Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[jjkirk]

ZEEV, Re: The fact is that for 20 years (1948 to 1968) we did not support Israel, we like to be on the side of winners, and for a long time, our state department did not believe that Israel wil be th winner. Only after the 1967, when the coordinated attack by Syria, Egypt, Jordan and two Iraqi divisions) failed, despite these forces being equipped with top of the line Soviet and British (Jordan) armaments, we finally started to tilt to Israel.

If State was ignoring Israel in the early 1960's, the US Marines were not. As a Marine lieutenant in those days I was required to take the Marine captain-major level tactics/logistics course by correspondence. The study problem was the defense of Northern Israel. I had map sheets taped together almost covering one wall of my office at Marine Barracks, Atsugi, Japan. I was required to prepare detailed landing plans and tactical map overlays for employment of a regimental landing team, a unit about a third in size of our 1st Marine Division in Iraq today... http://www.cpp.usmc.mil/test.htm?http&&&www.cpp.usmc.mil/1mardiv/

Nonetheless, you are correct, Zeev. Israel's success in 1967 widened the circle of interest and knowledge in their brilliance. In April 1967, as a Marine captain, I was a student at the JFK Center for Special Warfare at Ft Bragg. We soldiers and Marines were glued to the TV, cheering the courage, skill and resolute actions of the Israeli Army and Air Force regulars and reserves as they pulled off the most marvelous and daring raids against the Egyptian AF, the Golan and the Suez.

Much later, in July 1976, the staff and my fellow students at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College at Quantico, VA, watched the TV news of the Entebbe raid and roundly applauded another masterful stroke portraying the tactical brilliance of the Israeli forces. The preparation that went into that raid became a model for US Marine Corps raid training from that day forward.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Successful people laud the success of others and emulate that success whereever possible. American Marines are no exception. Marines do not wait for outside direction to derive potential threats. We were training to go ashore in Israel long before it was mainstream thought...the "three-block war" we fight in Iraq today was a product of Marine Corps thought in the mid-1990's under the direction of the then-Commandant General Chuck Krulak... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9759-2004Apr13.html .

If I may digress and promote two charitible organizations I deem worthy of the readers' attention, they would be the Camp Pendleton Armed Forces YMCA... http://www.asymca.org/branches/camp_pendleton.html
and Spirit of America... http://www.spiritofamerica.net/req_11/request.html

tia

jj