Marine Corps Times

July 10, 2000


Top Marine Speaks Out On Corps Issues


Gen. James Jones, Marine Corps commandant, met with Marine Corps

Times' reporters and editors June 28 at the Pentagon. These are

excerpts from that interview.


Pay and benefits


Q. Many Marine families qualify for food stamps. What can be
done to fix that?


A. It's a tough problem. Politicians will talk about it very

eloquently, that it's a national disgrace and we shouldn't have

people wearing the uniform of the United States on food stamps.


Fundamentally, I agree with that.


To find the right solution for everybody is tough, and it is not

cheap. If you get into the business of giving allowances for the

number of children you have, you're opening an issue that
probably

won't stop at the food stamp level.


I think you can fix a lot of these things regionally through
[cost of

living allowances], because this family that's on food stamps in

southern California probably wouldn't be on food stamps in

Jacksonville, N.C., for example.


Rather than subsidizing large families on the basis of how many

offspring you have, I would rather fix it on a regional basis
and ...

make sure that the people who have families have enough income
to not

be on food stamps.


Q. The Senate approved targeted raises for midgrade NCOs, but
the

House has not. Do you support

these targeted increases?


A. I think the group that we should be most concerned about, in
terms

of job satisfaction and retention, are that middle-grade officer
and

NCO. It is more of a problem in the other services, though. We
are

retaining pretty much the quality and quantity that we want.
[But] I

think that it would be a good signal, if there is a problem
across

the board in all the services, to fix it [NCO pay] at that
level. So

I would be in favor of that.


Retention


Q. The Marine Corps nearly missed its retention goals earlier
this

year. What did you do to fix it and

how are you doing now?


A. The manpower department turned itself inside out to become
more

responsive to the commanders.


We are really changing the way the headquarters sees itself in

relation to the field and reacting to the market reality, that
it's a

buyer's market.


We are not the buyers, and we have to satisfy the demand of the

people who are the buyers. That's the individual Marines.


I think that's really, fundamentally, the change between how you

manage a conscripted force to how you manage an all-recruited
force.


Family support


Q. Recently the Exceptional Family Member Program was moved from
the

Personnel Management

Division to the Personnel and Family Readiness Division. You
have a

handicapped daughter yourself,

but chose never to enroll in the program. Why not?


A. My wife and I have four children; the second child was born

severely disabled.


I knew there was an Exceptional Family Member Program, but I had
the

impression - and it could have been erroneous ... that if I
signed up

for that, that I would be earmarking myself and restricting
other

people from considering me as fully assignable and deployable.


And while I could probably say that we could have used some
help, my

wife got her master's degree in special ed we decided not to
do

that because I just didn't want to be restricted.


What my wife and I would like to do, along with the sergeant
major

and his wife, is to do away with that thinking ... and make sure
that

Marines can have a very good and normal career and still get the
kind

of help that they require for their exceptional family member.


To me, the modern definition of readiness includes very much a
family

support system that allows the Marine member to do the things we
ask

them to do - oftentimes at long distances away from home for
long

periods of time - knowing that there's a vibrant, robust system
...

to take care of his family and keep his spouse's morale up and
be

there when they need

help.


The Army's new vision


Q. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki wants to transform the
Army

into a lighter, more mobile,

easy-to-deploy force. Would an Army that had those capabilities

threaten the scope or scale of the

traditional Marine Corps mission?


A. The nation needs an Army that can decisively win on the
ground.

And I insist that the expectation of the nation is that the
United

States Army will be the deciding force in any ground war that
we're

involved in, certainly at the [major theater war] level.


The Marine Corps, as a result of our downsizing, occupies a

proportionately more important percentage of this war-fighting

capability than ever before.


Twenty percent of the battalions in the national inventory, 20

percent of the fighter attack squadrons, 17 percent of the
attack

helicopters, and a third - and this is important - a third of
the

ground combat support available to the active-duty forces in the

United States military would have Marine Corps designation on it

right now.


But ... the Marine Corps was not built, and was not conceived to
be,

an occupying force. We are built to be expeditionary, to be
presence

forces, to shape environments, to deter aggression, and, if that

fails, to secure a foothold and wait for larger forces that
are

designed to stay longer.


Most armies are downsizing and they're becoming lighter, more
agile,

more expeditionary. So that crowds the tip of the spear. But you

can't have a tip of the spear that's so full of light forces
that the

shaft isn't robust as well.


I see those missions as being very complementary. We don't have
any

fundamental disagreement, we just have a healthy understanding
that

we should not forget what the Army is about and what the Marine
Corps

does, and the two don't have to be at loggerheads to accomplish
one

or the other.


Changing Gitmo duty


Q. There's been talk about reducing the Marine presence at
Guantanamo

Bay, Cuba. Is that going to happen?


A. We are in the process of standing down as much of our
permanent

presence there and doing it as an expeditionary deployment [of
30-45

days].


It's just a great way for a rifle company to go out, move,
shoot, and

communicate and develop their cohesion and come back in a short

period of time.


To be a company commander and go that far away from the flagpole
and

train for a limited period and kind of rotate out of there makes
a

lot more sense than having people stationed there permanently.


Q. Are you considering using reservists for those rotations?


A. Reserves are eager to do that. That's something that's doable
for

them, and there are a lot of missions like that. If you just
plan it

a little bit better, you can really take some of the stress off
of

the active-duty forces and really do some very motivated
training for

those reserves.


I'm amazed at what the reserves can do.


When I was on Okinawa recently there was an entire reserve
company

going through the northern training area doing jungle training
and

survival training and everything else. And they were out there
for 30

days in Okinawa having just a wonderful time.

Our Marines on food stamps? Embarassing? Yes. How to resolve it, easy. Since when does some one making E-1, E-2, E-3, pay want to start a Family? If you can not afford them why have them?

This is where I think Gen Mundy had the right idea when he wanted to implement a program where you could not get Married on your first enlistment or be a least a Sgt. The responsibilies are to great for Cpls and below as is the pay. If you want to live off base then the choice is yours and if in your Budget you can not do it, move back in.

I remember when only a few cars were on Base in Pendleton, and the Cpls and above had them. The base theater was almost full and you knew where your Fellow Marines were most of the time. Now there are more parking slots for cars and alot of Marines have better cars than me. They also are in debt up the butt and then to add a family?

No Military Personnel should be on food stamps. The food stamp program is to help the needy, and with the pay these Guys make, they aren't needy. Priorities need to get in order. Here in California, we have a welfare state, almost a complete give away. From cradle to grave, they can be taken care of. Our Military shouldn't follow this trend.

Sorry for the Rambling, SF Jose

You are just right and could have gone a lot further about letting the young un's mature before marriage. Also the tone of bad assed marines disturbs me. Remember when our object was respect and not fear. How will this deadly, dangerous Black Belt be handled in courts when everyone is a trained killer? In combat see how many you will find that will physically touch a live opponent. The Koreans the CMC spoke of were taught what they called Kokido and they had to be expert because anything less mostly resulted in surgery to try and repair joints and tendons. The Judo of WWII was effective and managable. A kick under the chin can ruin your day. This would result in fatal attacks on innocent Marines by fearful civilians and one Glock can cancel lots of black belts.