Victory Point - Ed Darack [18]
In the First Barbary War of the early 1800s, the Marines would prove that they could succeed in combat for their country not only on the home front, but as a world-class expeditionary force capable of defending American interests anywhere on the planet. Ultimately arising out of a failed diplomatic attempt to maintain security of American merchant shipping through payoffs to pirates of the “Barbary States” (the modern African nations of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco), the then-fledgling U.S. government dispatched a small group of Navy frigates—crewed by sailors and defended onboard by U.S. Marines—to the Mediterranean to protect American vessels from the marauders. Over the course of the following years, the U.S. Navy would fight a series of engagements in the region that resulted in mixed outcomes. The relative stalemate would end, however, in the spring of 1805 at the Battle of Derne, when U.S. Marine First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon led five hundred of his men, accompanied by local mercenaries (whom he and his Marines helped train), six hundred miles from Alexandria, Egypt, across the scorching Sahara Desert over the course of forty-five days, to storm the heavily defended Derne outpost—Tripoli’s primary defensive rampart—as U.S. Navy ships supported their ground efforts by pounding the fortress with heavy gunfire. Once captured, O’Bannon personally raised the American flag above Derne, marking the first time in U.S. history that the American flag flew above foreign soil.
The Battle of Derne would become one of the most popularly enduring in all of the Marine Corps’ history, being referenced in the second line of the famous “U.S. Marines’ Hymn,” reading “To the shores of Tripoli.” The well-known Marine Corps officer sword, which would become the weapon issued for more years than any other in the U.S. military, also hails from this battle.
O’Bannon and his Marines’ training of and fighting alongside local forces marked the beginning of what would become a long-standing Marine Corps approach to waging war against America’s enemies—an approach that would yield immense dividends in theaters throughout the world in the decades to follow. Of course, ⅔ would continue to carry this tradition forward in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush during their deployment over two centuries in the wake of O’Bannon and his mens’ work with indigenous fighters in the North African desert.
Counterinsurgency, or as the Marines often call the mission type, “COIN,” requires troops to work closely with local populations—proving their intention to aid and not to conquer and gaining a population’s trust and allegiance—to root out terrorists, insurgents, even rank criminals, securing and stabilizing a region to lay the foundation for rebuilding towns, villages, and basic infrastructure like water wells and smooth, all-season roads. Successful counterinsurgency campaigns engender economic development, improved education and healthcare institutions, capable and honest security agencies, and inspire the rise of democratic regional and national governments out of the ashes of oppression—goals ⅔ would steadfastly pursue during their deployment to Afghanistan in 2005. A counterinsurgency fight, while often “going kinetic” for short periods of time, will typically have Marines sending food, fuel, generators, bandages, and clean water “downrange” far more often than 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm rounds. Due to the expeditionary capability of the Marine Corps to go anywhere on the planet within just days or even hours to support American interests—from merging into global wars to interdicting small village-to-village skirmishes—the Marine Corps has engaged in countless tiny, yet significant, COIN fights around the world throughout its history, not to mention its undertaking of an