Marine Corps Times
July 10, 2000

One Fierce Force

Gen. Jones wants you to be the baddest warrior on the planet

By C. Mark Brinkley, Times Staff Writer

Those waiting for Marine Commandant Gen. James L. Jones to
announce a
sweeping set of changes for the Corps may be missing the forest
for
the trees.

Rather than release a manifesto, Jones works behind the scenes,
building support one plan at a time.

"I've said many times that being commandant is getting into the
art
of consensus building," Jones said during an editorial board
meeting
June 28 with Marine Corps Times' editors and staff writers at
the
Pentagon. "It's too easy to just say 'do this because I said
so.'
That's probably the best guarantee that after you leave, it
won't
survive."

Jones' vision for the Corps has filtered out slowly over the
past
year - the return of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade, the
shifting
of Marines from staff jobs to operational billets, the abolition
of
brown T-shirts and the possibility of a whole new Marine-unique
camouflage uniform.

These incremental changes are Jones' roadmap for rekindling the
Corps' warrior spirit.

"What we're looking for is a cultural transformation," Jones
said.

Part of his plan for turning warriors into "warrior elites" is
giving
every Marine martial arts training and designing a distinctively
Marine combat uniform. In doing so, Jones wants to create a
Corps so
unique that enemies, foreign and domestic, will know: "Those are
Marines, they're all black belts, and you don't want to fool
with
them."

Setting the course

Shortly after taking charge, Jones issued a "Commandant's
Guidance,"
a highly conceptual document filled with the themes he considers
to
be important. Unlike the "Commandant's Planning Guidance" issued
by
his predecessor, Gun. Charles C. Krulak, there were no outlines
for
change, no deadlines for implementation, no overhauls of major
programs.

If he had to do it over again - something he's still considering
-
Jones would add a section on personal and operational safety to
his
guidance. In the meantime, he's made safety a top priority for
his
second year as CMC through initiatives such as the Safety
Campaign
Plan, a working group of the Corps' senior operational
commanders
expected to hit the streets in July.

Something has to be done, Jones said, to curb the alarming trend
of
accidents on and off duty.

"I've seen too much of it in this first year. And I've been to
too
many memorial services where we gather, we mourn, we take care
of the
families that are affected, and then we go on,
business-as-usual, and
we don't change."

Jones' goal is to shift the culture away from cutting corners or
taking chances that could result in a training accident,
especially
when the risks are taken to stay on schedule.

"We have to inculcate, where training is concerned, in our young
leaders and our operators that it's OK to raise your hand and
say 'I
don't think we should be doing this; I think it's dangerous.'
And to
just back off of it."

Jones knows that halting training is not an easy call for junior
leaders to make. As a Marine Expeditionary Unit commander, Jones
refused to let his newly attached helicopter squadron carry
passengers because he believed they were not ready for the
mission.

"I said, 'I'm not confident that the squadron is ready to
transport
troops. They're certainly not going to fly them at night, and
I'm not
confident that they can land safely with a full load of troops
on our
amphibs,'" Jones recalled telling his commanders, who worried
that a
delay would jeopardize the unit's Special Operations Capable
designation.

"It's a big thing, everybody says it's a big thing, but what do
you
do, not deploy us?" Jones said. "Senior officers are going to
have to
respect that when somebody makes that call. Even if it saves 10
lives
a year, it's worth doing."

That doesn't mean he's willing to lower the bar on training.

"You have to be careful that what I'm saying here doesn't
translate
into lesser standards, diminished standards of training."

Centralized training

One way to make training safer is to ensure that everyone does
it the
same way and the lessons learned from mistakes are learned
throughout
the Corps.

To that end, a new Training and Education Command is being
launched
in Quantico, Va., headed by Maj. Gen.-select Tom Jones.

Jones, no relation to the commandant, is the head of Training
and
Education Division, a one-star subset of Marine Corps Combat
Development Command. He will move into the top spot at T&E
Command
and have a one-star deputy to head the Training Command portion.

"The Marine Corps, as training-focused as we are, has never had
a
training philosophy that bears any serious scrutiny," the
commandant
said. "Training has always been decentralized."

He believes Jones and the new command can have the same effect
on the
Corps that the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory has had on
idea
development and experimentation.

In keeping with the commandant's leadership style, the command
won't
sit only at Quantico and push training initiatives out to the
fleet.
Instead, the notion of centralized training is also to gather
good
ideas from I Marine Expeditionary Force, for example, and share
them
with the rest of the expeditionary forces.

Now, training for recruits and Marine expeditionary units will
get
its start in Quantico, making it possible for Marines to
transfer
from one base to the other and find many familiar programs.

"I think that it will be more efficient," Jones said. "I think
we'll
have training standards that are clear and that are uniform and
that
apply equally across the forces."

Learning from combat

The usefulness of that idea took root for Jones in Vietnam, when
his
Marines became intimidated by the South Korean Marines stationed
nearby.

Jones' Marines said their Korean counterparts were all black
belts in
tae kwon do who were feared by the Viet Cong as ruthless
warriors.

"They described them like they were Attila the Hun," Jones said.
"And
I thought, even if it's not true, what a good thing it is to be
able
to intimidate people that way."

Martial arts training and a unique combat uniform would enhance
the
reputation the Corps has around the world, Jones said. He noted
that
in Somalia, for example, aggressors knew Marines were in the
area by
distinctions such as the way their sleeves were rolled or the
all-black boots.

"I don't want there to be any confusion - in peace keeping,
peace
making, peace environment, or [major theater war] operations -
that
the force that you're dealing with are United States Marines,"
Jones
said.

My son, a Captain, recently went back on active duty. I think he saw what was coming with the New CMC. If the CMC can implement even half of what he says, we will be getting back to the Basics of what the Corps is all about. SF Jose