Dr. Ikujuro Nonaka, director of business research at Hitotsubashi University, has written a book, "The U.S. Marine," available only in Japanese. It contends Marines were key to the U.S. victory over Japan in World War II. He says they did then and still continue to do a superb job of combining two types of knowledge, which he labels tacit and explicit.
Explicit knowledge is the stuff that can be written down in books and reports. Americans are strong on this.
Tacit knowledge is the stuff that can't be written down, the understanding developed by members of a team that enables them to know each other so well they can act as one and respond as one to unexpected situations without stopping to grab for the rule book. Japanese are strong on this.
The U.S. Marines, Nonaka contends, are strong on both.
His introducer at that talk was Fujio Matsuda, president of the Hawaii Kai-based Japan-America Institute of Management Science. Matsuda said championship basketball teams need a lot of tacit knowledge of each other and the game to coordinate themselves into winners. The Marines may have to do it in killer combat.
Since then I've been trying to understand better why the Marines have such an unexpected admirer.
Brig. Gen. David Bice, commander of the Marine Corps Base Hawaii, made a contribution in a recent talk. U.S. Marines don't know where they will be needed in the future, he said, but aim "to be most ready when the nation is least ready . . . first to fight . . . first to help." Tap just about any of the corps' 174,000 Marines and I'll bet they will share the same belief, and pride.
Pride is something the Marine Corps almost knocks into its recruits as it puts them through 11 weeks of tough basic training at Parris Island, S.C., and brings them out as Marines forever. Discipline, dedication and ethical value training produce a drug-free, racially integrated corps alien to far too many young Americans today. The Okinawa rape case was a horrible exception.
In World War II invasions, I saw young Marines absolutely eager to go into combat, which was not a feeling shared by most Army troops we delivered to beaches or by me and my Navy shipmates. We did our jobs but we didn't sparkle at the thought of combat.
Fighting is the business of the Marines and their new commanding general, Charles C. Krulak, is jumping a generation in technology development to see that Marines 20 years from now will still be ahead of the pack.
Articles on his initiatives are a mile long and heavy on personnel development but are captured in his reference to technological change as a dragon. "If you try to ignore the dragon or control him, he will eat you," Krulak says, "but if you ride the dragon of change you can survive, even prosper."
KRULAK is searching out new technology to better equip his men and women. He has asked industry leaders about possibilities for new equipment and for adapting already existing technology to new Marine uses.
He has ordered more battlefield autonomy even for units headed by lance corporals. He talks about command coordination rather than command control.
He charmed his troops by going to Congress for $10 million for new rain gear after he had some personal drippy experiences with the old. He welcomes dialogue at all levels.
Following the advice of his father, retired Marine Lt. Gen. Victor Krulak, called "Brute" because he is so short (5-foot-4), the new commandant, who is only two inches taller, says he is using his first year in command to get things going and will use the next three making sure they happen. His first year ends June 30. It is drawing admiring reviews even from other services, which may take some tips.