U.S. Marine Corps Flag

About the U.S. Marines

The United States Marine Corps started as the Continental Marines during the American Revolutionary War, formed by a resolution of the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775, and first recruited at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their mission was multi-purpose, but their most important duty was to serve as onboard security forces, protecting the captain of a ship and his officers. When the Revolution ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the Marines, like the Navy, were disbanded.

Marines are a unique group, a breed unto themselves. Marines are not soldiers. The United States Marine Corps is a department of the U.S. Navy. Despite this, it is still a separate branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. The Corps specializes in amphibious landings, such as those undertaken against Japanese-held islands in the Pacific during World War II. The Marines are not a heavy, mechanized force in the mold of the Army’s heavy brigade combat teams. As a highly mobile, medium-weight force, the Marines don’t want to be weighted down by heavy armored vehicles. However, some mechanized forces are necessary.

They are one of the most elite fighting forces in the world - elites are elites, and Marines fall into that category as light infantry. Combining precise air operations, tenacious amphibious assaults and versatile land tactics, the Marines led one of the most successful assaults in modern warfare. During the Iraq War, Marines fought in dense metropolitan areas, often engaged in house-to-house combat as they searched for insurgents.

In 2013 Leon Panetta removed the military's ban on women serving in combat. Currently, women account for around 7.6% of active-duty personnel in the U.S. Marine Corps. Opha May Johnson was the first known woman to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, who joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 1918. Indeed, time has proven that women are just as capable in holding important and vital positions as their male counterparts, both in and out of combat specialties. U.S. Marine Corps jobs for women include some of the most demanding jobs the Marine Corps has to offer; that includes high tech jobs, aviation, medical fields, and other high stress and high demand careers.

Beginning in boot camp, every Marine is educated on the Corps' proud and storied past as they learn what it means to be part of such a prestigious organization. The Marine Corps are distributed in divisions, and each has at least 1 expeditionary unit. These expeditionary units are self-sufficient, with their own tanks, artillery, and air forces. The Marine Corps maintains a significant presence in the National Capital Region, with Headquarters Marine Corps scattered across the Pentagon, Henderson Hall, Washington Navy Yard, and Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C.

The Marine Corps Flag

Before the adoption of the official flag in 1939, the Marines carried a standard that consisted of a white field with gold fringe, an illustration of an anchor and an eagle in the center, and the phrase "From Tripoli to the Halls of the Montezumas". However, there is no definite evidence on what the early Marine Corps flag was. Years later, scarlet and gold were officially designated as the colors of the U.S. Marine Corps and a flag incorporating the new colors was adopted.

The official U.S. Marine Corps flag was adopted on 18 January 1939, although Marine Corps Order 4 had established scarlet and gold as the official colors of the Corps as early as 1925. The official flag features a red field with the Marine Corps emblem in the center in shades of grey and gold. The Marine Corps emblem contains a spread eagle, a globe showing the Western Hemisphere, and a fouled anchor, depicting battle in air, on land and sea. The eagle is shown holding a banner that reads "Semper Fidelis". This is a Latin phrase that means "always faithful" or "always loyal". Under the emblem, is another banner with the statement: United States Marine Corps.

Although there is no explicit rule in the flying or displaying of the Marine Corps flag, it should still be practiced that the United States National Flag holds a higher order when both flags are displayed together. The usual order of precedence of military flags is as follows: Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. Marines come second because, even though they were created a month after the Navy, some Secretary of the Navy accorded them precedence back in the days before defense unification.