world, both religiously and otherwise. Uh, especially in Iraq. A small item, but unfortunately noteworthy given today's political and military leadership.

Shouldn't it be Pharmacist's Mate Charles S. Sare, rather than Seaman Sare, if this sailor was a medic?

I served in the Army, and we are definitely not smart enough to keep track of that complicated enlisted rank nomenclature the Navy has, whereby the title that goes with the paygrade is different depending on the job specialization (which we call an MOS in the Army, Lord knows what the Navy calls it). An E-4 may be called a Machinist's Mate 2d Class (or some such, I'm making up notional examples) if he's a mechanic, but Pharmacist's Mate 1st Class if he's a medic. If this sailor was listed as a Seaman, does that mean he wasn't a medic, or the correct title would have been Pharmacist's Mate? I'm asking. Like I said, I'm just Army, what I don't know about Navy rank would fill volumes.

Yglesias mentions that this sailor's stateside job was at a Naval Ambulatory Care Center, so presumably he worked in at least a medically related field, even if he wasn't a medic. If he was an X-Ray tech or some such, not someone you would expect to walk a patrol with Marines as their field medic, then perhaps Yglesias' point is well taken, this was an example of misusing folks from REMF MOSs as grunt filler.

It's all a function of one's life experience; that's why I'd like MY to spend six months traveling incognito with no internet connection before he writes the book.

Here are a couple of my semi-relevant experiences. A couple of years ago I did some work for an old fellow who'd been a corpsman in WW II. Spent six months or so at Henderson Field, the air base on Guadalcanal. Still expressed guilt that he'd been there, which could hardly have been a soft job, rather than directly attached to a field marine unit.

Since several posters have apparently expressed the disrespect Marines are said to feel for Naval personnel, I might mention that it sort of runs two ways -- I worked with a Health and Safety expert who was a Navy reservist, and regularly came back from his active duty time with horror stories about the Marines, like the macho types who showed what they were made of by refusing his instructions to drink water -- and this was in Qatar in the summer.

Shouldn't it be Pharmacist's Mate Charles S. Sare, rather than Seaman Sare, if this sailor was a medic?

Naw, they got rid of the Pharmacist's Mate rating decades ago. I think the Marine field medics in Korea were what they are now, Hospital Corpsmen. Otherwise, yeah, the Navy ratings do take a bit of getting used to -- but I've always found the Army's enlisted/specialist parallel rank system confusing, myself.

By the way, the Seaman who started this whole thread could have been a Hospital Corpsman "striker", a guy who didn't negotiate with the recruiters well, and enlisted with essentially zero promises for a job slot from the Navy, other than the opportunity to "strike" for a rating -- Machinist's Mate, Engineman, Hospital Corpsman, etc. Whenever he finished his quasi-apprenticeship, he'd be addressed as Corpsman, instead of Seaman.

Beyond Matt's obvious lack of familiarity with his subject matter, this comment thread suggests that he doesn't check in on his comment threads as often as he should. A face-saving correction is very much in order.

Seriously guys. He does seem to have a life. At least he's reading Spack's posts! JC has a good point, and here's what someone like me would like to know--where do you find out that kind of stuff without actually, say, joining the military? In a book, not Wikipedia.

"Some may tire of Spack's determination to blog each and every DOD death notice from Iraq"

Since Spackerman's blog doesn't permit comments from the unregistered, I'll note here that the answer to his repeated question is this:

Winning elections gave them the right.

This sailor probably was a medic, but MY is closer to the truth than you all have given him credit.

Before drawing conclusions about sailors on the ground, look up the Navy's "Individual Augmentation" program, or "IAs". Also colloquially called The NArmy by the sailors who volunteer (or, in my experience, who are "volun-told") to serve.

It started off with extra medical personnel, technicans and desk jobs, but it's expanded -- and sailors have been told to expect that at least 25% of the folks on shore duty will end up on the ground in a combat zone.

I know line officers trained to drive and command warships currently serving at forward operating bases in Afghanistan, psy-ops in Iraq, and getting ready to become platoon commanders escorting convoys in Iraq.

The CNO made it a point of pride in his Navy birthday letter that there are more sailors on the ground in Iraq/Afghanistan than there are on the water.

"howard -- I have to disagree. This is a pretty basic fact -- not arcane at all."

I'd bet the majority of people don't know that the Marines don't have their own medics. I'd bet most people would think they would have their own. It isn't just ivy leaguers or the DC pundit class who wouldn't know.

My sister's ex-husband was a Marine, but I don't think I knew about the Navy medics until relatively recently, and I'm 35.

This here web thingy offers civilians who've never been near the military a variety of ways of looking in on the institution. "Defense Tech" and the invaluable GlobalSecurity.org are extremely useful both for their own daily content, and their links to other military sites. The services themselves have a ton of content on the net. If you google up any of the following, you can get a taste of how the military bureaucracies talk among themselves:

Proceedings of the Naval Institute
Seapower
Marine Corps Gazette
Air Force Magazine
Army Times
Navy TImes

"...why stop with merely disqualifying matthew from talking about national security if he didn't know this? ..."

howard -- I didn't say that MY shouldn't talk about national security if he didn't know this point. I said that this post was based on an erroneous assumption, and accordingly shouldn't have made it past the draft stage. MY's a bright guy, is a creative thinker on policy issues, and can connect dots in a way that many others can't. But no one bats 1.000 -- no harm in that. "hey can someone explain this?" would've been a better approach.

"I'd bet the majority of people don't know that the Marines don't have their own medics. ..."

Jon H -- I knew that and I'm not a vet, but you're right that most wouldn't know. Hell, there's a LOT about military procedures I don't know, and I'll freely admit to that. As many others here have said, if you're going to opine on military matters (or any matter, for that matter!), get your facts straight first.

I don't mean to dogpile on MY. I'm interested in seeing sharper arguments and spotting and correcting weak ones. BTW, I found this comment section to be very informative and civil -- a refreshing change from most of the rest of the blogosphere.

Navy Spouse has it right; my brother was just up for Chief. If he'd made it, the only billets for a fresh chief with his rating was as an IA serving in Iraq. (It's one reason I wasn't THAT disappointed when the promises his superiors had made fell through...)

Huh - weird, I was just certain that MY would have issued a correction by now - there have been 5 articles written by MY since this article, and our corresponding corrections.

C'mon buddy - the blogosphere is a fickle place, and you, one of its brightest voices. Don't get the arrogant pundit disease of not issuing corrections, or not reading us, the commentari! :)

Note: I like MY - one of my daily reads, so I am hoping for the best here. I'll still read and appreciate his insight even if no correction is forthcoming, but I would be slightly disappointed, in that the "Beltway bubble" would have gotten just a little closer to claiming one of the blogosphere's brightest voices.

Yes, yes, I know, dramatic sentence that. Still, I am a small bit disappointed, and correspondingly, will be relieved if a new correction, or a "welp, made a mistake, glad I have such smart readers to point it out to me", comes down the pike...

I'm a Navy reservist. The point that seems to have been missed here: yeah, the sailor who was killed was probably an HM deployed with the Marines, and yeah, that situation is totally routine (I mean the deploying with the USMC part, although the getting killed part has become rather depressingly routine too). However, it's also true that sailors are, in fact, being deployed to the ground in Iraq in pretty big numbers. My counterpart in our sister squadron was just yanked from his billet, mobilized, and sent to Iraq as a civil affairs guy. This is normally an Army mission, but because the Army is shorthanded these days, the Navy is increasing getting tapped for it.

As the Army and Marines become more and more overextended, the Navy (and I imagine the Air Force) are filling a bigger role on the ground than ever before. The Navy is going through a considerable amount of trouble and expense to rearrange its force structure to actually conduct ground-based operations (these days, I'm a "dirt sailor" myself). So while Matthew may have picked a poor example to use, his conclusion is correct.

Seaman O. Sare was a friend of my boyfriend (who is a Corpsman, too) and was a Corpsman, plain and simple. He was in Iraq for a short period of time, and it was his first deployment.

Charles is a family member of mine and he was a navy medic that chose to be in Iraq attached to a marine unit instead of being posted to a naval ship he was a very brave and valiant person there is no conspiracy here.

Thanks
Best regards
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