United States Marine Corps



This article is about a fictional representation of a real-world topic.

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) - commonly known and referred to as the U.S. Marines - is a branch of the United States military responsible for providing force projection from the sea, using the United States Navy's mobility to rapidly deliver combined-arms task forces.

Operation history
The Marines mainly serves as an amphibious force-in-readiness, and its most defining characteristic was as an emergency response team in crisis situations. Today, it has three primary areas of responsibility, originally introduced back in 1947:
 * The seizure or defense of advanced naval bases and other land operations to support naval campaigns
 * The development of tactics, techniques, and equipment used by amphibious landing forces
 * "Such other duties as the President may direct."

During the 19th century, the Marines were sent into Nicaragua to quell political unrest, although their true mission was to prevent the building of the Nicaraguan canal after they created the Panama canal, the former of which they also had no intention of actually building and only leased it so no one else would build there. Eventually by the 1930s, they were driven out by Sandino's rebellion, both due to his skills in guerilla combat and as a revolutionary leader, as well as due to loss of morale on the Marines' end caused by the Great Depression.

Roy Campbell formerly served under the Marines, often serving as a truck driver, but he transferred to the Green Berets for his brother's sake, who was also a Marine, after they both fell in love with the same woman. McDonell Benedict Miller later became one of the Marines' drill instructors at some point between his memberships to the Militaires Sans Frontieres and FOXHOUND.

At some point during the 2000s, the Marines began to develop an intense rivalry with the United States Army due to the latter increasing its own crisis response capabilities (such as building on the strength of its Medium Brigade), causing the Marines to worry about infringement on its domain. Due to this, as well as the Army's development of Metal Gear REX, they decided to compete with them by developing their own Metal Gear.

The Marines were the force responsible for the creation of Metal Gear RAY, a new type of Metal Gear hunter-killer, following the 2005 Shadow Moses Incident. Such an action gave the U.S. Navy cause for concern, as RAY's capabilities of making an approach, launching an attack, and executing takeoffs without aid, would greatly diminish the Navy's role, and rumors existed regarding the development of their own Metal Gear.

In 2007, a large contingent of Marines guarded the RAY prototype on board the dummy tanker USS Discovery, under Marine Commandant Scott Dolph, during its transport down the Hudson River. To avoid attracting attention from casual observers, the Marines had a skeleton crew patrol on-deck and wear civilian clothing consisting of a blue and white rainjacket with a hood. Following the tanker's hijacking by the Gurlukovich Mercenaries, General Dolph was killed by Revolver Ocelot, who then proceeded to board the RAY prototype and escape. The Marines were forced to fight against the bipedal weapon, though their attempts proved ineffective. More than half of the Marines went down with the sinking tanker after Ocelot broke through the ship's hull, also killing the mercenaries whom he had betrayed.

In 2014, the U.S. President read Meryl Silverburgh's report on Liquid Ocelot's activities in the Middle East and her threat assessment, and commissioned a joint Marine-Army task force to take Liquid into custody. However, the team's mission in Eastern Europe ended disastrously after Liquid hacked into the SOP system and used the soldiers' weapons against them, causing numerous casualties on their end.

Former members Naomi Hunter's false case file also stated that her brother was a Marine who died in a training-related accident.
 * Roy Campbell
 * Matt Campbell
 * McDonell Benedict Miller (drill instructor)
 * Scott Dolph (General, Marine Commandant)

Motto
The Marines motto is "Semper Fidelis", meaning "Always Faithful", commonly shortened to "Semper Fi." It was quoted by Iroquois Pliskin (a.k.a. Solid Snake) to Peter Stillman and Raiden, during the Big Shell Incident.

Unconfirmed history
Prior to becoming the United States Secretary of Defense in 2005, Jim Houseman was formerly a member of the Marines, and had led a unit of Marines during the Vietnam War.

Behind the scenes
In the English manual for the Nintendo Entertainment System version of Metal Gear, Solid Snake is stated to have formerly been a Marine who participated in the Grenada Invasion. Later games in the series, however, have rendered this account non-canonical. The Worlds of Power novelization for the game also had Snake be a member of a U.S. Marine antiterrorist squad under FOXHOUND.

The non-canonical sequel Snake's Revenge cites FOXHOUND member Nick Myer as having been a former Marine.

In Hideo Kojima's Grand Game Plan for Metal Gear Solid 2, the Marine unit that guarded the original Metal Gear RAY prototype is specified to be a Marine Air-Ground Task Force.

One of the Marines in Metal Gear Solid 2 was seen without his pants. Taking a picture of this particular soldier and submitting it to Otacon in the HD version will unlock the achievement/trophy "Sexting", referring to a method of texting via cell phones where the correspondents send each other racy, somewhat suggestive pictures to each other (sex and texting, hence "sexting").

The Marines deaths were later referenced in their card in the non-canon game Metal Gear Acid, which also established the casualties on the Marines' end as being more than half when the tanker sunk.