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If a service does not have a well-defined strategic concept the public and political leaders will be confused as to the role of the service, uncertain as to the necessity of its existence, and apathetic or hostile to the claims made by the service upon the resource of society. (In other words, if a service does not have a clearly defined “reason for being” it will forfeit its place in national defense, its claim to increasingly scarce resources, and ultimately, its own special identity. Marines don’t worry about their strategic concept—you’ve told us what it is—through your elected officials in Congress.

The above was influenced by US defeats early in the Korean War. In 1950 this concept was as relevant as it is today. Congress also notes that, “In every war engaged in by the United States, Marines have served as a National Force in Readiness.”

And it’s from this Strategic Concept that springs our institutional ethos—an ethos marked by five unique attributes that distinguish the Corps from the other services.

First and foremost, the Corps is the only service tasked by Congress to be able to operate combined arms in three dimensions: air, land, and sea.

The Marine Corps mission has been to be ever-ready to respond to the international brush fires of disaster, emergency, crisis and when necessary, war. The Marine Corps does not win wars, but does play an important part whenever our nation commits itself to war. But winning war is the primary responsibility of the Army, Air Force, and the Navy.

Pursuant to our crisis-response role, we have been called “Teufel Hunden”—Devil Dogs—by German defenders at Belleau Wood in World War I, “Faresta”—Sea Angels—by Bangladeshi flood victims in 1991; or simply “Heroes” by Captain Scott O’Grady, the Air Force pilot who was shot down in 1995 and then rescued in the early morning hours from deep inside Bosnia by United States Marines.

Considering the broad range of capabilities that the Marine Corps offers the nation—both as a naval service and as the tip of a joint spear—no other force offers more “bang for the buck .” The Marine Corps organizational costs are among the most cost-effective in the Department of Defense. Right now, 6% of the Defense Budget allotted to the Corps buys 12% of active U.S. forces, 23% of active ground divisions, and 14% of all available tactical aircraft! Consider this to be one of the best kept secrets of the Defense budget.

This broad-based, global-crisis-response capability was exactly what the 82nd Congress had in mind when it legislated the role of the Marine Corps. No other nation on earth possesses the politically and operationally flexible rheostat of national response capabilities offered by marines embarked on Navy shipping.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Marine Corps developed amphibious doctrine, key to winning the war in the Pacific and in western Europe.

In the 1950s the Marine Corps pioneered the use of the helicopter, which revolutionized battlefield tactical mobility and operations.

In the 1970s the Marine Corps pioneered the use of vertical/short-takeoff-and-landing aircraft to provide quick-response, close air support to font-line troops.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Marine Corps introduced global propositioning of equipment on ships, allowing response more quickly to crises around the world.

And at the dawn of the 21st Century, the Marine Corps are ushering in tiltrotor aircraft, advanced amphibious vehicles, and landing craft that will allow the Marine Corps to revolutionize amphibious warfare.

The man who will go where his colors go, without asking, who will fight a phantom foe in jungle and mountain range, without counting, and who will suffer and die in the midst of incredible hardship, without complaint, is still what [such men have] always been, from Imperial Rome to sceptered Britain to democratic America. He is the stuff of which legions are made. His pride is his colors and his regiment, his training hard and thorough and coldly realistic, to fit him for what he must face, and his obedience is to his orders. As a legionary, he held the gates of civilization for the classical world.… He has been called UNITED STATES MARINE.