We are proud to claim the title of United States Marine - USMC Life

My thoughts about the Former Commandant Amos, and his former legal team of advisors, Military and civilian (including one of my former TBS Classmates, who as a Colonel was one of Amos's legal inner circle) are mostly unprintable.

The Command Influence that Amos attempted to exercise over the Convening Authority, Lt. Gen Waldhauser, telling his subordinate general that he want the Marines involved in the Urinating on dead Taliban bodies incident, "crushed" violated one of the most sacred concepts in our Military Justice System (Unlawful Command Influence to attempt to sway or influence the outcome of a military justice proceeding(s) ), and was the subject of a USDOD Inspector General Investigation, that also saw the disgraceful attempt by Amos and his legal henchmen, to isolate and "crush" the JAG Assistant SJA Lt. Col. Weirick, who brought Amos's Unlawful Command Influence to light, and who filed the IG Complaint against Amos with Inspector General (thus restoring some of my faith, that there are at least in the Marine Corps, a small number of career JAGS who will "do the right thing" at any cost to their career).

Amos will be remembered as one of our worst former Commandants in recent memory, and the fact that came to life, largely after he left office, is that he never attended either the grueling Marine Corps Officer Candidate School, or the even more grueling The Basic School aka TBS (Basic Officer Course-"BOC"), which EVERY Marine Officer has to get through and graduate, some even having to be recycled (held back) due to injuries or for other reasons, in a latter class. It is an absolute Barrier Requirement, no graduation, you are administratively separated, you do not pass go, you do not make it to flight school, or in my case Naval Justice School.

My best friend in Marine Corps and now one of my closest friends in civilian life, got recycled from his original TBS Company, after saving his roommates life in O'Bannon Hall in 1990, after his rooomate attempted to commit suicide. Ron proudly graduated with us in BOC class 8-90 in April 1991. The very idea that you could take or graduate from TBS's Basic Officer Course by taking a "Correspondence Course" on-line or by mail, is both laughable and very insulting to the tens of thousands of Marine Officers, male and female, who have been minted as Marine Officers and who have experienced "The Big Suck." So when we found out our former Commandant had not been through the rites of passage that both Marine Corps OCS and TBS represent for us . . . well lets just say, to many of us, he no longer was "one of us," in some very significant and meaningful way.