John Ʌ Konrad V@johnkonrad
Trump is NOT escalating this into a major ground war. Let me spell this out with crayons.
I’m a US Merchant Marine Captain, O6 (not O3) equivalent. We are a tiny forgotten service with one MF overarching specialty: moving escalatory armies overseas.
It’s true a general like McChrystal has far more knowledge about what to do AFTER his tanks roll off our ships.
But BEFORE those tanks roll off? They are OUR cargo.
We are the specialists. We climb all around those tanks. We secure them, move them, deliver them. Our Commandant, who I talk to every single week, is in charge of that lift. Not whatever general is waiting on the pier.
Right now we are in the BEFORE stage.
I absolutely 💯 know more about this than any general because I have spent decades training and living the life for THIS MOMENT.
When generals want to move escalatory army divisions overseas, they call us.
We don’t specialize in every branch.
Naval, Air Force, USMC, Special Forces movements have their own lift pipelines. We can help, but that’s not our core mission.
But if you want to escalate a war with heavy ground forces? I get a call.
The Air Force has already called us to move more bombs into theater. So yes, the air campaign can escalate.
But there are ZERO plans to escalate this into a large scale ground invasion.
ZERO.
This cannot be done by airlift. The USAF can’t even get their own bombs overseas right now, let alone divisions of army units.
And if I do get the call, it will be months before we are landing tanks.
So I repeat… this CAN NOT turn into a major war without my phone ringing.
You can send Marines and air assault units without tanks to do raids but a major landing force like McChrystal is talking about just is not happening. Not yet. Not for months, if ever.
And when it does happen I will tell you because you can’t move Army divisions in secret. Not since the Army, in a moment of idiocy, sold off its Merchant Marine preposition fleet last year.
