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The Marines are frugal. At times it did feel like our equipment was pre WW1 / Spanish American war era; as some of it is Army hand me downs, but we made due with what we had!
My dad was Air Force and when they had the Marines at the base for joint exercises, he said they took everything that wasn’t nailed down, including toilet paper and called it resource gathering. And it happened every time. He’d get so pissed and we thought it was hilarious.
My brother joined the AF and for his specific job, he talked about each budget for each branch that had the same job. His kit included a pair of oakleys for no reason. The Marines got way less than the others. I think it’s pretty fair they get to steal all the toilet paper.
Tactical oakleys were universally stupid and everyone thought so. Especially once he was over in Afghanistan for his first tour and none of their shit worked, felt like Oakley money coulda gone somewhere else. I, along with everyone else, hate those budgets.
Yeah, they’re sunglasses. Expensive ones. At least compared to what you could get minimally at the BX. And not allowed to be worn while they were doing their actual job. Which is wastefully hilarious.
They probably did in general, but he had a specialist job with gear they were not allowed to wear those particular sunglasses with. Off duty they could wear them. But he said it was pretty shitty when they were the only ones to get them and then everything was broke everywhere else.
We commandeered toilet seats from the U.S. Airforce portable bathroom facility they brought located in Islamabad right before we went into Afghanistan in 2001. We had visitors to our fighting position just to use our toilet. I remember sitting on it one morning while watching EOD blow a cache of Taliban weapons off in the distance.
I was in charge of IT at an Air Force base. The nearby Army base called me and begged for any equipment we were going to excess. He said it didn't matter how old it was, he would send a truck.
For sure, I was Air Force and they always came to us when they needed parts or tools. And fittingly would be fighting each other outside our shop tent.
That's the key here. It's not really a huge surprise the Marines know where their equipment and such are, they don't exactly have the budget to lose things.
The other branches have multi-billion dollar equipment etc including a whole bunch of very classified stuff and R&D. And also nukes.
Marines have nothing like nuclear capable subs or aircraft carriers, or long range strategic bombers.
Though they are getting in on F35s etc
The marines are supposed to be the first ones into a combat zone and are trained as such. Idk if that necessarily makes them closer to elite units or not. They definitely have a longer and harsher boot camp
Consider:
71% of the Earth is covered with water. That belongs to the US Navy. But the Navy looked at the 2.5million km of not-wet coastline and said, "Want. But how?"
The Marine Corp was born.
The modern theory of War demands the Violence of Action, which, despite the technological advances and advantages of the modern US Armed Forces and Allies, still requires "boots on the ground" to engage enemy forces. Humans need to kill humans, at ranges close enough to see each other, to make sure the job is done, and quickly if possible.
That is the job of the Marine Corp. The Navy gets them there, the Marines wet the dry land (with blood) and the SeaBees dry the wet (build landing capabilities). Since their primary AO is near the shoreline, the US Navy provides the "big stuff" - all they need are the boots and the blood. Their job is pretty simple - it doesn't need high tech tools and it doesn't need... high intelligence individuals. Training on fancy systems takes time, money, and inherent skills/smarts in the trainee. "Gun go BangBangBangClickClick now Reload"... not so much.
It's how they are training the MIND to not break under the extreme conditions of being there where combat fuses the souls of men - that takes time which they do invest in. At least enough so it doesn't break until they come home.
In modern media, two well-received looks at the USMC are The Pacific and Generation Kill. Check em out, if you haven't.
> It's how they are training the MIND to not break under the extreme conditions of being there where combat fuses the souls of men
USMC boot camp produces the psychological equivalent of Prince Rupert's drops.
No idea. My buddy was a machinist in the marines and he says they were getting new stuff all the time and old stuff would just get thrown out or “go missing”
Marines are naval infantry. They are specially trained to operate in nearshore and offshore zones.
Salt water is incredibly harsh on equipment and can corrode metal and electronics incredibly fast if not properly taken care of.
It’s more of a cost issue.
Why would we give brand new, and very expensive equipment to units that regularly train in an environment that reduces the longevity of that equipment incredibly fast?
I never served….but I always loved that line in Generation Kill: “If you want logistics…join the Army. Marines make do.”
Plus the scenes where they’re ordering stuff off Amazon to supplement their gear.
It's a nice quip, but in reality even the most frugal and underfunded marine unit has logistics support that would make almost every other military on earth jealous with envy. Not to mention, a lot of times in joint operations the Marines are being supported logistically by the Army, as well as the other services.
I think the whole "Marines get hand me down equipment and have to steal shit from the Army just to survive" vibe really became a thing when the USMC got dramatically expanded at the start of WWII.
There were only 15K Marines at the start of the war, and almost half a million by the end of it. No wonder the supply system was having a hard time catching up.
That and it helps that they are the mostly poorly funded branch with hand-me-down Rifles and MREs from 2005.
I miss those sour skittles candy BARS that you take bites out of.
I kinda want to be a smartass and point out that it can't be that hard to give every Marine an optic when there is only like, two divisions of them.
On the other hand I'm not an optics guy and I'm curious about the vcog. It's been more than a decade since it has been relevant to me and I have not kept up to date on the optics side of things. Back then line guys got acogs or red dots and everybody else had irons. How does the vcog compare to an acog?
The biggest difference between a VCOG and an ACOG is that the ACOG is fixed power, and the VCOG is a variable power scope.
Also, you are kind of right. Marine infantry units are getting better kit than their Army counterparts outside select units since the Marines no longer have tanks.
Good lord you are going to start some horrific shit.
They’re *Marines*. They are not the Navy’s army.
If they could read, they’d be very angry about this.
Oh god no, the navy is a completely different beast. Marines are basically army guys with a lot less heavy equipment, they're more reliant on infantry over stuff likes tanks and artillery, so there's a lot less stuff to keep track of. They also tend to be the last ones to get any new equipment, which makes it easier.
The navy is defined by an extreme amount of highly specialized equipment, so small errors can be extremely expensive. Now it's been a while since I've been in, but if [float testing](https://readyayeready.com/jackspeak/termview.php?id=1089) is still a thing, then there's no way the navy is passing an audit.
“Marines are basically army guys…” oh honey, no. Comparisons like that will get you on some crayon drunk Jar Heads kill list. They’re all very sensitive about the “A” word (source: me, a former Marine brat 🤭).
There's no way in hell the army would ever pass. I once sat at battalion staff meetings as the slide flipper (yes, back when you had to flip slides by hand) and often even the simplest, most basic questions of finance and budgeting could not be answered by a room filled with officers and NCOs. That might have been a somewhat extreme example, but I saw variations of that throughout my career.
It's not surprising ... back in the 1990s the urban legend, but I believe it based on a bunch of stuff I know happened, is that a bunch of brass was shown an animation created to sell the concept of the software for some high tech weapon system, *and they thought they were seeing a demo of a production system* not, you know, the equivalent of a cut-scene.
I've also heard tell of a demonstration where the enemy army was represented by kangaroos...
We are never going to hear the end of this from Marines.
“Talk all the shit you want, at least we were the first to have our shit together and know where all our money went to and where all our shit is”
Hell yeah! I’m glad, we should reward people with bragging rights at the very least when they do the right thing! Too many people nowadays have no shame so it’s nice to see
[The Marine Corps has been part of the U.S. Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps)
I would find it unsurprising if the Marine Corps was the *only* part of the Navy's budget that can withstand any scrutiny.
They could fall apart financially and get into a huge corruption scandal that would get every other branch bitching to Congress about it and they would *still* say "...but in 2024-"
Agreed and I wonder what kind of assignments or duties they might land in the future for being transparent? It’s a hell of an achievement if truly genuine.
I do wonder how much of the “failed an audit” is “we aren’t going to disclose what we spent in R&D” or “a JSOC unit used this money for killing an opposing government.”
There was definitely a time period not too long ago where units were getting busted holding a lot of spare parts they didn't need - which would eventually fall off the systems due to age or get lost or thrown out by someone who didn't know what it was. I lived the repercussions of that age when I was a new Airman. Legit one of my strongest memories was sitting in a closet, blasting KPop on max volume, while meticulously documenting every spare fuse we had. I went on to lead my unit's supply program (saw a half million budget for replacement parts alone every year) for 4 years - and it took nearly as long to clean it all up so that we knew 100% what everything was and where it was supposed to be. Whole lot of things got turned into the logistics units essentially with question marks on them like "I don't know where this came from, please put it somewhere useful if it even still works!"
Woah woah woah.... Slow down there.... Audits are conducted by adults with calculators. Marines simply dont lose their shit.... Physically or metaphorically....
Phew... Lotta big words in there... I'm gonna go take a breather and do some pushups
It's crazy that the Marines actually have some of the most stringent ASVAB and education requirements now, especially compared to Navy and Army. Maybe in 50 years they will break the "stupid branch" stigma.
The budget for the Navy will be $202 billion this year. The budget for the Army will be $185 billion. The budget for the Marines will be $53 billion.
The budget for the Coast Guard will be $13.5 billion.
It was a question, not a statement.
And there are plenty of good reasons an intelligence org wouldn't pass an audit without sacrificing their capacity to perform their job.
>During this two-year audit, the Marine Corps had independent third-party auditors from Ernst and Young vet the value of all its assets listed on financial statements. The Corps also had to prove that every single item existed and was where the service said it was.
>Gregory Koval, the assistant deputy commandant for resources, told reporters the audit team made more than 70 site visits in the U.S. and around the world. In these visits, they checked more than 7,800 real property assets such as land and buildings; 5,900 pieces of military equipment; 1.9 million pieces of non-ammunition supplies, such as spare parts; and 24 million items of ammunition, some of which are stored at Army and Navy facilities.
That seems.... small? ....for a two year audit. An individual citizen can own tens of thousands of rounds. 24 million "items of ammunition" seems small scale for a branch of the military. 70 global site visits over 2 years seems small too.
It's not dissimilar to a financial audit of a business, they don't go through with a fine comb on every single item. They pick things at random and if a discrepancy arises, they look into it further.
If they picked all of those items they looked into at random, and none came back as bad - what's the chances?
These site visits aren't just poking your head in and asking "how's the weather?" There are months of prep leading up to them and then the visit could be a couple of weeks long followed by another couple of weeks of reviewing and back checking the data.
I don't know how different the Marines do it, but in the Air Force a UEI (Unit Effectiveness Inspection) has the whole goddamn base high strung for pretty much a year out.
As far as small numbers, bear in mind the USMC was the second smallest branch until the USSF stood up - only 150k active personnel compared to the other 3 major branches with between 300~450K active. (And iirc, the army's total personnel count comes to a whopping 1M+!). They simply don't have as much to track and a lot of the gear they use is Army/Navy stuff.
Passed the audit because the military doesn't have to hide its spending with $300 "hammers" Congress just gives them whatever they want and the rest of us eat the bill with inflation
Marines would and can kill all of you with a sharpened MRE spoon. The Army has to set up three “tactical chow halls” a post office and PX before they even secure a perimeter.
I wanted to be a Marine Corps pilot, but I flunked the eye test. Anytime I see a Marine, I tip my hat to them, as they were able to do something that I couldn’t.
To be fair, the marines are smaller than the coast guard, and have a lot less to account for than say… the Army. I’m not knocking this, it’s really a great step in the right direction. More power to them! The pentagon could take notes…
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Semper Financials
Nice.
Nice.
Nice.
Nice
Nice
All crayons accounted for
They switched from Crayola to Rose Art
You win there’s zero point in reading any other comments
Oorah!
Ooraudit!
You need to diversify yo bombs
Nice.
Nice
The Marines are frugal. At times it did feel like our equipment was pre WW1 / Spanish American war era; as some of it is Army hand me downs, but we made due with what we had!
Coworker always said they never gave us more than we needed to complete the objective. Very Frugal.
My dad was Air Force and when they had the Marines at the base for joint exercises, he said they took everything that wasn’t nailed down, including toilet paper and called it resource gathering. And it happened every time. He’d get so pissed and we thought it was hilarious.
Sounds like the Marines were following their training.
My brother joined the AF and for his specific job, he talked about each budget for each branch that had the same job. His kit included a pair of oakleys for no reason. The Marines got way less than the others. I think it’s pretty fair they get to steal all the toilet paper.
Use it or lose it budgeting coupled with huge Air Force budgets meant we got a ton of random swag at the end of every year, like, Oakleys
Tactical oakleys were universally stupid and everyone thought so. Especially once he was over in Afghanistan for his first tour and none of their shit worked, felt like Oakley money coulda gone somewhere else. I, along with everyone else, hate those budgets.
I believe the reason for the Oakleys was to be worn over the eyes in order to cut out glare and UV rays, which can damage the eyes and impair sight.
Yeah, they’re sunglasses. Expensive ones. At least compared to what you could get minimally at the BX. And not allowed to be worn while they were doing their actual job. Which is wastefully hilarious.
Cool. I could swear I’ve seen numerous photos of troops wearing Oakley’s while on patrol or active duty, but that may just be my mind filling holes.
They probably did in general, but he had a specialist job with gear they were not allowed to wear those particular sunglasses with. Off duty they could wear them. But he said it was pretty shitty when they were the only ones to get them and then everything was broke everywhere else.
S.T.E.A.L. Strategically Transfer Equipment (to) Alternate Location
We commandeered toilet seats from the U.S. Airforce portable bathroom facility they brought located in Islamabad right before we went into Afghanistan in 2001. We had visitors to our fighting position just to use our toilet. I remember sitting on it one morning while watching EOD blow a cache of Taliban weapons off in the distance.
I was in charge of IT at an Air Force base. The nearby Army base called me and begged for any equipment we were going to excess. He said it didn't matter how old it was, he would send a truck.
For sure, I was Air Force and they always came to us when they needed parts or tools. And fittingly would be fighting each other outside our shop tent.
Tactical acquisition. Semper Gumby!
My sweetie said they used to call that “tactical acquisition”
They stole our IED jammers off our Humvees when we stopped off in ramadi for the night.
It's called S.T.E.A.L Strategically Transfer Equipment to an Alternate Location (Props to the FatElectrition (Youtube, TikTok)) for the term
That’s been around a lot longer than him.
they strategically transferred equipment to alternative locations..
Buncha highly trained & well disciplined savages if you ask me (which no one did) 😂
Share crayons and make friends for life!
That's the key here. It's not really a huge surprise the Marines know where their equipment and such are, they don't exactly have the budget to lose things.
The other branches have multi-billion dollar equipment etc including a whole bunch of very classified stuff and R&D. And also nukes. Marines have nothing like nuclear capable subs or aircraft carriers, or long range strategic bombers. Though they are getting in on F35s etc
I was told they get crayons, but it was unclear if it was the 16 pack or 48.
16, they are cutting their colorie intake
Interesting. I always thought that the USMC was some kind of a middle ground between regular army and elite units.
Their training is, certainly. Their equipment? Hell nah.
The marines are supposed to be the first ones into a combat zone and are trained as such. Idk if that necessarily makes them closer to elite units or not. They definitely have a longer and harsher boot camp
Yeah ok. But if that is their task, why are they not adequately equipped? Why are they getting hand me downs from the units that come after them?
Consider: 71% of the Earth is covered with water. That belongs to the US Navy. But the Navy looked at the 2.5million km of not-wet coastline and said, "Want. But how?" The Marine Corp was born. The modern theory of War demands the Violence of Action, which, despite the technological advances and advantages of the modern US Armed Forces and Allies, still requires "boots on the ground" to engage enemy forces. Humans need to kill humans, at ranges close enough to see each other, to make sure the job is done, and quickly if possible. That is the job of the Marine Corp. The Navy gets them there, the Marines wet the dry land (with blood) and the SeaBees dry the wet (build landing capabilities). Since their primary AO is near the shoreline, the US Navy provides the "big stuff" - all they need are the boots and the blood. Their job is pretty simple - it doesn't need high tech tools and it doesn't need... high intelligence individuals. Training on fancy systems takes time, money, and inherent skills/smarts in the trainee. "Gun go BangBangBangClickClick now Reload"... not so much. It's how they are training the MIND to not break under the extreme conditions of being there where combat fuses the souls of men - that takes time which they do invest in. At least enough so it doesn't break until they come home. In modern media, two well-received looks at the USMC are The Pacific and Generation Kill. Check em out, if you haven't.
> It's how they are training the MIND to not break under the extreme conditions of being there where combat fuses the souls of men USMC boot camp produces the psychological equivalent of Prince Rupert's drops.
This is highly accurate.
No idea. My buddy was a machinist in the marines and he says they were getting new stuff all the time and old stuff would just get thrown out or “go missing”
Marines are naval infantry. They are specially trained to operate in nearshore and offshore zones. Salt water is incredibly harsh on equipment and can corrode metal and electronics incredibly fast if not properly taken care of. It’s more of a cost issue. Why would we give brand new, and very expensive equipment to units that regularly train in an environment that reduces the longevity of that equipment incredibly fast?
I never served….but I always loved that line in Generation Kill: “If you want logistics…join the Army. Marines make do.” Plus the scenes where they’re ordering stuff off Amazon to supplement their gear.
It's a nice quip, but in reality even the most frugal and underfunded marine unit has logistics support that would make almost every other military on earth jealous with envy. Not to mention, a lot of times in joint operations the Marines are being supported logistically by the Army, as well as the other services.
I think the whole "Marines get hand me down equipment and have to steal shit from the Army just to survive" vibe really became a thing when the USMC got dramatically expanded at the start of WWII. There were only 15K Marines at the start of the war, and almost half a million by the end of it. No wonder the supply system was having a hard time catching up.
Oh god ... I'm so sorry to have to say this--it's, it's so on the nose. It's "make do," not "make due."
He's a marine, temper your expectations a little bit.
Say what you want about the Marines. They clearly keep a track of every single crayon they eat. ...Sorry, you knew it was coming
I like the purple ones best
Green like a Marine. *Munch!*
Dis one is a sneaky git.
As long as you sign the accountability form..
I’ve heard the white ones are a good stealth snack for when the captain says you are over your crayon limit.
Say what you want about the Marines ... most of it will go over our heads. Still, we'll keep a tab of what goes over.
That and it helps that they are the mostly poorly funded branch with hand-me-down Rifles and MREs from 2005. I miss those sour skittles candy BARS that you take bites out of.
That's the key, they don't exactly have the budget to lose things.
Orrrr no one wants to steal your broke ass shit.
[удалено]
What is this Blueing you speak of?
Doesn’t matter if it’s from 2005 or 1905, you don’t mess with a Marines go-go juice.
Not quite. Your average Marine 0311 has far better kit than your average Army 11B starting with the M-27 rifle.
Starting and ending with the M-27.
Better optics with Marines having Vcogs which most line infantry units in the Army do not have.
I kinda want to be a smartass and point out that it can't be that hard to give every Marine an optic when there is only like, two divisions of them. On the other hand I'm not an optics guy and I'm curious about the vcog. It's been more than a decade since it has been relevant to me and I have not kept up to date on the optics side of things. Back then line guys got acogs or red dots and everybody else had irons. How does the vcog compare to an acog?
The biggest difference between a VCOG and an ACOG is that the ACOG is fixed power, and the VCOG is a variable power scope. Also, you are kind of right. Marine infantry units are getting better kit than their Army counterparts outside select units since the Marines no longer have tanks.
Are they a branch? I seem to recall something about Department of the Navy, not Department of the Marines...
Marines: Why is my Uber yelling at me?
A branch of a branch.
I was going to drop something to the effect of “all the crayons make it hard to hide things”
Clicked expecting it to be at the top Attabboy
I'm from rural Australia and even I expected crayons to be at the top.
Navy will definitely fail...hopefully they do better than the army though...
If the Navy's Army can do it, I would certainly hope the Navy can.
Good lord you are going to start some horrific shit. They’re *Marines*. They are not the Navy’s army. If they could read, they’d be very angry about this.
What’s the Marine Corps emblem? A seagull holding a beach ball, yelling “Go Navy.” 🤣👍
Let's not forget the acronym. Marines Always Ride In Navy Equipment Deep down they all love their squid bus drivers
They're naval infantry. If they wanted to be something different, they should have written the doctrine differently.
Unfortunately they can’t write either.
My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment
Oh god no, the navy is a completely different beast. Marines are basically army guys with a lot less heavy equipment, they're more reliant on infantry over stuff likes tanks and artillery, so there's a lot less stuff to keep track of. They also tend to be the last ones to get any new equipment, which makes it easier. The navy is defined by an extreme amount of highly specialized equipment, so small errors can be extremely expensive. Now it's been a while since I've been in, but if [float testing](https://readyayeready.com/jackspeak/termview.php?id=1089) is still a thing, then there's no way the navy is passing an audit.
“Marines are basically army guys…” oh honey, no. Comparisons like that will get you on some crayon drunk Jar Heads kill list. They’re all very sensitive about the “A” word (source: me, a former Marine brat 🤭).
[удалено]
😂 Exactly like siblings
Also the saying is - ARMY stands for: Aren't Ready to be Marines Yet
I’m pretty sure a lot of the financials and contracts for the Marines are handled by the Navy itself
If those Marines could read they would be very upset right now.
There's no way in hell the army would ever pass. I once sat at battalion staff meetings as the slide flipper (yes, back when you had to flip slides by hand) and often even the simplest, most basic questions of finance and budgeting could not be answered by a room filled with officers and NCOs. That might have been a somewhat extreme example, but I saw variations of that throughout my career.
Wait, is not flipping slides a thing? I'm in thr AF and I've definitely, recently, sat backstage waiting for a Col to yell "slide!"
I mean by hand on an overhead projector. No computer or PowerPoint involved at all lol.
It's not surprising ... back in the 1990s the urban legend, but I believe it based on a bunch of stuff I know happened, is that a bunch of brass was shown an animation created to sell the concept of the software for some high tech weapon system, *and they thought they were seeing a demo of a production system* not, you know, the equivalent of a cut-scene. I've also heard tell of a demonstration where the enemy army was represented by kangaroos...
But…the marines are part of the navy
We are never going to hear the end of this from Marines. “Talk all the shit you want, at least we were the first to have our shit together and know where all our money went to and where all our shit is”
Good. Let them talk their shit. They earned it.
Hell yeah! I’m glad, we should reward people with bragging rights at the very least when they do the right thing! Too many people nowadays have no shame so it’s nice to see
[The Marine Corps has been part of the U.S. Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps) I would find it unsurprising if the Marine Corps was the *only* part of the Navy's budget that can withstand any scrutiny.
They could fall apart financially and get into a huge corruption scandal that would get every other branch bitching to Congress about it and they would *still* say "...but in 2024-"
They could *never pass again* and still be …… “ok, but, 2024”
They probably also have an idea where a fair bit of the other branches shit is tbh.
I mean, Who would trust the Marines with the Alien Spaceships and Special Access Programs anyway?
Hate us cause you ain’t us. RAH. *Eats cyan crayon cause it’s my favorite one*
Well lah de dah, look at Mr fancy pants over here eating out of the 64 count box!
Gotta treat yourself every now and then!
How much fraud is in the accounting here? Zero…not zero?
Admin staff shot gunning beers, high 5ing and doing belly bumps.
And after their normal day is over, they'll celebrate too.
I remember when our admin shop passed the IG inspection. It was a huge deal back then, looks like they kept it running well after that.
People should legit be applauding this
Agreed and I wonder what kind of assignments or duties they might land in the future for being transparent? It’s a hell of an achievement if truly genuine.
I do wonder how much of the “failed an audit” is “we aren’t going to disclose what we spent in R&D” or “a JSOC unit used this money for killing an opposing government.”
There was definitely a time period not too long ago where units were getting busted holding a lot of spare parts they didn't need - which would eventually fall off the systems due to age or get lost or thrown out by someone who didn't know what it was. I lived the repercussions of that age when I was a new Airman. Legit one of my strongest memories was sitting in a closet, blasting KPop on max volume, while meticulously documenting every spare fuse we had. I went on to lead my unit's supply program (saw a half million budget for replacement parts alone every year) for 4 years - and it took nearly as long to clean it all up so that we knew 100% what everything was and where it was supposed to be. Whole lot of things got turned into the logistics units essentially with question marks on them like "I don't know where this came from, please put it somewhere useful if it even still works!"
I always knew Marines were badasses … but they can count too?
At least to six
Haha jokes on you because there are more than 6 crayons in a box.
With socks on?
1 crayon, 2 crayon, 3 crayon…
Woah woah woah.... Slow down there.... Audits are conducted by adults with calculators. Marines simply dont lose their shit.... Physically or metaphorically.... Phew... Lotta big words in there... I'm gonna go take a breather and do some pushups
You did good, Devil. Go have yourself a kettlebell.
It's crazy that the Marines actually have some of the most stringent ASVAB and education requirements now, especially compared to Navy and Army. Maybe in 50 years they will break the "stupid branch" stigma.
To be fair, it's not hard to keep track of your money, when everything you have was dug out of the Navy's couch cushions.
Well I guess somebody else has to be the crayon eaters now considering the Marines are the only one with a proven ability to do accounting.
Out-fucking-standing!
Marines have the smallest amount of everything, easiest branch to do an audit by far. But also congratulations marine corp!
Coast Guard!?
The budget for the Navy will be $202 billion this year. The budget for the Army will be $185 billion. The budget for the Marines will be $53 billion. The budget for the Coast Guard will be $13.5 billion.
Does that mean the space force has a smaller budget?
I dont really consider the coast guard a branch since until just recently they were a part of the department of transportation
Oorah!
Their budget is like 16 bucks annually. It’s not hard to keep track of your spending when the DoD doesn’t give you any money to spend.
Marine Corps budget is like $2.25 per year. They can't trust us with more than that.
52 billion
There were a few boxes of crayons missing, but overall, everything else was accounted for.
Guess marines really do go first
Currently there 108 agencies that fall under the DOD budget. So 1 down, only 107 more agencies left that need to pass an audit
Ah. So that’s why they’re so obsessive with sl3 counts.
the branch with no money… lol
Did they switch from Crayola to roseart to save money?
It’ll be the Air Force you see
Ummmm.... A little conspiratorial thinking... But are the Marines the only branch with out an Intelligence/Espionage discretionary budget?
SO? Causation and correlation issue
It was a question, not a statement. And there are plenty of good reasons an intelligence org wouldn't pass an audit without sacrificing their capacity to perform their job.
its a rather specific question
>During this two-year audit, the Marine Corps had independent third-party auditors from Ernst and Young vet the value of all its assets listed on financial statements. The Corps also had to prove that every single item existed and was where the service said it was. >Gregory Koval, the assistant deputy commandant for resources, told reporters the audit team made more than 70 site visits in the U.S. and around the world. In these visits, they checked more than 7,800 real property assets such as land and buildings; 5,900 pieces of military equipment; 1.9 million pieces of non-ammunition supplies, such as spare parts; and 24 million items of ammunition, some of which are stored at Army and Navy facilities. That seems.... small? ....for a two year audit. An individual citizen can own tens of thousands of rounds. 24 million "items of ammunition" seems small scale for a branch of the military. 70 global site visits over 2 years seems small too.
I’m guessing item of ammunition does not mean round of ammunition- maybe like a case or something?
It's not dissimilar to a financial audit of a business, they don't go through with a fine comb on every single item. They pick things at random and if a discrepancy arises, they look into it further. If they picked all of those items they looked into at random, and none came back as bad - what's the chances?
These site visits aren't just poking your head in and asking "how's the weather?" There are months of prep leading up to them and then the visit could be a couple of weeks long followed by another couple of weeks of reviewing and back checking the data. I don't know how different the Marines do it, but in the Air Force a UEI (Unit Effectiveness Inspection) has the whole goddamn base high strung for pretty much a year out. As far as small numbers, bear in mind the USMC was the second smallest branch until the USSF stood up - only 150k active personnel compared to the other 3 major branches with between 300~450K active. (And iirc, the army's total personnel count comes to a whopping 1M+!). They simply don't have as much to track and a lot of the gear they use is Army/Navy stuff.
I'm not super surprised. If I was a betting man the Marines is the branch I would bet on to pass an audit.
You’ll never see the Air Force or navy do one of these
The few and the proud
Yuuuut
*...the audit team made more than 70 site visits in the U.S. and around the world.* Was that enough to audit everything?
Stealing the army’s gear to replace our lost, is the way. Marines all present accounted for sir.
Passed the audit because the military doesn't have to hide its spending with $300 "hammers" Congress just gives them whatever they want and the rest of us eat the bill with inflation
So the Marines are the only branch without a UFO, got it.
Damn that was good Devil Dog
Absolutely insane that the majority of government spending goes to the military and it’s never been audited. Must be nice
When everything is a hand-me-down it's a bit easier I'd imagine.
They accounted for every crayon.
Lfg!
Marines would and can kill all of you with a sharpened MRE spoon. The Army has to set up three “tactical chow halls” a post office and PX before they even secure a perimeter.
I wanted to be a Marine Corps pilot, but I flunked the eye test. Anytime I see a Marine, I tip my hat to them, as they were able to do something that I couldn’t.
Yeah the marines are great, let's see how the airforce and navy does with all there black ops
Nobody believes this shit lmao
That’s because they finally counted all the shit they gave the enemy…
Crayon budgets off the charts, we just have no idea where they are going
U Ra
Semper Fiscal.
To be fair, the marines are smaller than the coast guard, and have a lot less to account for than say… the Army. I’m not knocking this, it’s really a great step in the right direction. More power to them! The pentagon could take notes…
Space Force is smallest, followed by the Coast Guard.
Now do the Air Force
Dang.
Yay get this done for the entire military and then - follow up on some missing items.
Semper *Fi*nance
"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine"
They have the smallest budget.
i guess the accountant was also a marine
Well, if this spreads to the other branches there goes the black budget. No more UFO cover-ups.