The US Marine Corps' adorable mascot, the English bulldog named Chesty XIV, officially retired in late August after five years of service. 

He was replaced by Chesty XV, who made his first official appearance at a Marine Barracks parade on Aug. 31. 

It's rather well-known that the Corps loves English bulldogs, but what's less well-known is why. 

It all traces back to the famous World War I Battle of Belleau Wood. The Marines took heavy casualties during the nearly month-long, grueling fight on the Western Front.

But in the end, the Marines emerged victorious.  

Here's the story. 

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The Battle of Belleau Wood began on June 6, 1918, about a dozen miles northeast of Paris. US General John J. Pershing ordered a counteroffensive to drive the Germans out of the area, with US Marines leading the first attack against four German divisions. By the end of the day, they had taken 1,000 casualties.

For three weeks, the Marines launched several more assaults against the German lines, which were continually reinforced. On June 26, the Marines had beaten back the Germans from the northern part of Belleau Wood. But they had taken nearly 10,000 casualties as well.

Because of the Marines' fierce fighting, the Germans were said to have dubbed them, "devil dogs.” But this was later debunked by Marine Corps historian Bob Aquilana.

“The term very likely was first used by Marines themselves and appeared in print before the Battle for Belleau Wood,” Aquilina told Stars and Stripes in 2011. “It gained notoriety in the decades following World War I and has since become a part of Marine Corps tradition.”

• In 1999, Lance Cpl. Jason Johnson met Meriam al-Khalifa, and the two began a love affair. 
• Johnson was stationed at the Navy's base in Bahrain, and Meriam was a member of the royal family's house of Khalifa.
• Despite threats of a court martial, a legal battle, and assassination attempts by the house of Khalifa, Johnson smuggled Meriam into the US and the two got married. 

There are roughly 8,500 US personnel stationed at the Navy's base in Bahrain. In 1999, one of those, Lance Cpl. Jason Johnson, faced a court-martial and legal battle to wed his beloved girlfriend, a Bahraini local named Meriam. The Marine met Meriam at a local mall and, over the objections of her family, the two continued their love affair.

The biggest problem is that Meriam's full name is Meriam bint Abdullah al-Khalifa, and she was a member of the royal family's house of Khalifa. So, when Lance Cpl. Johnson smuggled her out of Bahrain and into the United States, it was kind of a big deal.

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• Russia's skill at information warfare has American and allied military leaders concerned.
• Not only can Moscow's efforts shape perceptions, they can also have effects on the battlefield.
• However, the department tasked with countering Russian disinformation doesn't have a budget, hiring authority, or much support from The White House.

Russia has become so good at information warfare that American and allied military leaders are (rightfully) starting to freak out about it.

"The Russians are really good at this. Better than us," UK Army Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney said at the AUSA Conference, according to Defense One.

"We saw a very clever, assiduous information campaign aimed at discrediting the campaign of the coalition [in Iraq and Syria]. And I would argue [that] in many of our nation's capitals, we didn't realize we were being played."

As was the case during the 2016 election, Russia is sometimes better at stoking division among ordinary Americans than your uncle at Thanksgiving dinner — through the coordinated use of bot networks, fake social media profiles, and production of misleading or partisan content that gets widely shared.

Moscow has also carried out similar campaigns in Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere. Its efforts at influence can shape perceptions, while also having surprising effects on the battlefield.

As Tom Ricks wrote about in his column earlier this year, Russia's military has carried out some eye-opening operations that combine information ops, cyber, and good old-fashioned targeting.

"The Russians are adept at identifying Ukrainian positions by their electrometric signatures," Army Col. Liam Collins wrote in the August issue of Army Magazine.

"In one tactic, soldiers receive texts telling them they are 'surrounded and abandoned.' Minutes later, their families receive a text stating, 'Your son is killed in action,' which often prompts a call or text to the soldiers. Minutes later, soldiers receive another message telling them to 'retreat and live,' followed by an artillery strike to the location where a large group of cellphones was detected."

Meanwhile in Syria, Russian military operations are sometimes being conducted for the sole reason of getting photos or videos that can later be used against their enemies, according to Gedney.

"This is not a battle that can be fought by public affairs writing lines to tape," Gedney said. "It's got to be be operationalized down into a genuine multi-domain battle."

To be fair, the US does carry out its own information and cyber operations. But as Army Cyber Command's Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone testified earlier this year, most are being done at the tactical level.

Russia spends between $400 million and $500 million per year on foreign information efforts, while the US spends about $20 million, according to a paper published by the Army War College, leaving Washington "far behind."

It's a fact that most top leaders realize and can't really ignore. Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, listed information warfare among just two other capabilities where NATO "urgently" needs to modernize during an interview in January (the others were cyber and missile defense).

Put simply, Russia seems to be playing chess, while the US is trying to figure out how to set up the board to play checkers.

The War College paper recommended a national counter information strategy and center, technological solutions to fight back against fake news, and the pursuit of international partnerships to go after things like Russia's "troll factories."

Similarly, retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, while Russia uses its skills to attack the foundations of democracy, the US could respond with its own "tools to attack their foundations of autocracy."

But whether the threat is taken seriously at a national level remains to be seen. The State Department's Global Engagement Center — tasked with countering Russian disinformation — doesn't have a budget, hiring authority, or, it seems, much support from The White House.

"Because near-peer states such as Russia have demonstrated how much relatively small but well-coordinated capital investments can have disproportionate effects on an adversary, it is imperative the US government rise to the occasion and utilize existing, often open-source tools and methodologies to tackle this threat," asserted a recent article in AFCEA's Signal Magazine.

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Thirty-five years ago, two suicide bombers killed 241 American and 58 French military personnel, as well as six civilians, in Beirut, Lebanon. The incident marked the largest single-day loss for the US military since the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive.

The horrific Oct. 23, 1983 attack on the multinational peacekeepers, an attack purportedly perpetrated by the Iranian-funded terrorist organization Hezbollah, was especially devastating for the US Marine Corps, which lost 220 service members. The Corps had not suffered such a loss since in one day since Iwo Jima. Eighteen US Navy sailors and three Army soldiers were also killed in the Beirut barracks bombing, and dozens of others were injured.

The deadly blast, characterized by the FBI as the largest non-nuclear explosion they'd ever seen, came just a few months after the April 18, 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Lebanon, where an extremist killed 63 people, including 17 Americans.

In 1982, the US decided, at the request of the Lebanese government, to send US troops to Lebanon to serve as peacekeepers in the bloody Lebanese Civil War between warring Muslim and Christian factions. The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina was deployed to Beirut in the spring of 1983.

Source: US Marine Corps

US forces, along with their French and Italian counterparts, achieved some initial success in Lebanon, but the Muslim factions in the country began to turn their aggression toward the foreign troops.

At 6:22 a.m. on Oct. 23, 1983, a truck laden with thousands of pounds of explosives slammed into the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine headquarters at the airport in Beirut.

Every year the Corps needs to ship nearly 30,000 plus recruits to stand on the yellow footprints at its recruit depots in order to fill the void of the mass exit of first-termers and other Marines.

But headed into fiscal year 2019 the Corps will need to recruit roughly 38,500 new Marines to adequately man the force.

“This is the largest requirement in a decade, and the mission must be accomplished notwithstanding significant headwinds,” reads a letter from the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert B. Neller dated Oct. 18.

At issue for the Corps is retention of the force. According to the letter, the Corps has the “youngest population” but “highest turnover,” with nearly 60.4% of the Corps in the rank of E-5 and below.

“It is more important than ever that we retain our best Marines, by grade and skill, across both the active and reserve components,” the letter says. “When in-year losses exceed planned losses, it directly impacts in-year accessions and increases the demand on our Recruiters and Drill Instructors.”

But a potential spoiler for the Corps’ ability to entice and train its young recruits is the “insufficient” number of volunteers in critical Special Duty Assignments like drill instructor and recruiter billets, Neller alluded in the letter.

“We must re-double our efforts to encourage, screen, and assign the highest quality Marines to SDA,” the letter states.

To bolster the number of qualified Marines in SDA billets, Neller says the Corps will continue to “reward those who successfully complete SDA tours.”

During the most recent promotion board, Marines who completed an SDA were more likely than their peers to be selected for staff sergeant or gunnery sergeant, Neller said in the letter.

Despite the challenge ahead, the Corps historically has reached its yearly recruiting goals. In fiscal year 2013, the Corps met its accessions goal of nearly 37,900 Marines, just 600 less than the fiscal 2019 requirement.

But further complicating the Corps’ recruiting efforts are a shrinking talent pool and an American population where 75% of youth are unqualified for military service.

“That should scare you,” Neller told reporters at a media roundtable event in October.

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While there are many notable male celebrities who served, less focus seems to be on the women — of both today and throughout history — who have fought for their countries. 

"Golden Girl" Bea Arthur was a staff sergeant for the Marines, and Gal Gadot was in the Israeli Defense Forces for two years, which actually led to her big break in Hollywood.

Keep scrolling to see other famous females who have served — and learn how it helped them succeed in the long run. 

"Wonder Woman" Gal Gadot served in the Israeli Defense Forces for two years.

After Gal Gadot was crowned Miss Israel in 2004, and before she became Wonder Woman in 2017, she served her mandatory two years in the Israeli Defense Forces. During Gadot's assignment, she worked as a "physical fitness specialist," teaching things like gymnastics and calisthenics to the soldiers.

Gadot actually credits her big break in the acting world to her military service, claiming that Justin Lin, the director of "Fast Five" and "Fast & Furious 6," cast her in the role of Gisele because he was impressed with her military background, and her "knowledge of weapons."

"Golden Girl" Bea Arthur was one of the first members of the Marine Corps’ Women’s Reserve.

Before she was Dorothy Zbornak on "The Golden Girls," Emmy award-winning actress Bea Arthur was a Marine.

Arthur enlisted into the Women's Reserve when she was just 21 years old, first serving as a typist and truck driver. She worked her way up to staff sergeant and was honorably discharged in 1945. 

According to The Daily Beast, official documents show that Arthur's supervisors thought she was "argumentative" — which is not a far cry from the feisty persona she became known for on both "The Golden Girls" and "Maude."

Harriet Tubman was a military leader and Union spy during the Civil War.

About 1,100 Marines out of Camp Pendleton, California, will be headed for the US-Mexico border in support of an operation being overseen by US Northern Command as a migrant caravan of asylum seekers from Central America inches their way toward the border.

The Marines with 1st Marine Expeditionary Force will be operating in a supporting role helping build barricades, fences, housing for Customs and Border Protection, and providing medical and fixed and rotary wing aviation support, according to 2nd Lt. Fredrick Walker, a Marine spokesman, told Marine Corps Times in an emailed statement.

Last week President Donald Trump said numbers of troops headed to support the operation could grow as high as 15,000. At least 2,100 National Guard troops already are in the area supporting the endeavor. Another roughly 5,200 active duty troops are also slated to be involved.

The border security operation, dubbed Faithful Patriot, has been derided by critics as a political stunt by Trump to shore up support before the midterm elections, which culminated yesterday.

Following the election, the Wall Street Journal reported the Pentagon would no longer refer to the operation as “Faithful Patriot” and instead would call it border support.

The migrant caravan is comprised of migrants fleeing violence plagued Central America, hoping to seek asylum in the US.

After more than 1,000 miles and 25 days of walking, the caravan made a stop in Mexico City to consider its next steps, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Breitbart and the OC Register were first to report the Camp Pendleton Marines headed for the border.

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There are few words in the English language that stir up a tornado of hateful emotions in a Marine quite like "stay with the LT,""the trucks aren't coming," and "hike."

There are plenty of mandatory hikes a Marine has to do annually — and command always throws in a few more, just for good measure.

We, the infantry community, can't drag ass in physical fitness. And if you're not a grunt, you should at least learn how to hike like one. Why? For bragging rights. It's all we've got, Marines — everyone else has funding.

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Packing

The very first thing you should do is figure out how to pack the gear list in a way that doesn't resemble a gypsy wagon. Now, I don't know what kind of gateway-to-Narnia bags they're using in the S3 to fit all this garbage, but you're going to have to find a way to make it work.

Pack the heaviest things in the bottom center and fill any empty space with smaller objects. Repeat this process, layer after layer, until you reach the top. Putting the heaviest things on the bottom allows you to maintain a more comfortable center of gravity — your pack should swing with you not against you.

Remember: Pack your socks last and nearest to the top.

Hydration

You'll often hear people citing some study that claims the human body can re-hydrate within 45 minutes. Well, go tell those people to find you a box of grid squares because you don't need that negativity in your life.

Before your hike, take a minimum of two days to drink two gallons of water and a Pedialyte. Yes, you read that right: Pedialyte. Baby Gatorade. While you're at it, put two additional bottles of Pedialyte in your bag. You'll thank me later.

Food and snacks

The day before a hike, you should carb load, just like a marathon runner. This will ensure you have enough energy for the journey and a strong finish.

Runner's World has an in-depth guide on how to carb load properly and I highly recommend reading it. Bear in mind that you will have to make some changes to fit the task, but the overall strategy is pretty solid.

Pack some snacks that can be eaten with one hand and are biodegradable. Fruits, such as apples and bananas, are perfect. They're easy to eat and you can toss the core/peel into the woods. You're nourishing the earth before we scorch it later!

A legendary Marine Corps sniper who earned the Silver Star during the first battle of Fallujah, Iraq, has a warning for the Corps: Snipers are integral to the urban battle and the Marine Corps needs to adequately address its shortage of deadly marksmen.

Ethan Place was a corporal in April 2004 when he found himself perched as a sniper on a rooftop in Fallujah, staring through scope of his M40A3 rifle and scanning the long urban alleys of the Iraqi city looking for insurgents seeking to harm his fellow Marines clearing the city below.

“Urban terrain for snipers is a dream world for shooting positions and angles, the ability to hide and move,” Place told Marine Corps Times in an interview.

As Marines clawed their way through the city street by street and house to house, ­snipers like Place provided overwatch from above, pushing enemy insurgents further and further away from their comrades with long range precision fires.

“We were able to push the enemy ­completely back and also limit their range and their movement as well,” Place said. “They didn’t understand how far we could shoot.”

And while insurgents were kept at bay by precision shots, Marine snipers had freedom of movement on Fallujah’s rooftops, knocking out loopholes, or moving through connected houses and blown holes in the walls of the tightly connected old city.

For snipers and their spotters, it was “very easy to move back and forth,” Place said. We’d “shoot from one hide and move to another.”

The first battle for Fallujah, known as ­Operation Vigilant Resolve, would earn Place the nation’s third highest award for combat bravery. He would leave Iraq with 32 confirmed kills as a scout sniper with 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines.

The lessons learned from the Corps’ fight in Fallujah have not been lost.

But the Corps is reeling from a shortage of its professional marksmen — and it’s one that could impact the Corps’ ability to fight and navigate in future dense urban environments.

Manning its mission

High attrition rates and poor attendance numbers at the Corps’ 79-day Scout Sniper Basic Course is challenging the Corps to keep its sniper platoons adequately manned to carry out its mission.

From 2013 to June 2018 the Corps only has managed to pop out 226 snipers.

In 2017 only 42 students attended the sniper course and as of June 2018 only 77 Marines have attended. The numbers are below the nearly 100 Marines averaged in previous years back to 2013. Marine Corps Times does not have the final 2018 ­attendance numbers.

And the 14 sniper graduates as of June 2018 is on track to be one of the lowest numbers of snipers to successfully navigate the rigorous course since 22 graduated in 2017. Only 29 made it through in 2014.

The Corps typically has 300 scout snipers, Caylen Wojcik, a former Marine sniper who left the Corps in 2005, told Marine Corps Times.

But, the Corps says it only has 150 sergeants and below holding the coveted 0317 scout sniper job field.

“The advanced decision-making, infantry and marksmanship skills necessary to attain this qualification make the Marine Scout Sniper Course one of the most ­challenging schools in the Marine Corps,” Capt. ­Karoline Foote, a Marine spokeswoman, told Marine Corps Times.

However, the Corps argues that it has “­sufficient inventory of scout snipers to consistently meet its operational requirements and accomplish its mission,” Foote added.

While the Corps has “sufficient inventory” to meet today’s operational requirements, the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert B. Neller recently rejected a proposal to grow the Corps’ sniper platoons by eight Marines.

That recommendation was borne out of a series of experimental exercises known as Sea Dragon, which tested infantry Marines with new kit and various squad configurations in an effort to help modernize the force.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory recommended to Neller that the sniper platoons should grow based on lessons learned from recent major urban fights overseas.

A sniper’s ability to navigate across complex urban and human terrain was highlighted in recent major urban fights like Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, as partner forces cleared the urban strongholds from ISIS militants.

In the fight to liberate to Mosul, ISIS snipers bogged down Iraqi fighters, slowing down the assault to liberate the city from the militants, with persistent harassing sniper fire, according to Alexander Mello, a researcher who ­co-authored a study on the defense of the city for the Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel at West Point.

Sometimes it was “one or two snipers holding up the advance of an entire column,” Mello said.

With limited counter-sniper capability, “You’d get a bunch of airstrikes to take out one guy in a single building,” leading to far greater destruction of the city and added risk of civilian casualties, Mello said.

That also aided ISIS in its ability to control information operations and push propaganda efforts during the siege of the populous urban stronghold.

ISIS snipers also enjoyed freedom of movement, traveling between holes in the walls of connected houses.

Those skill sets will be key for the Corps as it faces down the growing possibility of a major urban engagement in a future bout with peer and near-peer rivals.

Neller has said his decision to not grow the sniper ­platoons was one of “quality over quantity.”

“My concern is I’d rather have eight really good highly qualified snipers,” Neller said at a media roundtable event in October. “Our ability to try and get people through that training curriculum is always a challenge.”

However, the top Marine said that infantry ­Marines will continue to have long range precision fires ­embedded in every squad. A Marine carrying the M38 rifle, a designated marksmen version of the M27 IAR, will bear that responsibility.

But undermanning in the sniper platoons has been a consistent theme, Place said.

When Place was serving, he said there were usually 10 hogs, hunters of gunmen, per platoon. But he said that he’s heard grumblings that those numbers are as low as one to two hogs per platoon.

Sniper platoons generally consist of hogs, snipers who have been through the formal training, and pigs, professionally instructed gunmen who are still ­undergoing on-the-job training.

The right ratio between the two is key to ensuring proper training and the ability for the platoons to maintain their craft. With few hogs in the platoon, it is difficult to properly train.

“The Marine Corps’ goal is for each infantry ­battalion to deploy with at least six scout snipers,” Foote said. “Individual battalions are responsible for the management and the employment of their ­respective 0317 inventories.”

Some of the issues in the sniper community could be cleared up by turning the sniper field into a primary military occupational specialty, or MOS. It’s currently an additional MOS, Place said.

A primary job field for the sniper community would help formalize training, a career track and ensure the field is adequately funded, he said. Other snipers in the community have echoed that concern with Marine Corps Times.

The Corps says it has reviewed that option.

“The Marine Corps has recently considered designating the scout sniper MOS as an entry-level PMOS and determined that retaining it under the current model as a BMOS is the best option at this time for meeting manpower and billet requirements for this important skill set,” Foote said.

The Corps says it routinely reviews training and curriculum at the sniper school house and changes in sniper training could be made if new ­operational demands are made or changes in concepts of ­employment occur.

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The Corps already controls an array of small tactical drones like the RQ-21 Blackjack, but it lacks the institutional knowledge to operate larger drones, such as the MQ-9 Reaper.

But a small group of Marines with Task Force Southwest, operating out of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, now have MQ-9 Reaper support organic to the unit, according to Capt. John Roberts, a spokesman for Task Force Southwest.

While the MQ-9 currently is being piloted by contractors, the Corps says the goal is for Marines to eventually pilot the Reapers on their own.

It’s a mission the Corps is not accustomed to, as piloting large group five drones like the Reaper generally falls under the purview of the Air Force. But it serves as a testing case for the Corps’ ability to manage its future mega MUX drone, still in the early stages of research and development.

“Being able to deploy and master techniques in areas like Helmand province ensures the Marine Corps will maintain its role as a crisis response force, always ready to respond to the most advance enemy forces, regardless of location,” Roberts said. “As the threat of near-peer and peer-level enemies continues to grow, our efforts here will ensure we stay ahead of potential enemies and are prepared for any future conflicts that might arise.”

While the Corps doesn’t have a program of record for the Reaper, in June the Defense Department announced a nearly $40 million-dollar award to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. to provide unmanned aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support using an unarmed contractor owned MQ-9 for Task Force Southwest.

The Corps’ contractor flown Reaper has been supporting Task Force Southwest since at least the last iteration, according to Roberts. The small group of Marine advisers is currently in its third rotation having just taken the helm of the Helmand battle field at the end of October.

The Corps' goal to pilot its own Reapers is the latest development spotlighting the Marines' growing reliance on unmanned systems as it operates in austere environments across the globe.

The Corps is also amid testing of controlling 15 loitering munition drones from a single user and so far, the Marines have successfully operated six at a single time.

And in July, the Corps made a step forward in its transition to the RQ-21 Blackjack as the RQ-7B Shadow made its last flight in Hawaii. The Corps intends to equip the RQ-21 with electronic warfare capabilities giving grunts down range added lethality.

The RQ-7B Shadow has been in the Corps’ inventory for nearly a decade, racking up deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and supporting recent operations against ISIS militants in the Philippines.

And the Corps is still in the early stages of procuring a future group five drone known as the MUX. The Corps wants its future sea drone to do everything from electronic warfare, kinetic strike, communications relay, airborne early warning and intelligence collection.

The Corps sees its new MUX drone as the key to operating independent from the Navy’s aircraft carrier strike groups. The MUX’s expected airborne warning system will fill the void of the Navy’s E-2D Hawkeye, but the Corps is not likely to have a fully operational platform until sometime in 2030.

The Corps’ MQ-9 in Afghanistan is part of the early preliminary stages for the Corps to eventually manage and fly a large drone in a combat environment.

“Task Force Southwest, and the mission in Afghanistan, also serves as a testing ground for new tactics and employment of key capabilities for our Marines,” Roberts explained. “The Marines deployed with us will return to the operating forces with tangible combat experience in the employment of ISR, fires, and security that will improve the readiness of the Marine Corps as a whole.”

The Reaper also brings necessary intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities to the small group of Marine advisers as the situation in Afghanistan continues to worsen.

According to a recent report from the government watchdog group Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, the Afghan government only controls about 55% of its districts, the lowest level since SIGAR began reporting the figure in 2015.

Conditions in Helmand appear to remain in a stalemate as district control between Taliban militants and government forces has remained unchanged over the last three quarters, according to SIGAR. Nine of 14 districts in Helmand are controlled or influenced by militants.

The New York Times reported that nearly 28,000 Afghan forces have been killed since 2015.

While many places across Afghanistan were mired in violence during the October parliamentary elections, Roberts told Marine Corps Times that voter participation in Helmand was higher than expected.

That was in part due to efforts by the previous two Task Force Southwest deployments that helped expand the security bubble around the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

“The Taliban were kept out of the cities and the violence stayed on the periphery of the security belt,” Roberts said.

“Our focus remains on training and advising the ANA and ANP at the Corps, Zone, Provincial, and Brigade levels enabling them to continue the Afghan-led, Afghan-owned campaign to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table,” Roberts said.

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ARLINGTON, Va. ― Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller wants his Marines training for large-scale, peer threats.

One way they’ll get that is pitting Marines against elite allies.

The first is coming soon, with a force-on-force battle at the epicenter of the Corps’ air-ground combat focus against British Royal Marines.

For too long, but for good reason, Marine training exercises have focused on counterterrorism or counterinsurgency adversaries. While those opponents present their own threats, they can’t match the firepower of a Russian or Chinese force, which is where larger US military strategy is shifting.

And past training leaves gaps in everything from complex electronic signals masking and detection to old-fashioned foxhole digging.

While there are major funding efforts buying complex new technologies and improving everything from boots to body armor to advanced robot mules and drones, some solutions are more primitive.

“We’ve got to train. Training is probably the cheapest thing we do,” Neller said. “Just going to the field and living on the ground. No (Forward Operating Base), no chow hall, no email, no phone. Just rain.”

Speaking to a banquet hall of 400 attendees at the annual Marine Corps Association and Foundation Ground Dinner Thursday, Neller noted that many of the training shifts about to occur are not new, they’re spelled out in the Marine Corps Warfighting Manual and common to those whose service predates 9/11 missions.

“And let’s be frank, after the march up in OIF we got into a stability, counterinsurgency op. we didn’t maneuver, we occupied the same position… didn’t have to move our (command post),” Neller said.

To that point, the four-star sent out a letter on Sept. 26, spelling out new efforts in risk-taking, free-play force-on-force training initiatives, especially at the capstone training events that units rotate to Twentynine Palms, California, at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Training Center.

“The Royal Marines are going to be there this winter, they’re going to be our first (opposing force),” Neller said. "And I’m talking with the Canadians to see if they’ll come down and fight us.”

“And then I’m sure the Army would love to come over and get a piece,” he said.

The free play nature of how Neller sees this will benefit warfighting, expose weak points and get exercises off script.

Some units and career commanders will get their first taste of planning for enemy air assets, indirect fire, electronic jamming, impact on networks — true peer capabilities threats.

It will also force unit commanders and Marines at every level return to basic fieldcraft skills, from camouflage netting to setting security and running patrols, feeding themselves and conducting their own resupply.

And, Neller emphasized, the move encourages unit leaders to not be afraid to fail.

“We need to give leaders opportunities to get out there and make decisions, and if they make mistakes out there, that’s fine,” he said. “We need to have people feel the effects of failing against a peer.”

Some of this more freewheeling OPFOR work has begun.

Neller pointed out work done by Lt. Col. Daniel Schmitt who developed an advanced OPFOR for the recent Sea Dragon 2025 experiment campaign, which included his former unit, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment.

Much of the work in building an effective OPFOR and finding the right ways to test unit readiness involves more than simply allowing training adversaries to go “off script.”

In January, the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab partnered with a Pentagon security technology accelerator known as MD5 to create an “adaptive threat force.”

“Through this agreement, MD5 will create experimental security threats to the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory to test the lab’s readiness when it comes to future security threats,” said Morgan Plummer, Director of MD5, in a release. “This work is not only critical to test the lab’s preparedness in the event of security threats, but also mimics the dedication and innovation of the foes to our national security.”

Schmitt said that when adversaries have successes, it’s often by using unexpected moves. By using MD5 to find novel ways to probe MCWL assumptions, they hope to improve warfighting capabilities.

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In the summer of 2017, the 1st Marine Division ­commander, then-Maj. Gen. Eric Smith was on a warpath to stamp out hazing across the storied unit.

The crusade against hazing would see nearly 30 Marines confined to the brig and at least 18 ­administratively separated.

His controversial tactics were rebuked by the United States Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals in February in the case of Sgt. Jamie Ortiz, who was accused of hazing five junior Marine and assaulting two others.

“A reasonable observer would conclude that the [Convening Authority]’s ego is closely connected to the offense, and thus he has a personal interest in the matter,” the judge said.

Ortiz eventually would win his battle against the Marine Corps at the end of August after he was ­retained following an administrative separation board.

While Smith has received much criticism for his heavy-handed tactics, the two-star general who had assumed command of the 1st Marine Division in June 2017 was waging a battle against what appears to be a seriously entrenched culture of hazing across the unit.

Command investigations into allegations of hazing obtained by Marine Corps Times spanning from 2015-2018 via a Freedom of Information Act Request show cases of alleged physical assaults, forced alcohol consumption, broken personal belongings, shaved heads for not earning “the right to have hair” and even forced planks over a container of bleach.

In some ­instances, it may have pushed some Marines to ­contemplate suicide, the investigations show.

From 2016 to 2018, the 1st Marine Division has had nearly 101 investigations of hazing. In 2015, the unit had experienced just over a dozen allegations of hazing, but that figure would spike to 26 cases in 2016, and nearly double to 49 in 2017.

The units across the division with the most ­hazing allegations have tended to be those with high ­operations tempos and deployments.

The Corps’ famed 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, also nicknamed “Darkhorse,” kicked off an internal investigation in 2017 into its own command climate following six investigations of hazing across the unit, which spanned from 2015 to 2017.

Darkhorse investigated four of those allegations alone in 2016, with three of those cases being substantiated.

According to Darkhorse’s internal investigation, the 1st Marine Division would have at least one ­hazing allegation in every unit across the entire division that year.

In 2017, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines had investigated at least four allegations of hazing. And 2nd Battalion 5th Marines had nearly five hazing cases.

Smith’s frustrations with the hazing had boiled over into an email that he sent to command staff on July 12, 2017, which was detailed in an appeals court decision in February.

“[T]he Marine Corps owns the barracks, not a few salty LCpls who probably can’t fight their way out of a wet paper sack. We’re the [1st MarDiv], victors at Guadalcanal, and we’re reduced to dealing with jackassery from a few LCpls who think they are in charge. That will be proven wrong asap. We have 12 dead Marines in a KC-130 crash . . . and these few LCpls who haze can’t even pay them the respect our ­Commandant has asked for,” Smith had said in the email.

The 'senior lance corporal'

Many of the cases reviewed by Marine Corps Times paint a disturbing picture of Marine ­noncommissioned officers, or NCOs, and lance ­corporals in junior ­leadership positions run amuck.

A 2017 investigation by 2nd Battalion 7th Marines stated that “there is a culture that exists within the battalion, or possible the infantry community or Marine Corps-wide, that contributes to an environment in which hazing may occur. The culture is the perception of the ‘senior-lance corporal’ as a distinct and separate rank.”

Cases at times involved drunk Marines tearing through the barracks late at night during room ­cleanliness inspections, tossing rooms, assaulting Marines, forcing them to conduct physical fitness or consume alcohol, and in some cases breaking personal belongings of junior Marines.

Some room inspections, and what some Marines would describe as punitive corrective measures, ­occurred at abnormal times after midnight.

In an incident involving 3/5 in March 2015, a ­Marine allegedly was taunted by at least four other Marines and derided as weak during a room inspection. During a re-inspection around ­midnight, the Marine conducting the room ­inspection ­allegedly continued to berate the other Marine and “­proceeded to choke slam” him, a command ­investigation detailed.

In another investigation into 3/5, Marines allegedly were woken up at 4:30 a.m. for several days following a room inspection where a Marine conducting the inspection allegedly “threw trash” and was “verbally abusive,” the investigation said.

In that same investigation, a Marine allegedly was thrown into concertina wire during a Marine Corps Combat Readiness Evaluation exercise.

On Jan. 27, 2016, some Marines with 2/5 ­allegedly made five E-2s clean their rooms from 8 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. while also doing pushups and wall sits, a command investigation detailed. One of the Marines allegedly passed out from exhaustion as a result.

Another Marine allegedly was kicked, kneed in the side, forced to do pushups, and squat another fire team members over “improperly rolled sleeves,” according to a July 2016 investigation by 3/1.

Hazing across the division was so severe at times that in one case a Marine claimed it caused him to go absent without leave, or AWOL, for nearly a year. And in some instances, it may have pushed others to contemplate suicide.

In January 2016, the command of 5th Battalion, 11th Marines were made aware of a Marine who had turned himself to authorities at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, after being AWOL since April 27, 2015.

He had told authorities he partially had gone AWOL because of hazing at his unit and a ­drug-related incident involving his brother.

The unit launched a preliminary investigation into the Marine’s claims, which included multiple ­allegations of hazing against an NCO and other Marines in his section, that appeared to highlight a pattern of mistreatment.

An NCO in the unit allegedly made the Marine sprint back and forth to fill up his camelback. When it wasn’t done fast enough, the water was dumped out. The Marine claimed he was forced to conduct field day or clean his room until 2 a.m. on multiple occasions.

The Marine also alleged being forced to conduct physical fitness and made to clean the barracks several times during the weekend.

On Sept. 22, 2015, an anonymous letter from El Paso, Texas, was sent to the command of 2/4 ­warning that Marines might commit suicide and telling the command to look for junior Marines with shaved heads.

The command launched an investigation and during an interview with one Marine the Marine told the command he allegedly was ordered to shave his head because he “did not earn the right to have hair,” one command investigation read.

From Dec 2016 to Jan. 2017, a Marine at ­Twentynine Palms, California, was accused of forcing Marines to conduct a plank with their chests or sternum on a Kevlar helmet, according to an investigation.

One of those Marines was alleged to have been forced to plank over a container of bleach to make the experience “more painful,” the investigation detailed.

The accused Marine also was alleged to have trashed another Marine’s room during a field day inspection by “throwing his mattress on the floor, tipping over furniture, dumping dip spit, laundry detergent, body wash, protein powder, vitamin supplements, and the contents of a mop bucket on his floor,” a command investigation said.

The same Marine was also accused by two others of placing a noose around the neck of another service member and tugging on it in July 2016.

The Marine was further accused of using ­racial slurs against black and Hispanic ­Marines, using Marines for personal servitude, and ­forcing ­someone to do nearly 400 pushups in the ­duty-hut, according to the investigation.

The examples are just a handful of more than 100 cases over a four-year period that detail alleged abuses by NCOs and Marines in junior leadership positions across the 1st Marine Division.

Other cases involve “pinning ceremonies,” where newly promoted Marines have their chevrons jammed into their collar bones, or various unit initiation rituals.

The Corps has a strict policy against policy detailed and recently updated in its newly approved ­­Prohibited Activities and Conduct policy.

“Any conduct whereby a Service member or DOD employee knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally and without proper authority but with a nexus to military service causes a Service member or members, regardless of Service or rank, to suffer physically or psychologically or be exposed to any activity which is cruel, abusive, humiliating, oppressive, demeaning, harmful, or creates a risk of physical or psychological injury,” the PAC order says.

That also can include psychological or verbal abuse through online communications or social media.

“Hazing is a violation of military law and is prejudicial to good order and discipline,” Capt. Paul Gainey, a spokesman with the 1st Marine Division, told Marine Corps Times. “It threatens the strength of our small units and directly impacts our combat readiness. Hazing is not acceptable in the 1st Marine ­Division — any allegation of hazing will be ­investigated and adjudicated appropriately.”

While Smith’s crusade against hazing threw Marines in the brig and administratively ­separated some of the offenders, other units across the division experimented with unique ways to stymie potential hazing.

A common connection across hazing incidents ­spotlighted a consistent theme of deployed or ­experienced Marines versus new joins who had yet to deploy.

In its internal investigation into hazing and command climate, 3/5 decided to implement a new policy whereby new joins would report to a headquarters company for ten days, to separate them from Marines who have deployment or experience, or who may have just returned from a deployment.

The new joins are then assigned a battle buddy and a staff NCO as a mentor in their new future platoon. The Marines of Darkhorse contend that the command climate has since improved.

The Marines with 2/7 instituted a similar policy by creating reception platoons and housing new join Marines in a separate barracks from the rest of the Marines of the unit to help mitigate potential hazing incidents.

Smith has received a lot of pushback for his efforts to eliminate hazing in the 1st Marine Division, but some of those efforts may be paying off. So far in 2018, there have only been 26 cases of hazing, a figure that is down. However, that figure does not represent cases yet to be completed.

Smith has since pinned on a third star and is now the commander of III Marine Expeditionary Force.

“The 1st Marine Division is committed to ensuring that no Marine or Sailor is mistreated or hazed.

Every Marine and Sailor in the Marine Corps ­conducts annual training to understand what ­constitutes hazing and proper procedures to prevent or report hazing,” Gainey said.

SEE ALSO: The Marines want to prepare to fight a peer rival, and they're going to start by training against the British

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NOW WATCH: Step aboard the USS Kearsarge, the US Navy workhorse that takes Marines to war

The US military has long complained about the penetration capabilities of 5.56 mm ammunition, and now the Navy and the Corps are looking to remedy the issue with a new barrier-penetrating 5.56 round.

On Nov. 20, the DoD announced a $41,181,315 contract award to Federal Cartridge Co. for 5.56 ammunition that can defeat some barriers like auto windshields and doors.

UPI reported that the new round, known as the MK 318 MOD 0 round, was tested by the Corps following complaints about the standard 5.56 ammunition.

Before lawmakers in March, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley complained that the standard 5.56 mm round had trouble penetrating some forms of body armor.

“The 5.56 round, we recognize there is a type of body armor it does not penetrate, and adversarial states are selling that stuff on the Internet for about 250 bucks,” Milley said.

SEE ALSO: These photos show why the US Coast Guard's snipers are some of the best in the business

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The USS West Virginia was one of the hardest hit ships at Pearl Harbor but rose from the ashes to destroy Japanese forces in the years after that surprise attack.

On Dec. 7, 1941 the West Virginia was struck by torpedoes launched from a midget sub and immediately began sinking. As it sank, it listed to port and each subsequent torpedo strike hit the ship further and further up its hull. The damage was so severe that the salvage officer said, “The damage on the port side … is so extensive as to beggar description.”

At least seven torpedoes struck the ship and two bombs pierced the outer hull but failed to detonate. Knowing West Virginia was going down, the captain and crew counter-flooded the starboard side of the ship so that is would go down on its keel instead of capsizing. An oil fire raged through the ship for the next 30 hours, buckling the metal.

The captain and many of the crew died during the attack. Capt. Mervyn S. Bennion received a posthumous Medal of Honor for saving the ship while he lay dying from shrapnel that pierced his abdomen.

One of the men who carried the dying captain from the fight was Navy Cook Dorie Miller who then returned to the fight. He noticed an unmanned .50-cal. machine gun and used it to destroy three or four Japanese planes that were still attacking the ships. He became the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross.

Recovery of the West Virginia was a long process. Patches of concrete and wood were used to plug the damage and the ship was sent to Washington State for a full repair. Entire decks and much of the armor belt had to be replaced. When the work was completed in late 1944, the West Virginia was a state of the art battleship, more capable than it had ever been.

The crew wasted no time in getting her back into the fight to achieve vengeance. The ship returned to Pear Harbor, fueled, and rushed into the Pacific War.

West Virginia pounded Japanese positions on Leyte during the Army’s Oct. 17 invasion of the Japanese-held Philippines. After nearly a week of their army getting destroyed by the American bombardment and infantry, the Japanese navy finally arrived in force and the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.

On the night of Oct. 24, West Virginia and three other battleships resurrected after Pearl Harbor spotted four Japanese ships approaching the Philippines. The Americans got the jump on them, sinking two battleships and a cruiser in a nighttime firefight. It was the last time opposing battleships fired on each other in combat.

SEE ALSO: 75 years ago, US bombers flew into the 'most violent, savagely fought, and bloodiest' battle of their campaign to halt the Nazi war machine

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• As the year is almost over, Business Insider rounded up some of the best US Marine photos of 2018. 
• The photos below show Marines fighting fires, drinking snake blood, firing artillery in Syria, and more. 

As always, US Marines were busy in 2018. 

Marines deployed to countries such as Afghanistan and Syria. They took part in exercises such as Trident Juncture in Norway and Iceland and Cobra Gold in Thailand. One Marine veteran even received the Medal of Honor. 

With 2018 coming to a close, we rounded up 15 of the best Marine photos taken this year to highlight their duties and actions. 

Take a look. 

SEE ALSO: The 27 most powerful images of the US military in 2018

US Marine firefighters and Royal Thai firefighters work together to put out a simulated aircraft fire during Exercise Cobra Gold 2018 in Thailand in February 2018.

Marines play a game of bulldog to keep warm in the harsh weather during exercise White Claymore in Bardufoss, Norway on Feb. 7, 2018.

Read more about what Marines are doing in Norway here. 

U.S. Marines hike to a cold-weather training site in Iceland during Exercise Trident Juncture 18 on Oct. 19, 2018.

Read more about that story here. 

I’d missed several recent issues of the Marine Corps Gazette, so read them in a bunch when four recently arrived in the mail.

When I did, I impressed by how willing the editors are to run tough criticism of today’s Marine Corps.

Some examples:

• In the October issue, Maj. Stanley Bednar asks what the hell has happened to Marine Corps leadership. “Leadership relief has taken a darker turn over the past 17 years of my experience,” he reports. He says he sees more commanders being relieved of “the abuse of power.”
• In the same issue, Capt. Brent Kreckman asks, “Simply put, if the Marines take CAS [close air support] seriously, why can’t HQMC take our CAS platforms seriously?” Kreckman, a forward air controller with the 1st Battalion of the 5th Marines, wants the Corps to consider turboprop alternatives to the F-35, such as the A-29 Super Tucano and the AT-6 Wolverine. Yes, I know, others will say that turboprops can’t survive over today’s battlefield, or that UAVs would be better for the job. But right now the Marines look kind of SOL on CAS. (Speaking of Marine aviation issues, if the V-22 is so good, why isn’t anyone else but AFSOC adopting it?)
• A few pages later, Maj. Jonathan George, an electronic warfare specialist, offers that “the United States Marine Corps is woefully unprepared for conflict in a spectrum-degraded environment, and we lack the capability to conduct electronic warfare (EW) in any significant way.”
• Over my banh mi taco (good) the other day, I read an article in the September issue by Capt. Christopher Denzel, a cyberplanner and air intelligence and weapons officer, that scrutinizes Marine air intelligence operations—or the lack of them. He concludes that, “The success of air intelligence shops is ‘personality driven,’ to use a military euphemism for ‘some people are just bad at their jobs.’”
• By the time I had moved on to the pastor taco (also very good), I was reading Lt. Col. Antonio Borrego’s September commentary on the failure of officers to file fitness reports in a timely manner. “The simple fact is that we are late nearly 50 percent of the time.”
• Back to aviation. In the August issue, Lt. Col. Jack Ramthun reviews the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and concludes that it “fell victim to two key decision mistakes early in its development: the joint approach with diverse requirements and concurrency with unproven technologies. The significant negative consequences from these mistakes include schedule delays stretching greater than five years, program costs more than doubling from original estimates, and decreasing legacy tactical aviation readiness.” Colonel Ramthun likens the design of the F-35 to someone trying to make footwear that could at once be running shoes, sandals, dress shoes, and hiking boots. (My friend retired Marine Col. T.X. Hammes, looking at the short legs of the F-35 and at the drone-rich 21st century military environment, comments, “It’s as if in 1940 we doubled down on battleships instead of carriers.”)
• Well, one might think, maybe the Marines are focusing all their attention on the basics of infantry. Not so fast! The December issue arrived, and in it, three captains inform us that, “The bottom line is that we are failing to properly man, train and equip the nation’s small unit close combat leaders and units.” Oh well.

I can only imagine the commandant sitting down to read the Gazette in his easy chair one evening and having his hair standing on end after reading an article or two. He might think he could relax when he got to Col. Jonathan Dunne’s article recommending that Marines prepare for foreign advisory duty by reading Harvard Business Review articles on what makes a good consultant.

But then he’d get to the paragraph in which the colonel states that “Arguably, we do not do enough to help advisors-in-training to understand or appropriately develop specific elements of their character, creativity, and communications so as to be best prepared to advise a foreign partner.”

(Only one stinker was an odd sentence, on page 65 of the December issue, in which Brig. Gen. Kevin Stewart states that “having a spouse who works full-time does provide me with a unique perspective.”

That stopped me. How is that “unique”? Two full-time jobs are the case for close to half of all American families. (Perhaps he meant Marine general officers, for whom I haven’t seen stats.)

Not all of these guys are necessarily right in their criticisms and proposed solutions. Rather, my point is that they are asking hard questions in clear ways, and that is good to see in a professional military journal.

I hereby commend the editors of the Marine Corps Gazette for operating in the highest and finest traditions of professional military journalism.

SEE ALSO: A deadly crash between 2 US Marine Corps aircraft is raising concerns about the service's shockingly high fatality rates

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Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is a legendary and highly quoted Marine general who led the US military for two tumultous years before quitting in protest over differences with President Donald Trump.

In his stunning resignation letter Thursday, the revered retired general rebuked Trump for devaluing America's alliances and not being more clear about American adversaries like Russia.

"My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues," he wrote in the letter.

Mattis, 68, is a seasoned national security leader who spent more than four decades in uniform. He was seen as a institutional leader who moderated many of Trump's impulses, from using armed troops to stop migrants at the US-Mexico border to pulling thousands of troops long-stationed in countries like Germany and South Korea.

Read more: US allies and adversaries are in shock and bracing for an unchecked Trump as Mattis resigns

Mattis is a legendary figure in the US military. Viewed as a warrior among Marines and respected by members of other services, he has been at the forefront of numerous engagements.

If you look back on his storied 44-year career leading Marines in battle, and the many colorful quotes he has given over the years, it's pretty easy to see why.

Read more: Mattis' departure leaves Trump unleashed to to enact his wildest military visions

We've gathered some of Mattis' best sayings, taken from this San Diego Union-Tribune profile (archived with the Wayback Machine) unless otherwise specified.

Geoffrey Ingersoll contributed reporting on a previous version of this article.

SEE ALSO: Legendary Marine Gen. James Mattis may be tapped to be Trump's defense secretary

"You cannot allow any of your people to avoid the brutal facts. If they start living in a dream world, it's going to be bad."

Mattis has often talked to Marine leaders about staying sharp.

The "dream world" he mentioned is a reference to a complacent attitude, and it's one that can cost lives if troops aren't vigilant.

"If in order to kill the enemy you have to kill an innocent, don't take the shot. Don't create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act."

As a coauthor of the military's counterinsurgency manual (with retired Army Gen. David Petraeus), Mattis has often spoken about following the rules of engagement and being disciplined against a ruthless enemy.

"I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you f--- with me, I'll kill you all."

After the initial Iraq invasion, "Chaos" (his radio call sign) sent home his tanks and artillery and used the "carrot and the stick" with Iraqi tribal leaders.

• Marine rifle squads have received upgraded night-vision goggles, making them much more deadly in the dark.
• Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina received the Squad Binocular Night Vision Goggles, an improvement over older monocular systems, last month, according to the Marine Corps.
• "The lethality that it'll bring is exponential," one Marine said, as the new goggles offer better depth perception, situational awareness, and operating speed.

Marine rifle squads are getting their hands on upgraded night-vision goggles, which are expected to offer "exponential" increases in lethality, the Marine Corps revealed in a statement.

The new helmet-mounted night-vision system the Marines are receiving is the Squad Binocular Night Vision Goggles.

"It's a little bit lighter than the current system, and gives Marines better depth perception when they are performing movements," Joe Blackstone, the head of the optics team at Marine Corps Systems Command, said.

Marines first began taking delivery of the new equipment at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina last month. The infantry has been training with the goggles, learning how to operate and maintain the new night-vision devices.

Read more: Soldiers will soon be much more deadly with new night vision that lets them shoot around corners and fire accurately from the hip

The binocular goggles are expected to make the Marines deadlier in the dark because they offer far more benefits than the monocular devices. "The lethality that it'll bring is exponential," Cpl. Zachary Zapata, one of the Marines who participated in the recent training, said.

"With these new [binocular night-vision goggles], having the ability to not only use thermal optics along with it, but just the entire depth perception and speed that we can operate in is going to significantly increase, as opposed to what we were able to do in the past," he added.

Watch the new binocular night-vision goggles in action:

While only the Marine Rifle Squad has received the new night-vision goggles, the plan is to eventually deliver this technology to the entire ground combat element. "This program office is committed to bolstering the combat lethality, survivability, resilience and readiness of the GCE," program officials said.

The Marines are working with the Army on next-level night vision.

Army soldiers are expected to begin receiving the L3-made Enhanced Night Vision Goggles III, which feature advancements in low-light optics, thermal vision, and image intensification, this year.

Together with a new integrated weapon sight being developed by BAE Systems, soldiers will eventually be able to shoot from the hip and around corners. Ground forces will be able to "rapidly acquire and engage targets in all light levels and conditions," BAE Systems representatives told Business Insider last fall.

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Marines will test new ways to take out far-flung targets from Navy ships and ashore during the next phase of a years-long experiment meant to prep leathernecks for the future fight.

Long-range precision fires and command-and-control will be the focus of the next iteration of Sea Dragon 2025, Lt. Gen. David Berger, head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told Military.com on Thursday. The shift marks the third phase of a series of experiments — first on infantry units and then on logistics — that Marines have carried out in preparation for a high-tech fight against a near-peer enemy.

"We spent two years working on logistics and met last week to kind of wrap that up," Berger said. "Going forward will be a heavy dose of command-and-control and precision long-range fires."

Investment and training in long-range precision fires has been a focus in recent years. Last year, the Marine Corps more than doubled the amount of money it spent on its high-mobility artillery rocket systems, or HIMARS, from $60 million to $134 million.

Commandant Gen. Robert Neller also said in a 2016 operating concept document that Marines at the small-unit level would need long-range precision-fires capabilities as the maritime environment becomes more contested.

"The deep-water ports and high-throughput airfields we once relied upon are also increasingly vulnerable to attacks with long-range fires," Neller wrote. "These challenges will only grow as competitors pursue concepts for holding our forces at bay at greater distances and denying our ability to maneuver in both littoral and landward areas."

Berger said the hope is that Marines will practice taking out mock-targets from aboard amphibious assault ships as part of the Sea Dragon experiment. Ideally, he added, while speaking on Capitol Hill during the annual Navy Amphibious Warship Congressional Forum, the same system used at sea could also be easily moved to land.

"If you're going to control a region and you have an amphibious fleet," he told lawmakers, industry leaders and other guests at the forum, "then we're going to need long-range fires to take out maritime targets using sea-based or shore-based platforms."

The Marines have used HIMARS — a C-5 transportable, wheeled, indirect fire, rocket/missile system — on land and aboard an amphibious assault ship.

The Corps, Berger added, is also looking at ways to use unmanned aircraft or surface vehicles "to look for and kill things in the maritime domain."

"The pieces are there — the air pieces are there and the surface pieces are there," he said. "The magic is combining it all together ... [but] it's all there and proven to be doable."

Unmanned technology such as robots and drones played a significant part in the experimentation infantry and logistics units carried out during previous phases of Sea Dragon 2025. The infantry Marines used drones to collect surveillance ahead of patrols. The logisticians used self-driving vehicles to get gear and medical supplies to the fight.

— Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

SEE ALSO: The Marine Corps is strapping armored vehicles to the top of Navy ships to fend off small boats and other threats

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NOW WATCH: Watch the US Marine Corps' F-35 run and gun for the first time

The Battle of Iwo Jima kicked off 74 years ago, on Feb. 19, 1945.

One of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific theater of World War II, the 35-day fight for the desolate island yielded 27 recipients of the Medal of Honor, along with one of the most famous photographs ever taken.

According to the The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal, American military planners thought the battle would only be a few days. Instead, it dragged on for five weeks, at a cost of more than 6,800 American lives. The Japanese lost more than 18,000.

Here’s what the Marine Corps Historical Company wrote about the first day:

"This Day in Marine Corps History. 19 February 1945: At 08:59, one minute ahead of schedule, the first of an eventual 30,000 Marines of the 3rd Marine Division, the 4th Marine Division, and the new 5th Marine Division, making up the V Amphibious Corps, landed on Iwo Jima."

"The initial wave did not come under Japanese fire for some time, as General Kuribayashi’s plan was to wait until the beach was full of the Marines and their equipment. By the evening, the mountain had been cut off from the rest of the island, and 30,000 Marines had landed. About 40,000 more would follow."

SEE ALSO: The Most Iconic Photo Of World War II Is A Reminder Of How Deadly The Battle Of Iwo Jima Really Was

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NOW WATCH: Startling facts about World War II