Hey You!

Vigilia Aeternus (Eternal Vigilance),
Motto of the Marine AT Battalion

There was a checkpoint Charlie
He didn't crack a smile
But it's no laughing party
When you've been on the murder mile
--Oliver's Army, Elvis Costello
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After 10+ years of war, we are still training up and calling Reserve Forces Soldiers to active duty without a 100% certainty of their mission:

Capt. Juan Cristales, the company's inspector/instructor, said right now it's not 100-percent clear what or where the company's mission will be. Cristales is an active-duty officer with real-world deployment experience who has trained this reserve unit for the last two years (Marines say goodbyes before heading to the Middle East).

In the old Army days we used to call this the "Hey You" roster, which meant the First Sergeant would grab whomever, whenever the need arose. These 32 Marines are victims of a cosmic "Hey You!" moment. This is no way to run a war, not even a phony one.

How can a unit train for two years if they do not know their assigned mission until after activation? The military should not operate in this manner. Further, Capt. Cristales is described as having "real-world deployment experience," but is there such a thing as "non real-world deployment experience"? Is there an alternate universe where some Soldiers deploy? Is that the same place Ranger's socks get sucked into when they fail to emerge in matching pairs from the dryer?

A USMC Anti-Terrorism Battalion sounds really cool, but how does this translate into "real world experience"? Has any USMC Anti-Terrorism battalion member ever killed or captured a hard-core al-Qaeda operative? Putting a "IX" and "XI" on a unit crest flanking the Twin Towers does not make it so.

While no hard core terrorist has been apprehended by this unit, assuredly they would function well in an unconventional or guerrilla war (UW/GW) or Counterinsurgency environment. However, neutralizing local threats to Afghanistan and Iraq is not the same as neutralizing Terrorists aimed at The Homeland ™. For this mission, the USMC Anti-Terrorism battalion is an exercise in show, only.

Terrorists are not eliminated by blunt force trauma.