Four marines were attacked and wounded in San Juan Capistrano. When will they learn that they're not welcome there? We need to have elections as soon as possible, and remove the occupying forces. October 7 isn't soon enough.

Ten gang members, even armed with knives, shouldn't be a serious threat to well-trained Marines. Or so I would imagine and expect. Being California obviously the marines wouldn't be armed (though the gang-bangers might), but still, isn't hand-to-hand combat taught anymore in the Armed Services? Or are my expectations for the capabilities of trained soldiers overinflated? (If so, blame Robert Heinlein's novel _Starship Troopers_:-).

Most likely they were drunk marines, having just come from a bar. And, at 22 and 23, they were probably pretty green, and possibly either reservists or fresh out for their GI Bill to go to school. Even so, outnumbered 2.5:1 on a city street late at night with reduced reflexes against armed attackers... odds aren't really in their favor. I'm sure alcohol had something to do with their ability to react to the situation, and likely their being in the situation in the first place.

The notion that someone trained in hand-to-hand is always ready and able to use his skills whenever they may be needed, makes for good action scenes in the movies but isn't necessarily the way it works in real life.

I'm sure you're both right, and upon re-reading it my original comment seems a bit flippant. My sympathies are certainly with the soldiers...I do wonder what condition the goblins were in after the encounter though (poor, I hope). The article doesn't say.

It's time for the Marines to pull out of Pendelton. That land has become far too valuable, and Mexico would be more than willing to lease us similar territory in Baja, where they can practice their amphibious operations without 10 lanes of freeway intruding on things.

While their at it, Miramar is the perfect location for a new international airport in SoCal.

"It's time for the Marines to pull out of Pendelton. That land has become far too valuable..."

The Barbary Pirates, Belleau Wood, the Banana Wars, Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Bouganville, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Inchon, the Chosin Reservoir, Beirut '58, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam (remembering especially Hue City and Khe Sahn, Beirut '83, the Gulf War, the Gulf War after that first Gulf War, a thousand other small actions I can't remember in my drunkenness, and whatever horrible bloody situation we all will watch on cable news in the years to come, featuring both the USMC and every other branch of the service...yeah, Mr. Connors, I see your point.

Fuck 'em. Fuck history, tradition, sacrifice, and above all gratitude. There is no value higher than commerce, right? A nation, after all, is properly thought of as nothing but a joint stock corporation. The taxpayers are stockholders, and soldiers are security guards. Those jarhead dumbasses should lower their heads and say "thank you for the time we were allowed to spend here", and then boogie on down to fucking Mexico to train, because a bunch of fucking Yuppie pansies say the land is too valuable.

"While their at it, Miramar is the perfect location for a new international airport in SoCal."

Damn you for that, Mr. Connors. It is statements like the above which make me wonder if the Islamists don't have a point.

Oh what a crock of bullshit. By your logic, we should also give our armed forces Italian designed, silk blend fatigues like Saddam and his buddies wore. Or how about gold-plated M16s? The only thing that's important is accomplishing the mission in the most cost effective manner. Unless it can be justified within the context of the mission, it is lunacy to run our nation on a deficit while our military, at just two installations, is sitting on a quarter-trillion dollars worth of prime real estate.

"By your logic, we should also give our armed forces Italian designed, silk blend fatigues like Saddam and his buddies wore. Or how about gold-plated M16s?

They aren't issued "Italian designed, silk blend fatigues", as you so sneeringly put it. It's bad enough they are given M-16's. At least if we gave them gold-plated ones, they would have the consolation of running down the ramp with a fancy piece of crap with which to bet their life on our behalf.

In case you haven't been paying attention to news reports from the past five months or so, the guys that run down the ramps, and everyone backing them up, have been very cost-effective indeed. They reduced the Iraqi Ba'athist regime as they were told to do, so far with about as many casualties as the Marine Barracks bombing of '83.

They are hanging in there as we post, getting rocketed, fragged, and shot in the back of the head at close range as they move through crowds. They wonder if their spouses are faithful, if their kids are alright, and maybe, just a little, if anyone else is sacrificing a little bit too.

Do you think anyone ever advanced under fire and shouted at his buddies, "Get moving, you bastards, we're going to accomplish this mission in a cost-effective manner"? Why do you think someone would volunteer to go be a bullet catcher? To vindicate Adam Smith?

You must be drunk, otherwise you'd be daft. It was never my intimation that our fatigues were silk-blend, simply that it would be your preference. Reread the post.

Further, unlike the original M16, which I trained on, the current M16A2, as well as it's short-barreled brother, the M4, as indicated by this summary of Iraq after-action reports, are hardly pieces of crap.

Further, of course no squadie no out and faces the enemy worrying about the cost-effectiveness of their mission, because that's not part of their mission. That's the duty of generals at the Pentagon. This is why they continue to give a cold shoulder to weapons systems like Crusader, that Congress keeps cramming cown their throat.

Lastly, as you seem to be so concerned for the squadies, consider this: When I was in the AF, during the Carter years, I spent most of my hitch stationed at Castle AFB in Northern California. My two roomies and I enjoied a huge three bedroom ranch house placed on a tree shaded one acre lot on a bluff over the Merced River, giving it a 20 mile view. One of my coworkers, also an E-4, had a wife and three kids, and hailed from Vista, a town located between Pendelton and Miramar. He frequently exclaimed how there was no way he could afford to support his family on what the AF paid him if he was living in his hometown. And, at that time, Vista was still relatively rural. In the last twenty-five years, it's become built-out, and housing prices have skyrocketed.