Being a leader of Marines is not teaching someone to be just average or mediocre! You teach them they are the best of the best in which I absolutely believe we are. I don't want to be of part of an organization that believes it's so so..give me an organization that believes it is an elite fighting force! That reputation has been built over time through blood, sweat, and tears. Killing is not glorious..but I won't have my Marines feeling sorry because they had to defend their country and kill the enemy. We don't have time on the battlefield to feel sorry for them..if you don't kill them..they'll kill you..simple as that!
Now, what I do tell my Marines is that we can't rest on what we old foggies and others before us did. You have to continue to prove yourselves and not talk about how awesome you are when you are doing what other services do. Other branches may not like how Marines carry themselves, but I wouldn't have it any other way! I bleed Marine Corps green...and will fight to the death to defend my Corps and country!
Yuutt!!!!
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the false confidence that many 03s possess on matters unrelated to combat. We are the best fighting force in the world hands down, but like what was brought up above, many Marines get this idea that they individually are higher trained or as highly trained than other forces (usually Rangers) right out of bootcamp and SOI. It's a stupid thing to compare imo and most 03s figure that out pretty quickly that at the lowest level we're not, but there's still always a few.
Being a smaller unit I can teach my Marines individually what they/we are good at and where their confidence should be. I find it better to be confident and know you are a highly trained killer but maintain that silent confidence. If someone wants to compare themselves to you just smile and walk away. We know how devastating of a force we can be but we don't need to be cocky about it and bragging to others. From my experiences that cockiness has only made it more difficult for us to work with others because people just inherently have it out for you, mostly due to jealousy.
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