GANGSTAS IN THE MILITARY

[Geno]

I'm Not Convinced. Could We Not Say the Same of Previous Military Turned Police?

I think that it is as likely that these alleged gang-bangers will abuse their previous military training, as a previous military trained personnel who become a civilian police officers will take us ever closer to a military police state. I don't see life that way.

I do agree that if the military training did not pull them into line, probably nothing else, including jail, ever will. I see the military as the best place for them.

Doc2005

 

[Pilgrim]

Leadership can deal with it, if leadership exists. If not, the gang will prevail.

In 1979 I inherited V-2 division on USS Ranger, the catapult and arresting gear aviation boatswain's mates. There was a gang in the division, motivated by drugs, booze, and getting away with as much as they could.

With the help of the V-2 maintenance officer (CWO3) and the division chief petty officer, I started cleaning up the division and getting rid of these clowns. They were offered the choice of doing their jobs, or going home with a misconduct or bad conduct discharge. I have to admit that when the Navy started randomly testing for drugs it made my job easier.

The ship's XO was upset with me when I didn't recommend half of my E-5s for advancement to E-6, but he accepted it when I showed him that they weren't doing their jobs correctly.

Eventually the sailors in the middle realized that my 'way' was a lot more pleasant than the life of the bums in the division. My 'way' meant privileges, rewards, and advancement.

When I left V-2 at the end of 1980, it was a good division.

 

[ID_shooting]

Never saw any of that crap in the Marines.

Must be an Army thing.. no discipline.

I beg to differ, While in Virginia, we had a platoon of Marines that worked with our unit. Two of them got busted for drug activities with a local gang.

This whole gang in the military thing is nothing new, back in the late 80's by BCT unit was interviewed by the command searching for signs of gang membership.

While in Korea in the early 90's we had a kid, Private Fluid IIRC that would flash his hand signs and was rather proud of a tatoo he had, somthing about 40 acres and a mule, but I never cared enough to listen to him.

Point is, the military is a great place for learning small unit tactics, most every E-4 and every E-5 has had PLDC, how you organize and lead small units is the primary focus. I can see where gang leadership would desire that skillset in thier ranks.

 

[DRZinn]

They understand group loyalty in a way that the squeaky clean ROTC graduates can't.

And that "way" is the gang. If the loyalty is transferred to their military units instead of the gang, so be it, but painting gang symbols on things is a profession of their ongoing loyalty to the gang.

While in Virginia, we had a platoon of Marines that worked with our unit. Two of them got busted for drug activities with a local gang.

So your experience with one platoon of Marines separated from their Marine leadership and working with and under the operational control of another service (you didn't mention which) beats the sum of crazed_ss's time in service and my eight years in the Corps as well? I also never saw any gang activity. None. Ever.

And does "drug activities with a local gang" mean they were part of the gang or just bought drugs from them?

 

[Dannyboy]

So let me get this straight. This statement is OK, based on the article,
"Never saw any of that crap in the Marines.

Must be an Army thing.. no discipline."
but this one isn't?
"While in Virginia, we had a platoon of Marines that worked with our unit. Two of them got busted for drug activities with a local gang."
Sweeping generalizations based on limited data are OK as long as they don't bash the Corps? Hmmm, anyone recall a certain incident at Camp Pendleton that occurred sometime in the 90's? Must be a Marine Corps thing. Never saw any of that in the Army.

 

[DRZinn]

Before you get snarky, Dannyboy, reread what I posted. You have someone who has had extremely limited contact with one small unit of Marines, who were working under another service, compared to my eight years in the Corps and crazed_ss's time as well.

"Must be an Army thing" was a reference to the fact that Marines pride themselves on having much more discipline than the rest of the services. The fact that the platoon in question was outisde of the leadership structure of the Marine Corps when the referenced problem occurred only supports that belief.

I'm not claiming that there are no discipline problems in the Corps, or that there is no drug use in the Corps, or that any Marine unit is better than any Army unit, or anything of the sort. But I believe Marine discipline as a whole is far and above tighter than any of the other services. This is supported by the contact I have had with the Navy, Air Force, and Army.

 

[crazed_ss]

DocZinn.. pretty much sums it up

I was half joking and half serious with that comment. I've heard stories from the Army and other branches that just blow my mind.. 3 of my buddies at work are prior Air-Force and I absolutely cant believe the stuff they tell me. It's like they were in college with uniforms. They refer to barracks as "dorms".

As a general rule the Marines is the most disciplined of all the branches IMO. Granted you have some cut-ups, but the big thing about the Marines is everyone prides themselves on earning the title. There's rarely a pervasive breakdown in discipline. For example, I cant imagine Abu Ghairb happening if the Marine Corps was in charge. I remember reading that Jessica Lynch's convoy was unable to effectively fight back because their weapons were all jammed from being dirty. Marines, even support Marines, would have never had such an issue with weapons not working because they were that dirty.

We had ex-gangbangers and skinheads and everything, but everyone worked together and got along because when it came down to it, we're all "Green".. I cant imagine any Marine having the audacity to spray paint gang graffitti on a piece of equipment.

 

[ID_shooting]

Each branch of service has thier own issues, unfortunately this thread could easily turn south and become an inter-branch bash fest (hence I have taken a while to think about my responce).

Yes, I will agree that the USMC is a much more controlled and diciplined force when compared to the other four services. It also a much smaller force except maybe the USCG.

Due to the size of the Corps, you will notice smaller amounts of bad apples then you will from the Army or the Air Force, additionally, media outlets are much more observant of the traditional forces simply becuase they are more prevelant in theater.

Each branch has thier bad apples, remember the Marines that have been in trouble in Japan recently?

To say that gang activity does not exsist in the USMC is simply wrong, it may be at much smaller numbers, but it is there. Is it at the same percentage? Probably not, but I do not know so I can not say.

The place of my main exposure the the USMC was Ft Lee, VA. There is a permanent Marine Barracks there for USMC personel to learn the finer points of logistics from the Army. 99.9% of there were your typical oustanding examples of a Marine, highly motivated, ever focused, and were a pleasure to have served with. The 1% that were rotten, were absolutley rotten. They were plain thugs, not doubt about it.

I have great respect the USMC as I do all the branches.

 

[DRZinn]

To say that gang activity does not exsist in the USMC is simply wrong, it may be at much smaller numbers, but it is there.

Unfortunately, you're probably right. What I'm getting at is that Marine discipline keeps that kind of BS to a minimum.