Why do Marines get Airborne qualified??

[jspee1965]

Seems antithetical to their traditional mission statement.

[aurreth]

To provided greater interoperability with other services.  I was in the Army, but I attended schools taught by the Navy and the Air Force.  I'm actually one of a very few Army personnel who is a qualified Marine Corps Urban Warfare Instructor

So basically there have been cases where it is beneficial to insert Marines with Army airborne forces, which means you want the Marines to be airborne qualified ahead of time.

In addition, special forces such as Marine Force Recon receive a lot of training "just in case".

[UsernameWithA9]

As a former Marine, I can back-up the user aurreth's explanation. 

By Land, Air and Sea, after all.

[ScytheBearer]

20 hours ago, UsernameWithA9 said:

As a former Marine, I can back-up the user aurreth's explanation. 

By Land, Air and Sea, after all.

"former Marine"?  No such thing. 

To answer the OPs question, Marines get attached to a great number and variety of "other units" as force multipliers.  To ensure that Marines are capable of fighting along side other branches and our allies, certain Marine Corps units get training which might seen "antithetical" to an outside observer.   Suffice it to say that Marines get more training than simply riding a SSC onto a fortified beach or charging up some nameless hill under hostile fire. 

Furthermore, Marines are computer programmers, accountants, office managers, supply chain managers, and so much more.  Pretty much every Marine has some form of specialized training.  It is just the jumpers and divers which get special devices (badges) for their uniform. 

 

Edited March 9 by ScytheBearer

[UsernameWithA9]

Semantics... ok, ok, how about this: I was once enlisted in the Marine Corps and now I'm not. I enlisted as an idealistic, naive teenager with no money for college. That was nearly forty years ago and I've gained much wisdom since then. Wisdom that now guides my world view in regards to what the military is actually used for. Oh right, it's used to protect US soil. Sure, it does that. It's also used to protect US interests and further other... less altruistic agendas.

Besides, it was just a job to me. I kept a calendar countdown until my discharge date and did a burnout-for-distance in my Camaro outta the parking lot when that date finally arrived. So, yeah, 'former Marine'. 

And the term 'ex-Marine' is actually the one you should be scoffing at.

[ScytheBearer]

Hey, I was drafted in 1969, so you'll get no grief from me.  But; not to put too fine a point on it, Marines are supposedly ready to fight at a moments notice and you seem to still have the instinct. 

Semper Fi. 
 

[UsernameWithA9]

True, I'll give you that. I do still remember how to hold a rifle and .9mm properly and scoff at the Army and law enforcement when they salute indoors or reduntantly add the word 'hours' after military time, i.e. 1300 hours. Ugh! Makes me cringe.

[aurreth]

9 hours ago, UsernameWithA9 said:

True, I'll give you that. I do still remember how to hold a rifle and .9mm properly and scoff at the Army and law enforcement when they salute indoors or reduntantly add the word 'hours' after military time, i.e. 1300 hours. Ugh! Makes me cringe.

That's movies.  The Army doesn't do that   No saluting if you aren't wearing headgear (which is not worn indoors), and it's OH-5-30, not "zero-5-30 hours".  Movies and television get it wrong, almost consistently, and yeah, it grates on my nerves too.

[UsernameWithA9]

Yeah, you may be right. I tend to hate on the Army by default.

[aurreth]

5 minutes ago, UsernameWithA9 said:

Yeah, you may be right. I tend to hate on the Army by default.

I spent a lot of time working with the other services so I got over a lot of the interservice rivalries.  Even my milspeak uses a lot of Navy and Marine terms instead of the Army versions