The Corps' Shadow Army Goes on the Offensive

Marine retirees and veterans are beginning a push to rename the Department of the Navy.

...Although the Marine Corps has been a separate service since the National Security Act of 1947, it does not get equal billing with the Navy, Air Force and Army, each of which has a department within the Pentagon named after it.

This month, a few Marine Corps veterans and advocates began an online petition effort to persuade Congress to rename the Department of the Navy. Since the Corps functions within the department but has its own military command structure (the commandant of the Corps is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), its bureaucratic home would become the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps.

These Marines better be careful. The more joint we become, the more the Marines distance themselves from their special mission of supporting naval operations, and the more the Army restructures to be able to react as quickly as the Corps does, the more likely someone will really start asking why America needs two armies.