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Corps Fashions "Provisional Units," Tighter Deployment Schedules

By PATRICIA KIME
Sea Power Correspondent

Sea Power
October 2004

Among the messages delivered by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael W. Hagee during the past year, one resurfaces time and again: the Marine Corps does not want -- or need -- a larger force.

With the Corps facing long-term operational commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, congressional leaders and critics have said the service could use a manpower boost. But the Corps’ leadership has maintained that adding members is a quick-fix that would “mortgage the future” for short-term gains.

Rather than add personnel, the Corps wants to stick with a series of solutions it is developing to meet demand. Service planners are altering rotation schedules, shifting Marines from noncombat jobs, giving new duties to established units and considering additional reserve call-ups to meet its requirements with the current force of 178,000 active and 41,000 reserve personnel.

The Corps has more than 36,000 Marines deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Djibouti and elsewhere — the highest number deployed at one time since Operation Desert Storm, which utilized 96,000 Marines over the course of 10 months. An additional 36,000 Marines are training to replace those deployed. Generally, tactical units will deploy for seven months, while support personnel are deployed for one year. Most will return home for roughly the same period they were deployed, then deploy again. The rapid turnaround could be eased simply by adding Marines, but the Corps considers increasing end-strength a last resort.

“The Marine Corps wants to make absolutely certain it needs additional troops before it asks for them, given the ripple effects of increasing our end-strength, which would include having to maintain a larger force than may be necessary several years from now,” said Capt. Dan McSweeney, a Marine spokesman. Sixty percent of the Marine Corps budget is allotted to manpower, and personnel costs — for retirement and health care, for example — continue to rise rapidly.

Also, increases in end-strength must be accompanied by increases in the Marine Corps’ middle managers, the senior noncommissioned officers and mid-level officers who train and lead new recruits. They have years of training and experience, and there is no quick or easy way to develop more of them.

Photo by Lance Cpl. Darhonda V. Hall

Sheila M. McNeill, national president of the Navy League, said in a March commentary that, “the very worst course ahead would be to increase our end-strength now only to cut it four or five years hence” if U.S. commitments decline. The volatility within the force would damage readiness, she said.

Resisting the call for increased end-strength has placed the service at odds with high-ranking congressional members such as Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the ranking Democrat on the committee. In January, Hagee told committee members the Corps could maintain its current operations tempo for at least a year and didn’t need an increase in end-strength.

That message was repeated in March by Lt. Gen. Jan Huly, deputy commandant for Plans, Policies and Operations, and Lt. Gen. Garry Parks, deputy commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and backed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But in April, Hunter announced that the House version of the 2005 Defense Authorization Act temporarily would increase the Corps’ end-strength by 9,000 Marines over the next three years.

“The committee has carefully listened to the concerns expressed by the Secretary of Defense … and proposes an approach that fully addresses the stated concerns over forcing additional end-strength on the services without the additional resources to pay for it,” Hunter said in announcing the House bill.

If the authorization act were to pass as written by the House, the Corps would be required to boost end-strength within one-half to 1 percent of the legislated range. For now, however, the Corps is operating on plans that don’t include the additional personnel.