All Kinds of Craziness

"All kinds of craziness"--something one of my Sergeant Instructors liked to say when I was at Officer Candidate School, and something that certainly applied today. For the past three months, my platoon has been the only platoon in the company based out of Camp Leatherneck; the rest of the company has been based out of a FOB farther south of here. Recently, that changed.

Now, instead of just my platoon plus two additional Marines for company staff, we have most of the company staff, plus another platoon and a half up here, recently arrived by both plane and convoy. So we've essentially tripled the number of people working out of the same 32'x64' office--craziness!

It should be interesting. The company staff and one of the platoons is here to stay; the second platoon is here for a couple missions, and then will probably return to their base. But then they'll be back up for good at some point. Until now my platoon has had the whole building, now the Sergeant's couch they like to relax on is in my office, and the traffic in and out of my office is going to increase exponentially.

I received a question recently asking what sizes platoons and squads were, to better understand what I mean when I say that I only get to send a squad instead of the whole platoon on a mission. The best way to explain it is that the Marine Corps operates (for the most part) on the rule of threes: the optimal number of subordinate units to lead is three. Therefore, a fire team, the smallest maneuver unit, is three Marines plus a fire team leader, for a total of four Marines. Each squad has three fire teams in it, plus a squad leader, for a total of thirteen Marines.

A doctrinal platoon has three squads in it, for a total of thirty-nine Marines. Of course, then you start adding on your platoon staff--doctrinally, a platoon commander, platoon sergeant, and a platoon guide. Your platoon sergeant is your senior enlisted Marine, and handles the day-to-day details of what the platoon does. (Field day tonight, we need two Marines at so-and-so's office for a working party, first squad I need you guys doing X tomorrow, etc.)

Your platoon guide (I have two) is used differently based on what your platoon does. My guides are my construction foreman, responsible for the detailed planning of the missions--these are the construction materials we'll need, the tools we'll need, we're short X and I think we might be able to get it from these people... My last addition to my platoon is our corpsman, aka "doc". So my platoon has a total of 42 enlisted Marines, one sailor, and myself.

Now, in reality, even if I could take the "whole platoon" out on the mission I was talking about in my last post, it would not be the entire platoon. We have out here what we call "camp tax", which basically means that as soon as we got here, I gave up three (recently reduced to two) of my Marines to stand guard on base. I also gave up four Marines to support the company on the southern FOB, and then I have eight Marines that are on an additional security team. When they're not out, technically they belong to me, but I can't do much with them because I have to be ready to give them up at a moment's notice. (For a total of...fourteen Marines that I don't really control.)

So when I say "take the whole platoon out" I really mean only about two squads of Marines. It's a little frustrating to have my platoon reduced so sharply, but I know the guys I've given up for the security team enjoy getting off base, as do the Marines on the FOB down south.

In other notes: (1) I am again reminded of how important communication is. I just spent two days pretty upset over what turned out to be something I heard incorrectly. I'm very glad I finally went and talked to the person. And then: (2) I get to go out again on another recon, or "recce" (pronounced "wreckie"), as the British call it. But, I'll let you in on a little secret. Someone else is the mission commander, so all I have to do is show up and keep my eyes peeled. I don't even have to write the report afterwards. I'll help as much as I can, but...this one will be fun. End of little secret.

Thanks for the e-mails! I hope you are all doing well and look forward to seeing you when I get back.