GySgt (Ret) Spencer

Creech, I really appreciate your encouragement and comments, more than I can say. Thanks LT.

All Personnel, Ready for something different!?? We had a great training night on Wednesday, but it wasn't a scenario based, it was skill based. Something we all needed. In the future, we will be producing specific training videos for specific activities or skills. This however is a general skills instructional video. Part 1, is just for fun. I couldn't resist myself Part 2, is the bulk of this video and instructional. Useful for review by future members and refresher for all of us. Be advised, this not the format we'll use for the actual training videos. But I wanted to do something different PS See how many sound effects you hear. Also note, how the song lyrics match much of what is, or has recently happened! I had fun with this. I wonder how many of you guys catch this. Enjoy.

All Personnel, Operation Blue Rhino, 00-16. Note: Acknowledgment of Aviation Element on Thumbnail. I'm sorry I didn't do this sooner. They deserve recognition for the great job they do! Be advised, I heavily edited this video to reduce the length. Also, you will notice, my videos are more of a "production" than many of the other Arma team videos out there. It's a lot more work for me, but it does help to keep our videos flowing faster and makes videos different from the others.

I added sound effects in one part of the video. I wonder if anyone caught it. It was obvious, but subtle at the same time. I think it added a lot to the scene. I'll guess people not with the 4th MRB would not pickup on it. I've also started creating custom thumbnails for the video which is supposed to influence people to look at your videos. I've also started adding a "Click to Subscribe" at the end, as well as other links called cards which point to other videos and our website at different points in the video. Some of this is stuff taught in the Youtube Creators course I just took. Anyway, I really appreciate the thoughtful encouragement and comments. Thanks very much. And Stone, nearly everyone hates the sound of their own voice. You don't sound bad to me.

All Personnel, Pre-deployment unit training, 0511. As always, watch in High Definition.

* BOXER REBELLION * 1900 In 1900, after two years of discontent on the part of a growing and radical group of Chinese, known as “The Boxers” or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, took action and openly attacked the foreign legations in Peking. The Empress dowager of the Manchu Dynasty was publicly “anti-Boxer” but did nothing to protect the foreigners, including Americans and British. Foreigners and missionaries were attacked and killed. Foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians started flooding into the city of Peking for protection. Leading up to the open rebellion, and fearing they were being isolated, the diplomats began telegraphing calls for help. The immediate American response was to send US Marines to provide security at the legation. Other countries tried to send troops as well. Surrounded and heavily outnumbered, the diplomatic stations appeared to be headed for a massacre. To make a long story short, for fifty five days, the legation, was isolated. American Marines and troops from England, and several other countries, fought off almost daily attacks. A small number of US Marines attempted to fight cross country to get to the legation, but were resisted by large numbers of Chinese. Troops from the other countries involved started to arrive, including additional US Marines, US Army, and British Army troops. The US Marines, although fewer in number than the other military branches were the spearhead of a second larger attack, or "Relief Column" under the command of Vice Admiral Edward Seymour of the British Royal Navy. It is interesting to note few historical records provide the full story of what happened on the second relief expedition to Peking. Numerous skirmishes and three heavy battles occurred on the route to Peking. In each case, US Marines were the main attacking force and led the expedition nearly the entire way. After a hard fought, three day battle at Tientsin, the Allied commanders wanted to stop and rest up before pushing on. Instead of me telling you what happened, here is a direct quote from the "Indianapolis Sun" newspaper: “It was in the campaign of the allies against the boxers in 1900. They had captured Tientsin by a hard three day battle. A conference had been called of all the commanders to discuss the question of advancing or waiting for reinforcements. General Robert Meade, (USA), in command of the US Marines, was ill, and Major Littleton W.T. Waller (USMC), was the junior officer of the representatives of many nations in the conference. “One by one the older men gave their opinions that there was no pressing need of an advance and that the troops must have several more days of recuperating. Finally (and lastly) Major Waller’s opinion was asked and he stood up and said: “’Gentelmen, I do not know what the rest of you mean to do, but the Marines start for Peking at 6 o’clock in the morning!’ “The Marines did start at 6am in the morning, taking the allies along.” After the legation was relieved, numerous letters and records provided evidence of the valor and courage shown by the US Marines defending the legation. US Minister to China, E.H. Conger wrote the Secretary of State, “To our Marines fell the most difficult and dangerous portion of the defense… Our Legation, with the position which we held on the wall, was the key to the whole situation.” American missionaries wrote a long letter about the Marines, in part saying, “... express their hearty appreciation for the courage, fidelity and patriotism of the American Marines to whom we so largely owe our salvation.” Hollywood made a major movie about the fighting at the legation starring Charleston Heston, David Niven, and many others. The following is a short section of the end of that movie.

All, I guess most of you know I am a proud real life Marine. An old, inactive Marine, but a Marine for life regardless. Most Marines are very proud they were Marines and I have a passion for Marine Stories and history. The following video is the story of a Marine, and how he changed his family and the lives of those around him, even in death. It is very common for the Marine legacy to get passed down through a family. I am posting this video in dedication to our Corpsman.

All Personnel, This video is an introduction to the TC3, Tactical Combat Casualty Care course, taught by HM2 Eaelus. This roughly explains and shows what you might experience and learn in this class. All our operators should attend this course. This training is located at a new base which is also where our special operations air units training.

All Personnel, This video is not historical, but I thought you might find it interesting. It is a short video showing a little about how the US Marine Body Bearers perform. It was amazing to me how young men, 18, 19, 20 years old, could in such a short time become so focused and disciplined, and filled with pride once they became a Marine. This video is a good example of what I am talking about. This video is less than 7 min long. Personally, my last six months in the Corps, I was assigned to a Blues Detail unit. As a secondary assignment, we were assigned to represent the Corps at memorials, funerals, weddings, and we escorted the body of Marines who died overseas home. The body of every Marine who died overseas, was escorted to their home (usually the funeral home choice of the family). I was issued my set of dress blues for this assignment. When performing a body escort, the escort stayed for the funeral and typically returned home after the burial. If the Marines family asked, the Marine Escort would stay with the family longer.

Hi Jacks, Looking forward to meeting you.

All Personnel, Special thanks to SSgt Stone for sharing his video. It was really nice for me to have a different perspective to work with. I took some liberties to make this a little different than the others. I don't want my videos to become stale. I want people to come back to see more.

All Personnel, As part of the effort to recruit more people, I have been working on getting our mission and operation videos a wider distribution. Right now we basically have two forms of advertisement; the best which is word of mouth by you guys, and secondly, the videos we as a group produce. A few weeks ago I moved all my videos to the 4th MRB Youtube channel and have been posting them there exclusively. I still had many subscribers to my personal Youtube channel who watched these videos, and even though on each video, I advertise the 4th MRB channel, I wanted to ensure that everyone subscribed on my channel got the word that all my future videos would be on the 4th MRB Youtube channel. I subsequently produced the following short and silly video to try to get more of my subscribers to subscribe to the 4th MRB channel. I posted this on my channel. I just thought some of you might like to see it. Please promote our unit whenever you get a chance. Thanks very much. http://youtu.be/2cz92wTXkBI

Thank you.

Blocked!

Not a photo, but a good painting of the fighting in Belleau Wood, France, June 1918, when the Germans were stopped cold 30 miles from Paris by the 4th Marine Brigade. Five different German divisions, four of them their crack assault troops, took turns trying to fight through to Paris, but they were all stopped, by this one brigade of US Marines. Not only stopped, but the Marines advanced and pushed them out of the woods. The fighting was close and brutal. The details of what happened are absolutely amazing. Maybe I'll post more information about Belleau Wood in my history thread later.

All Personnel, Commercial #2. The commercials are specifically intended to advertise our unit to potential recruits. If you know anyone even slightly interested in the 4th MRB, please direct them to one of our commercials. You will note on the 4th MRB Youtube channel, there is a playlist entitled, "Public Relations." I put the commercial videos there. Thanks men.

All Personnel, A basic training video, especially useful for members who missed the training. Excellent flying by our pilots!

Dang!!!!!!!!!! I'm sorry. I can edit some things, but it's too late to change that. Stone, thanks for catching that. I'll fix it in future vid's. Sorry air guys! TO ALL. One major problem with my videos is it only shows my perspective. If you have high quality recordings, I'd love to edit those in so these videos show more of whats happening. Also, I hate that I only hear my teams radio comms. Not for me personally, but for those watching the videos because they don't get to hear everyone else and don't know whats going on.

All Personnel, Most of you are aware I often record our training and ops. I do this for your entertainment, but primarily to promote out unit, as a recruiting tool. I am asking your help for the unit. If you haven't already, please go to the unit YouTube Channel and subscribe to the channel. Click on the gear icon next to the Subscribe button and select to be notified when new videos come out. The more subscribers the channel has, and the more "Likes", the higher priority Youtube gives to a channel, and the easier it will be for people to find our YouTube Channel. This of course means it is likely more people will see our videos, which means more potential recruits. This video is my first commercial or promotional video for the 4th MRB. I have several more in various stages of production. (You wouldn't believe how long this took!) Each commercial has a different focus. Other videos being planned and shot now are two more commercials, a CLS training video, and training videos for other special activities. Of course, I will continue to produce videos of training, FTX's and Operations. If you have a suggestion for a video, let me know. Thanks men. (As always, watch in High Definition)

My opinion, best part of video, is every time we could see Eaelus' shorts and matching shoes!! Gotta get me a pair of those!

All Personnel, Be advised, all my 4th MRB videos will be posted on the 4th MRB YouTube Channel from now on. Our unit Youtube channel name is, 4th Marine Raider Battalion Realism Unit. More of our videos will be viewed if you subscribe to the channel, and "Like" the videos. The Youtube search functions gives higher priorities to channels with videos that have "Likes". We obviously want to promote out unit and this may help. Please be sure to not only subscribe, but also select notifications so you will be notified when new videos are posted. The following video was from our HVT capture mission on FTX 06-16. Thanks

To All Personnel, The following is from an article written by a biased author; a US Marine. We Marines don't apologize for being biased either! While not about a specific historical event, it does contain some information about the history of the US Marines. If you have a few minutes, you might enjoy reading this. "*@#damn Marines" Reported Source: Written by Lt. Col. David W. Szelowski USMCR (ret.) – Wednesday August 17, 2005 "I wonder how many times during Operation Iraqi Freedom the phrase "*@#damn Marines" was uttered? Even in the best of times, Army and Air Force officers have been heard muttering some epithet about Marines, invoking either heaven or hell. Interestingly enough, we Marines find it all rather reassuring and, at times, amusing. Most of the time, Marines do not go out of our way to be obnoxious; we are just doing what Marines have done for over 200 years. A good example is the fact that Marines always raise the American flag over mountains or cities they have conquered. From Mt. Suribachi to the City of Hue, to Kuwait City to Baghdad, U.S. Marines have raised the Stars and Stripes-in the latter examples, much to the chagrin of higher headquarters. You don't get these kinds of problems with the Army. So what is it about the U.S. Marines that they stick U.S. flags on everything and do more with less, a less that is either old or an army hand-me-down? We call it Esprit de Corps, but it goes deeper than that. We learn and maintain myths of the past, which also means living up to those historical examples. Marine Corps boot camp is the longest of the services; it is where we mold young men and women into the mythical image called a Marine. You can be in the Army, you can join the Air Force, but you become a Marine. All of the other uniformed services have songs; the U.S. Marines have a hymn. The basic pattern of Marine Corps uniforms comes from the late nineteenth century; our emblem "the Eagle, Globe and Anchor" has remained largely unchanged since 1868. The buttons on our dress blues, whites and greens date back to the founding of our Corps. The Marine Corps is the only service that requires its officers to carry a sword, whose pattern dates back to 1805. I think that the path of being a Marine was established long ago. On the 10th of November 1775, the Marine Corps was first established...in a tavern. To this day, no matter where in the world, Marines celebrate the founding of our beloved Corps, much to the confusion of the other services. A few years ago, a congresswoman from Colorado felt that the Marine Corps was radical and extreme. She contended that the Marine Corps was not politically correct, nor did we seem to be part of the Department of Defense's transition to a "kinder and gentler" military. She was correct, and the Marine Corps took it as a compliment. But the proof is in the doing, and during Iraqi Freedom the Marines demonstrated what Marines can do. I watched with some amusement as a reporter asked a young lance corporal about being in Iraq and under rifle fire. "Love it, sir!" was his response. The reporter was taken aback and asked, "No, really?" The Marine then tried to explain that this is what he was trained to do; he looked forward to doing it and was now happy to be doing it. No doubt in boot camp he was told that he was "a minister of death praying for war." Contrast that with the poor U.S. Army Apache pilots who said that if they had to take life, they would do so reluctantly. You are either a warrior or you are not. Marines are mission oriented. Live or die, the most important thing to a Marine is accomplishing the mission. Whether taking the bridge, river or town, accomplishing the mission is the Holy Grail of being a Marine. How the mission is accomplished is not so important, as it is expected of all Marines to accomplish the mission with the tools available. This is probably why we heard that Marines in one engagement were fighting with knives and bayonets. This was hardly high tech, but it was effective. These Marines now have bragging rights, for they have proven that they talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk. I doubt there is a single Marine who is not envious. Marines are practical, as well. I enjoyed hearing two reporters interviewing each other, one embedded with the Army, the other with the Marines. The reporter with the Army noted that the sandstorm had blown down many of the soldiers' cots. The other reporter countered that the Marines did not have this problem because they slept on the ground. The Marine learns to live with what he can carry on his back. He expects to be moved around on the battlefield via his two black Cadillac’s (boots). If he is lucky and gets a ride on an amtrack, so much the better-but it is not expected. At the end of a mission, the priority for cleaning is weapon, then equipment, and finally, body. When the other services talk about "quality of life," they are referring to housing, clubs and food. Marines are talking about better weapons, equipment and training, winning the battle and coming home alive is considered "quality of life." All of this translates into combat power. In comparison to the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, the Marines of I Marine Expeditionary Force were lightly equipped. Yet, they battled through the heart of Iraq, fought to the center of Baghdad and then moved off to Tikrit, taking that city as well. The press was so enamored with the Marines that in the final days of the war they even credited the Marines with deeds actually accomplished by the Army. Little wonder we heard "*@#damn Marines!" so often. So we need to give the Marines some slack when they do something politically incorrect, such as raising the flag or appearing insensitive when killing the enemy. In the field, they look sloppy compared to the Army, but are aggressive in the attack and generally unhappy in the defense. Marines take pride in their work, even if that work is war. We are just Marines and that is what we do.

To All Personnel, We recently added the Wake Island map to our list of maps. One night a while back I heard several of you talking about Wake. Few today know the historical significance of "Wake Island". For that reason, I'm posting this movie trailer for the 1942 movie; "Wake Island". This was the first movie made about the military in World War II. In fact, the movie was actually started while the battle was still in progress. When they made the movie, the producers and writers didn't know what happened at the end, so they had to make up the end of the battle. What they did know came from a US Marine officer who was ordered off the island shortly before the Japanese captured it, and from communication with the island (Morse Code), which stopped during the morning of the final Japanese assault. The island was under the command of a US Navy Commander. Major Devereau, USMC, was the commanding officer of the US Marine 1st Defense Battalion detachment at Wake. The Marines wanted to fight to the death as was their inclination. Due to the heavy bombardment of the island, many of the defensive sectors and posts were out of communication with the command post on the last day of the battle. (Their comms back then were receivers connected by landlines they laid in the sand between the different positions). The Japanese landed in several different areas in large numbers. Unknown to the Navy Commander, although the US Marines were taking heavy casualties, they were actually decimating the Japanese. Outnumbered and outgunned, they were winning the battle! The island commander didn't know this and thought most of the Marines were dead, and to preserve the life of the few survivors, he ordered a surrender. There was no way to contact all the Marines fighting around the island in small groups to order them to surrender. When Marines were told they had been ordered to surrender, many of the Marines simply couldn't believe it. They knew they were winning. Some didn't surrender. It was a crazy battle. In America, the blow of the attack on Pearl Harbor was demoralizing. News from around the world was terrible for the US and our allies. And yet, there was this one small outpost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where the Japanese had been stopped for over two weeks by a small band of US Marines. Every day Americans rushed to read the newspapers and listen to radio broadcasts to hear about their Marines. For two weeks, American's heard the reports about the bombings, raids, and naval shelling of Wake by superior Japanese forces, and yet the Marines held. It was a huge morale boost when it was needed most. Here was the example of the American fighting men who American's loved so much, the US Marines; alone and defying the might of the Japanese empire. And that is why Wake Island was so important to American's early in WWII. Wake is largely forgotten now, overshadowed by the many larger and more significant battles that followed in WWII. This old black and white movie trailer (which I own) is for those of you who are interested in American history and the history of the US Marines.

All, Weekly training video. Night helo water insert, and movement cross country to target, for hostage rescue. Heavily edited, especially long swim in, and helo rides. http://youtu.be/SRFfP04hflE

All, From training 3/09, search for cargo crates in enemy territory. I heavily edited this, but there is still a lot slow time from my perspective. As always, watch in High Definition. http://youtu.be/IKIjertw8-c