The Marine Corps' top general expressed serious regrets over the fact that Marines were not available to help in two major crises in recent months because of a lack of available Navy ships to position units in nearby waters.
“Places like Turkey or, the last couple of weeks, in Sudan — I feel like I let down the combatant commander,” Commandant Gen. David Berger told members of the House Armed Services Committee on Friday.
“[Gen. Michael Langley] didn't have a sea-based option — that's how we reinforce embassies, that's how we evacuate them,” Berger added, referring to the head of U.S. Africa Command.
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The remarks come amid a growing debate in the halls of Congress over how the Navy is meeting the legal requirement to operate 31 amphibious ships for the Marines, designed to be used as maritime operations hubs. Corps leaders and even lower-ranking officers have been stressing that they need those ships at sea to fulfill their missions.
In this year's budget proposals, the Navy suggested that it would drop its amphibious ship numbers below that 31 ships threshold by retiring older dock landing ships, or LSDs, while pausing orders of the replacement San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships, or LPDs.
“We have some LSD platforms, for example, that cannot be made operationally available to fulfill the requirements that we need,” Secretary of the Navy…
