User:FieldMarine/USMC Portal DYK


 * ... Marine is an old term. As far back as 500 BC, the Greeks carried Marines on triremes; they were used as boarding parties to capture or destroy enemy vessels.
 * ... on June 6, 1918 at the Battle of Belleau Wood in World War I, more Marines were killed in action on that single day (31 officers and 1,056 Marines) than the combined total of the entire history of Marine Corps.
 * ... During World War I, the Marine Corps grew to 75,000, more than seven times it's pre-war size.
 * ... Phil and Don Everly of the music duet The Everly Brothers both served in the Marines.
 * ... Sergeant Faustin E. Wirkus was crowned king of La Gonâve, an Island in Haiti, in 1926 and ruled until his detachment returned home in 1929. As king, Faustin made many reforms on the island and his rule was noted as a "peaceful and flourishing time."
 * ... the term "Leatherneck" for a Marine came from 1798, when the Marine Corps began issuing "one stock of black leather and clasp" to Marines. The band of leather was used to protect the neck when fighting with swords.
 * ... Archibald Henderson, the Grand Old Man of the Marine Corps, established the idea of the Marines as “ready to fight”, however, in his time, fighting units were formed by gathering up Marines from Navy ships and shore stations.
 * ... Until 1900, the size of the Corps had never exceeded 3,000 Marines and had been armed almost entirely with rifles.
 * ... before "Semper Fidelis" became the Marine Corps official motto in 1883, there were three unofficial mottos: "By Sea and by Land," "Fortitudine," and "To the shores of Tripoli."
 * ... Marine Corps pilots are now flying more flight hours per pilot than the U.S. Air Force Pilots. See Marine Corps Times Feb 15, 2018
 * ... Overcoming nerve damage to his hand from the Battle of Iwo Jima, in 1992, Colonel Charles Waterhouse became the only Marine to receive the title "USMC Artist-in-Residence".
 * ... Sergeant Reckless, a war horse for 5th Marines made 51 trips to haul ammo for the recoilless rifle section during Battle for Outpost Vegas of the Korean War and was wounded twice in battle.
 * ... 5th Marines is the only Marine regiment to fight in every major war since World War I and is the most highly decorated regiment in the Marine Corps.
 * ... The Small Wars Manual, published by the Marine Corps in 1940, and still considered a classic in military science, has a chapter dedicated to the supervision of elections.
 * ... Brigadier General Smedley Butler created a monument for Stonewall Jackson’s arm during a training exercise in western Virginia in 1921 after locating it buried in a wooden box.
 * ... Marine Corps film With the Marines at Tarawa won an Oscar in 1944 for Best Documentary Short Subject.
 * ... Marines must earn the title "Marine" by completing bootcamp and do not become Marines upon joining.
 * ... The phrase “a few good men” was used in a recruiting ad for Marines in the Providence Gazette in 1779.
 * ... MajGen William H. Rupertus, author of the Rifleman's Creed, was rejected from the predecessor of U.S. Coast Guard because he failed his physical exam?
 * ... Marines in uniform are not authorized to put their hands in their pockets.
 * ... the rank of Marine “Gunner” is the only Marine Corps rank that requires different insignia on the left and right uniform collars
 * ... even though the Corps is an amphibious force, swim qualification is one of the few annual qualifications that doesn’t count toward a Marine’s promotion to the next rank.
 * ... that the U.S. Marine Corps was formed before the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain. On November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress approved the establishment of two battalions of Marines to fight for independence.
 * ... that the Marine Corps’ first amphibious raid was only weeks after its creation when Marines successfully stormed a British weapons cache in the Bahamas.
 * ... that the he license plate of the Commandant of the Marine Corps reads “1775.”
 * ...that the Marine Corps accounts for approximately 8.5 percent of the military budget of the United States while supplying 31 percent of ground forces, 12 percent of the fixed wing aircraft and 19 percent of the attack helicopters used by the United States Armed Forces?
 * ... that the first American to orbit the earth was a U.S. Marine. In 1962, John Glenn orbited the earth in NASA's Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7
 * ...that on 31 March 1801, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, LtCol William W. Burrows, riding with U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, found "a proper place to fix the Marine Barracks on"" at 8th and I streets in Washington, DC?
 * ... that John A. Lejeune was the first Marine officer to hold an Army divisional command.  On 28 July 1918, Brigadier General Lejeune assumed command of the 2d Division, U.S. Army in France, and remained in that capacity until August 1919 when the unit was demobilized.