US Marine Research Articles

The United States Navy and Employees with Cancer: The Time for Change Is Now.

The US Navy, including the US Marine Corps and Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPP), has a robust radiological protection and monitoring program meeting (and typically exceeding, in the name of conservatism) federal law requirements. The program covers the variety of ways in which the Navy produces and uses ionizing radiation and radioactive sources: in medicine, nuclear ship propulsion and repair, industrial and aircraft radiography, and myriad other unique uses in carrying out its vital mission. In executing these programs, thousands of people across the world are employed as active-duty Sailors and Marines, government civilians, and government contractors. These workers include physicians, reactor operators, radiation safety officers, and nuclear repair workers, to name but a few. The health protection standards for these workers are promulgated in the publicly available Navy Medicine P-5055 Radiation Health Protection Manual (NAVMED P-5055), published February 2011 with Change 2 published December 2022, and are applicable to Navy and Marine Corps and NNPP radiation protection programs. The NAVMED P-5055 outlines the individual medical requirements for those qualified and able to receive exposure to ionizing radiation as part of their duties and requires that "Radiation workers receive focused medical examinations to establish whether or not cancer is present which would medically disqualify a person from receiving occupational radiation exposure." Additionally, without scientific or medical basis, the NAVMED P-5055 requires disqualifying those employees who have a history of cancer, cancer therapy, radiation therapy including radiopharmaceuticals received for therapeutic purposes, or bone marrow suppression from drawing dosimetry, entering radiation areas, or handling radioactive material. This policy, which exists regardless of lifetime occupational radiation dose or projected future radiation dose, applies to all cancers except adequately treated basal cell carcinoma. The policy is not supported by relevant scientific and medical literature; does not align with reasonable professional ethical standards; does not conform to US Navy radiological training, which stipulates the assumed increased risk of developing cancer from Navy and Marine Corps and NNPP occupational radiation exposure is small; and removes critical leadership and mentoring capability from the workforce unnecessarily. This article discusses in detail (1) this policy and its ramifications to the Navy and Marine Corps and NNPP workforce and (2) recommendations, benefits, and impacts for the Navy and Marine Corps and NNPP to remove this policy and still maintain a robust radiation protection program.

Characterization of Female US Marine Recruits: Workload, Caloric Expenditure, Fitness, Injury Rates, and Menstrual Cycle Disruption during Bootcamp.

Basic training is centered on developing the physical and tactical skills essential to train a recruit into a Marine. The abrupt increase in activity and energy expenditure in young recruits may contribute to high rates of musculoskeletal injuries, to which females are more susceptible. To date, the total workload of United State Marine Corps (USMC) bootcamp is unknown and should include movement around the military base (e.g., to and from dining facilities, training locations, and classrooms). Thus, the purpose of this effort was to quantify workload and caloric expenditure, as well as qualitatively assess the impact of female reproductive health and injury rates in female recruits. Female recruits (n = 79; age: 19.1 ± 0.2 years, weight: 59.6 ± 0.8 kg, height: 161.6 ± 0.7 cm) wore physiological monitors daily throughout 10 weeks of USMC bootcamp. Physical fitness test scores, physiological metrics from wearables, injury data, and menstrual cycle information were obtained. Female recruits on average expended 3096 ± 9 kcal per day, walked 11.0 ± 0.1 miles per day, and slept 5:43 ± 1:06 h:min per night throughout the 10 weeks of bootcamp. About one-third (35%) of female recruits sustained an injury. In a subset of females that were not taking birth control and had previously been menstruating, 85% experienced cycle dysfunction during boot camp. High levels of physical activity and caloric expenditure, coupled with the stress of a new environment and insufficient sleep, may lead to alterations in female reproductive cycles and musculoskeletal injuries in young USMC recruits.

Chronic interaction between humans and free-ranging bottlenose dolphins near Panama City Beach, Florida, USA

‘Swim-with’ activities, in which humans enter the water to interact with free-ranging cetaceans, are a popular form of nature tourism; however, there is considerable disagreement as to whether these encounters constitute a threat to the animals. At the request of the US Marine Mammal Commission, a systematic study was designed to quantify effects of swim-with activities on the behaviour of bottlenose dolphins in waters near Panama City Beach, Florida. Certain dolphin behaviours were identified as indicative of chronic interaction with humans, and based on presence of these behaviours, at least seven dolphins were identified that permitted people to swim nearby. Because these dolphins accepted food handouts from people, they were considered to be conditioned to human interaction through food reinforecement. Specific human-dolphin interactions that posed a risk for dolphins or humans were identified, and it was calculated that human interaction put a specific juvenile dolphin at risk once every 12 min, including being fed by humans once every 39-59 min. Humans interacting with that dolphin were estimated to be at risk once every 29 min. Although the study was of limited duration, the observations were so clear-cut and the nature of interactions so potentially hazardous it was concluded that food provisioning was the probable basis for swimming with free-ranging dolphins near Panama City Beach, Florida, and therefore, human interaction at this location was likely to be harmful to the dolphins and in clear violation of the US Marine Mammal Protection Act. Of equal importance to the findings of this study is the methodology. A systematic behavioural methodology was designed that can be adapted to study potential impacts of nature tourism on coastal communities of cetaceans in which individuals are readily distinguished. The focus was on the behaviour of individual animals in order to describe and quantify in-water interactions between dolphins and humans, to make behavioural comparisons for the same individual dolphins in the presence and absence of swimmers, and to make behavioural comparisons for individual dolphins in the same region that do and do not interact with swimmers. Coupled with standard photo-identification techniques, these methods can be used to identify the class of animals, or proportion of a local community, that is more likely to interact with, be detrimentally affected by, and/or avoid human interaction. Sequential observations of the same individuals taken over time can be used to document habituation or sensitisation to human interaction.

Bycatch of bottlenose dolphins in South Carolina, USA, and an evaluation of the Atlantic blue crab fishery categorisation

In the USA, commercial fisheries that interact with marine mammals are categorised according to the number of incidental takes of marine mammals relative to the defined Potential Biological Removal (PBR) for the population. Three categories exist for such commercial fisheries: Category I, II and III, each varying in the degree of regulation. Fishery categorisation is based on a five-year running average of the number of incidental entanglements in that fishery and is published annually in the Federal Register. The Atlantic blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) fishery is one of South Carolina’s largest commercial fisheries in terms of volume and value and was recently re-categorised as a Category II fishery, resulting in heightened regulation. The Atlantic blue crab fishery exists in known areas of bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) habitat; therefore, interaction between the two is probable. This study uses historical marine mammal stranding data and on-board investigations of the blue crab fishery in South Carolina to investigate the degree of fishery and dolphin interaction. Analysis of historical strandings showed that approximately 24% of the 42 entanglement cases in South Carolina from 1992-2003 resulted from the blue crab fishery. In nine of the 12 years examined, bottlenose dolphin mortality rates were found to be greater than or equal to 10% of the South Carolina Management Unit’s PBR, which is significant according to the US Marine Mammal Protection Act’s (MMPA) definitions for the Atlantic Coastal Stock of bottlenose dolphins. In addition, results from this study showed that the average number of bottlenose dolphin entanglements per year in the South Carolina blue crab fishery has exceeded 1% of PBR across a five-year period (1999-2003), which defines a Category II fishery. Thus, entanglement data from South Carolina from 1992-2003 support the re-categorisation of the blue crab fishery and the introduction of heightened regulations under the MMPA.

Rape in Peking: Injured woman, microhistory and global trial

AbstractIn December 1946, college student Shen Chong was raped by an inebriated US Marine in Peking. Although the initial trial by the court martial in China found the Marine guilty, the verdict was overturned by Judge Advocate General of the Navy in Washington. Student protests quickly turned into a nationwide anti‐American movement. In contrast to previous studies that emphasise the event's political impacts from the perspective of American imperialism and Chinese nationalism, this article shifts both the focus and scale of inquiry from the macro of national and international politics to the micro of a Chinese woman's body, investigating the particular mechanisms through which injustice towards a Chinese woman was executed in the US justice system. Probing along and against the ‘archival grain’ in both countries and languages, this article argues that such injustice was not only grounded in the political hegemony of the US military empire, but also resulted from a flawed legal system steeped in racial and sexual biases against Chinese women. This article further suggests that in order to understand this key chapter of Sino–US history, we must bring back to the centre of our study the injured woman, a figure that has remained largely invisible in the grand narratives of conventional political and diplomatic history.

Cetaceans of the oceanic northern Gulf of Mexico: Distributions, group sizes and interspecific associations

The Gulf of Mexico is a subtropical ocean basin with a diverse oceanic cetacean community. Cetacean research in the Gulf of Mexico has been driven by mandates of the US Marine Mammal Protection Act as well as concerns over the rapidly expanding oil and natural gas industry and related potential threats (e.g. seismic surveys, increased ship traffic, oil spills). Previously, cetacean distribution and abundances for specific Gulf of Mexico areas or species have been described based on work over periods of several years, and recently abundance estimates were made for the entire oceanic northern Gulf of Mexico (1996-2001). For each cetacean species, the paper describes distribution, group size, associated sea surface temperature and water depth and interspecific associations based on surveys conducted over 11 years that span the entire northern Gulf of Mexico. This dataset is the most comprehensive to date for the oceanic northern Gulf. Nine ship surveys totalling 45,462km of effort were conducted during spring seasons (1991-2001) in continental shelf-edge and oceanic waters ( 100m) of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Eighteen species were identified from 1,868 sightings. Cetaceans were found throughout the area although some species had localised distributions or occurred in restricted ranges of water depths. Spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris) had the largest mean group size (n = 40, x – = 151.5, SE = 30.90), followed by melon-headed whales (Peponocephala electra), clymene dolphins (S. clymene), pantropical spotted dolphins (S. attenuata), Fraser’s dolphins (Lagenodelphis hosei) and striped dolphins (S. coeruleoalba) (range of means 46.1-99.6). Beaked whales (Ziphiidae), Bryde’s whales (Balaenoptera edeni/brydei), sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) and pygmy/dwarf sperm whales (Kogia spp.) were found in the smallest groups (x – < 3). Twenty-seven sightings (1.4% of all sightings) were composed of two cetacean species. Common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) were recorded in mixedspecies groups with more species than any other cetacean. Forty-five cetacean sightings (2.4% of all sightings) were associated with at least one bird species, and 21 (1.1% of all sightings) were associated with schools of fish. Contrary to previous reports, pantropical spotted dolphins were observed in association with both fish (including surface tunas) and seabirds, although to a lesser extent than for other tropical oceans. No mixed pantropical spotted and spinner dolphin groups were sighted despite their regular co-occurrence in other tropical oceans.

Nightmare disorder in active-duty US military personnel

Study objectivesMilitary personnel experience high rates of traumatic experiences. Despite this, few studies have examined the presence of nightmare disorder in military personnel. The primary aim of this study was to examine diagnoses of nightmare disorder across the 4 largest branches of the active-duty US military. Design & participantsData and service branch densities used to derive the expected rates of diagnoses of nightmare disorder were drawn from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database. The branches examined included all active-duty services members in the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, who served between 2016 and 2021. Single-sample chi-square goodness of fit tests were conducted to examine within-variable differences for military relevant variables. ResultsBetween 2016 and 2019, the incidence rates of nightmare disorder (per 10,000 service members) in the US Department of Defense ranged from 11.3 in 2016 to a low of 6.9 in 2018. Service members who were classified as non-white, female, over the age of 35, married, in the Army, and/or a noncommissioned officer, were diagnosed at greater rates relative to their representation in the military population (p < .001). ConclusionOur findings of higher than expected rates of nightmare disorder in older, senior service members as well as those in the Army align with the known precipitant of nightmares, and trauma. However, the reason for the finding that female and Black service members have higher than expected rates is not readily apparent.

Predictive utility of commercial grade technologies for assessing musculoskeletal injury risk in US Marine Corps Officer candidates.

Recently, commercial grade technologies have provided black box algorithms potentially relating to musculoskeletal injury (MSKI) risk and functional movement deficits, in which may add value to a high-performance model. Thus, the purpose of this manuscript was to evaluate composite and component scores from commercial grade technologies associations to MSKI risk in Marine Officer Candidates. 689 candidates (Male candidates = 566, Female candidates = 123) performed counter movement jumps on SPARTA™ force plates and functional movements (squats, jumps, lunges) in DARI™ markerless motion capture at the start of Officer Candidates School (OCS). De-identified MSKI data was acquired from internal OCS reports for those who presented to the Physical Therapy department for MSKI treatment during the 10weeks of training. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to validate the utility of the composite scores and supervised machine learning algorithms were deployed to create a population specific model on the normalized component variables in SPARTA™ and DARI™. Common MSKI risk factors (cMSKI) such as older age, slower run times, and females were associated with greater MSKI risk. Composite scores were significantly associated with MSKI, although the area under the curve (AUC) demonstrated poor discrimination (AUC = .55-.57). When supervised machine learning algorithms were trained on the normalized component variables and cMSKI variables, the overall training models performed well, but when the training models were tested on the testing data the models classified MSKI "by chance" (testing AUC avg = .55-.57) across all models. Composite scores and component population specific models were poor predictors of MSKI in candidates. While cMSKI, SPARTA™, and DARI™ models performed similarly, this study does not dismiss the use of commercial technologies but questions the utility of a singular screening task to predict MSKI over 10weeks. Further investigations should evaluate occupation specific screening, serial measurements, and/or load exposure for creating MSKI risk models.

In Search of the Twenty-First Century's "Great American Graphic War Novel"

In Search of the Twenty-First Century's "Great American Graphic War Novel" Randy Brown (bio) Despite more than two decades of armed conflict, concurrent with what is arguably a new golden age of comics—the latter driven as much by developments in crowdfunding, digital publishing and platforms, and multibillion-dollar movie blockbusters as by hard-copy retail sales of monthly periodicals—there seem to be precious few examples of long-form sequential art about America's Global War on Terror (GWOT). Still, if you know where to dig, there are some dazzling treasures to be discovered. Three potential "Great American Graphic War Novels" triangulate and illuminate the nuances, frustrations, and outcomes of twenty-first-century wars as seen through American goggles. Two of these are written and illustrated by a single creator: Maximilian Uriarte, a former US Marine and creator of the satirical three-panel, black-and-white web comic Terminal Lance. With grunt's-eye views and truth-bomb satires of modern military culture, Uriarte's pithy and poignant work compares favorably to that of World War II soldier-artist Bill Mauldin, creator of the iconic "Willie and Joe" characters once published in Stars and Stripes. In his 2016 coming-of-age-in-the-Marines graphic novel The White Donkey, Uriarte moves beyond slapstick and dick jokes while using characters and line art similar to those of his original Terminal Lance strips. To these he adds a practice of using minimalist, watercolor-like palettes to change scenes and moods among pages—a discipline he skillfully and dramatically breaks with occasional splashes of spot-color: an American flag, an energy drink, a puddle of once-human goo. The book's title involves a roadside encounter with a white donkey—an animal notably defined by an absence of pigmented color—a quasi-magical image that comes to represent a recurring question: What are you looking for? The narrative follows two buddies, Abe Belatzeko and Jesus Garcia, from boot camp to Iraq and back again. Between scenes of bawdy humor and barracks life, Uriarte gives equal attentions to more-serious topics: "thank you for your service" alienations from friends and family, alcohol abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and veteran suicide. [End Page 53] At a security post downrange in Iraq, Abe is berated by an American-educated Iraqi police officer. He accuses the young Marines of arrogance. "This is not a journey for me," the officer says. "I have met many people like you over the last few years, coming here to fulfill some personal conquest, but you never stop to think how arrogant you are. You seek some enlightenment at the expense of my people. You do not care about Iraq. You do not care about my people." Published in 2020, Uriarte's graphic novel Battle Born: Lapis Lazuli navigates philosophical minefields similar to those of The White Donkey but features wildly different characters, settings, and colors. A squad of US Marines deploys to the northeasternmost frontier of Afghanistan and wrestles with its mission to drive a wedge between Afghan villagers, who are dependent on mining and trade in semi-precious blue gemstones, and their would-be Taliban oppressors. Instead of minimalist and monochromatic pages, Uriarte's unguttered panels are now saturated with bold and sumptuous colors. These he deploys to great effect in hues and tints, particularly in his depictions of mountain sunrises, shadows, and even snowstorms. More than once, Uriarte deliberately slows the action down to a series of widescreen, single-panel "splash" pages, encouraging readers to slowly and deliberately engage the views. Page turn, after page turn. The book takes its title from the motto of the state of Nevada, the home turf of Uriarte's main protagonist. Sgt. "Battle Born" King (no first names are given) is a Black kid who grew up in a white foster family in Reno. King becomes a hulking, brooding warrior of great physical strength and few words. In an afterword, the author mentions that it was his intention to model the character on R. E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, a stoic sword-and-sorcery character from 1930s pulp fiction. Conan continues to be present in various popular media...

Clinical encounter with three cancer patients affected by groundwater contamination at Camp Lejeune: a case series and review of the literature

BackgroundAdvanced understanding of tumor biology has recently revealed the complexity of cancer genetics, intra/inter-tumor heterogeneity, and diverse mechanisms of resistance to cancer treatment. In turn, there has been a growing interest in cancer prevention and minimizing exposure to potential environmental carcinogens that surround us. In the 1980s, several chemical carcinogens, including perchloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE), and benzene, were detected in water systems supplying Camp Lejeune, a US Marine Corps Base Camp located in North Carolina.Case presentationThis article presents three cases of cancer patients who have lived at Camp Lejeune, and, decades later, came to our clinic located 1000 miles from the original exposure site. The first patient is a young Caucasian man who was diagnosed with T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of 37, and the second patient is a Caucasian man who had multiple types of cancer in the prostate, lung, and colon as well as chronic lymphocytic leukemia in his 60s and 70s. The third patient is another Caucasian man who had recurrent skin cancers of different histology, namely basal cell carcinomas, squamous cell carcinomas, and melanoma, from his 50s to 70s.ConclusionsThe US Congress passed the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act in 2012, which covers appropriate medical care for the people affected by the contamination. We hope that this article raises awareness about the history of Camp Lejeune’s water contamination among cancer care providers, so the affected patients can receive appropriate medical coverage and cancer screening across the country.

Earlier detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection by blood RNA signature microfluidics assay.

Earlier detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection by blood RNA signature microfluidics assay.

미국 해상보험법상 연방법과 주법의 적용에 대한 구조적 문제점에 관한 고찰

Purpose : The purpose of this study analyses the structural issues in the application of Federal and State laws in the US Marine Insurance Law. Research design, data and methodology : The methodology is a typical case law analysis dealing with the issues surrounding the selection of the applicable law for marine insurance contracts as the issues implied by the US Marine Insurance Law. Results : In Travelers v. Ocean Reef, the 11th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals stated that only the Supreme Court had the privilege of overturning its decision and, unlike some commentators, could not dismiss Wilburn Boat on the grounds that it might disagree with Wilburn Boat. In Travelers v. Ocean Reef, will prove fascinating enough to tell you what the Supreme Court thinks about Wilburn Boat today. Conclusions : Considering the possibility that the law of the United States, which is popularly referred to as a major power in litigation, will affect Korea's trade officials, it is even more so. In addition, although the problem of the marine insurance law in the United States is recognized as a domestic problem, it should be recognized that the effect of opacity of the law and the diversification of legal principles is international.

0227 The effect of light on circadian entrainment for shifting from day to night flight operations

Abstract Introduction A midair collision during a routine nighttime air refueling training mission in the early morning hours of December 6, 2018, resulted in the tragic deaths of six Marine aircrew members and the loss of two US Marine Corps aircraft. Fatigue and the transition from day to night flights were called out as a problem area that continues to plague aviation commands. The goal of this study was to provide recommendations to the fleet regarding the limitations and best practices for shifting aviators from day to night operations to mitigate aviator fatigue and facilitate circadian re-alignment. Methods Longitudinal (10-day) within-subject assessment of aviators (N=9) in hybrid conditions. Aviators completed validated questionnaires for sleepiness and workload. Performance was assessed in simulated flight scenarios (one morning and three night sessions). The efficacy of a single 4-hour exposure of blue-enriched white light (~1000 lux) was assessed with the dim-light melatonin onset procedure. The study protocol attempted to replicate the work and rest patterns of aviators in the field who work during the day but could potentially be required to quickly shift their schedules to support night flight operations. Results The circadian phase of all participants was successfully delayed an average of 1.3 hours (range: 0.88-1.93 hours). Despite the lack of control over light exposure or other activities over the study period, participants reported less sleepiness and reduced subjective workload with improved flight performance. Conclusion Conclusions from the literature review and our study indicate that circadian entrainment in complex military operational settings should use light management as the dominant method for shifting the circadian clock. Based on these conclusions, we developed general recommendations and two circadian synchronization plans for aircrew switching from day to night operations. One plan shows a schedule that prepares for night operations by steadily shifting the daily schedule over multiple days. The other plan shows a schedule for aircrew who are required to shift from day to night operations abruptly without notice. Support (If Any) Supported by the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Unsupervised Clustering Techniques Identify Movement Strategies in the Countermovement Jump Associated With Musculoskeletal Injury Risk During US Marine Corps Officer Candidates School.

Musculoskeletal injuries (MSKI) are a significant burden on the military healthcare system. Movement strategies, genetics, and fitness level have been identified as potential contributors to MSKI risk. Screening measures associated with MSKI risk are emerging, including novel technologies, such as markerless motion capture (mMoCap) and force plates (FP) and allow for field expedient measures in dynamic military settings. The aim of the current study was to evaluate movement strategies (i.e., describe variables) of the countermovement jump (CMJ) in Marine officer candidates (MOCs) via mMoCap and FP technology by clustering variables to create distinct movement strategies associated with MSKI sustained during Officer Candidates School (OCS). 728 MOCs were tested and 668 MOCs (Male MOCs = 547, Female MOCs = 121) were used for analysis. MOCs performed 3 maximal CMJs in a mMoCap space with FP embedded into the system. De-identified MSKI data was acquired from internal OCS reports for those who presented to the OCS Physical Therapy department for MSKI treatment during the 10 weeks of OCS training. Three distinct clusters were formed with variables relating to CMJ kinetics and kinematics from the mMoCap and FPs. Proportions of MOCs with a lower extremity and torso MSKI across clusters were significantly different (p < 0.001), with the high-risk cluster having the highest proportions (30.5%), followed by moderate-risk cluster (22.5%) and low-risk cluster (13.8%). Kinetics, including braking rate of force development (BRFD), braking net impulse and propulsive net impulse, were higher in low-risk cluster compared to the high-risk cluster (p < 0.001). Lesser degrees of flexion and shorter CMJ phase durations (braking phase and propulsive phase) were observed in low-risk cluster compared to both moderate-risk and high-risk clusters. Male MOCs were distributed equally across clusters while female MOCs were primarily distributed in the high-risk cluster. Movement strategies (i.e., clusters), as quantified by mMoCap and FPs, were successfully described with MOCs MSKI risk proportions between clusters. These results provide actionable thresholds of key performance indicators for practitioners to use for screening measures in classifying greater MSKI risk. These tools may add value in creating modifiable strength and conditioning training programs before or during military training.

Circumference-Based Predictions of Body Fat Revisited: Preliminary Results From a US Marine Corps Body Composition Survey.

Purpose: Body composition assessment methods are dependent on their underlying principles, and assumptions of each method may be affected by age and sex. This study compared an abdominal circumference-focused method of percent body fat estimation (AC %BF) to a criterion method of dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), and a comparative assessment with bioelectrical impedance (BIA), in younger (≤30 years) and older (>age 30 years) physically fit (meeting/exceeding annual US Marine Corps fitness testing requirements) men and women. Methods: Fit healthy US Marines (430 men, 179 women; 18–57 years) were assessed for body composition by DXA (iDXA, GE Lunar), anthropometry, and BIA (Quantum IV, RJL Systems). Results: Compared to DXA %BF, male AC %BF underestimated for both ≤30 and >30 years age groups (bias, -2.6 ± 3.7 and -2.5 ± 3.7%); while female AC %BF overestimated for both ≤30 and >30 years age groups (2.3 ± 4.3 and 1.3 ± 4.8%). On an individual basis, lean men and women were overestimated and higher %BF individuals were underestimated. Predictions from BIA were more accurate and reflected less relationship to adiposity for each age and sex group (males: ≤30, 0.4 ± 3.2, >30 years, -0.5 ± 3.5; women: ≤30, 1.4 ± 3.1, >30 years, 0.0 ± 3.3). Total body water (hydration) and bone mineral content (BMC) as a proportion of fat-free mass (FFM) remained consistent across the age range; however, women had a higher proportion of %BMC/FFM than men. Older men and women (>age 30 years) were larger and carried more fat but had similar FFM compared to younger men and women. Conclusion: The AC %BF provides a field expedient method for the US Marine Corps to classify individuals for obesity prevention, but does not provide research-grade quantitative body composition data.

“In the Character of their Material, Animate and Inanimate, the Troops of the United States Excelled”

Abstract This article considers logistics and supply in the China Relief Expedition. In the China campaign, as in all armed conflicts, the availability of matériel and subsistence determined what military options were available to commanders. In 1900, because of a strong industrial base and a burgeoning logistical network, the US Army, Marine Corps, and Navy demonstrated an increased capacity and capability to project power on hemispheric scales. Throughout the entirety of their intervention in China, Americans moved animals, artillery, medical supplies, men, ordnance, and subsistence across great distances – over sea and land, to and within the theatre of operations – with remarkable efficiency under difficult conditions. Thus, the China Relief Expedition was instructive for the US profession of arms, and pointed to a future in which large-scale combat operations on land and at sea would require careful integration and more extensive logistical support than military operations of nineteenth-century conflicts.

Articulating Power Through the Parochial: The 1956 Armenian Church Election in Lebanon

A seemingly insular Armenian Church election that took place in Lebanon in February 1956 was simultaneously a site of contestation by Cold War powers and their proxies. Its disproportionately high coverage in the Lebanese press—and ensuing political intervention—provides an alternative view of the struggles for power between the United States and the USSR in Lebanon during the Cold War period. This election could have been understood as exclusively affecting Armenians in Lebanon and/or merely an entertaining anecdote of competition between Armenian religious figures. Instead, I argue that it is an opening to observe American-Soviet state competition for political influence in the region outside of the conventional case studies of the 1958 US marine intervention in Lebanon and the American government’s inability to prevent the Soviet suppression in Hungary in the aftermath of the Tripartite Aggression in Egypt in October 1956. And yet, this election must also concurrently be seen as a moment where the Armenian population of Lebanon made use of Cold War suspicions to designate a leader of the Armenian Church seen to suit their community’s interests. This article throws into relief the customary depiction and understanding of the Armenian population in Lebanon as temporary refugees and therefore not an integral part of the Lebanese nation-state by drawing out the use of Cold War rivalries.

Managing Chaos: The Falklands Campaign 1982

I kept a detailed diary throughout the Falklands campaign. When I read my Falklands diary 40 years on, I do not know the author. That person was driven, single-minded and obsessed with winning at all costs, well aware of the global and national implications of both success and failure. I also carried an 8-mm camera and filmed when I could. In 2015, I published this footage with the title, ‘Commando Engineers in the Falklands War: Version II’, unedited, except for format and subtitles, on YouTube. It was well received. On the voyage home from the conflict, on SS Canberra, I instructed my officers and soldiers to write down their experiences, which were circulated as an after-action report within the Royal Engineers. There was little debriefing on return. The implications of what we had learned were daunting and too expensive to face. We were very tired. We moved on. The focus remained on the British Army of the Rhine. I left the Army in 1993 and moved to the US, where I reside today with my family. We are all US citizens. Since retiring in 2014 after 20 years in business I revisited the Falklands Campaign as a lecturer for the US Marine Corps. Like most veterans, my memories and views have changed over time, as has my knowledge, not least from talking to Argentine veterans and learning from the US Marine Corps. This article reflects my views today on my very real experiences 40 years ago.◼

Evaluating Strategies for Managing Anthropogenic Mortality on Marine Mammals: An R Implementation With the Package RLA

Bycatch, the undesirable and non-intentional catch of non-target species in marine fisheries, is one of the main causes of mortality of marine mammals worldwide. When quantitative conservation objectives and management goals are clearly defined, computer-based procedures can be used to explore likely population dynamics under different management scenarios and estimate the levels of anthropogenic removals, including bycatch, that marine mammal populations may withstand. Two control rules for setting removal limits are the Potential Biological Removal (PBR) established under the US Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Removals Limit Algorithm (RLA) inspired from the Catch Limit Algorithm (CLA) developed under the Revised Management Procedure of the International Whaling Commission. The PBR and RLA control rules were tested in a Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) framework. A key feature of PBR and RLA is to ensure conservation objectives are met in the face of the multiple uncertainties or biases that plague real-world data on marine mammals. We built a package named RLA in the R software to carry out MSE of control rules to set removal limits in marine mammal conservation. The package functionalities are illustrated by two case studies carried out under the auspices of the Oslo and Paris convention (OSPAR) (the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic) Marine Mammal Expert Group (OMMEG) in the context of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The first case study sought to tune the PBR control rule to the conservation objective of restoring, with a probability of 0.8, a cetacean population to 80% of carrying capacity after 100 years. The second case study sought to further develop a RLA to set removals limit on harbor porpoises in the North Sea with the same conservation objective as in the first case study. Estimation of the removals limit under the RLA control rule was carried out within the Bayesian paradigm. Outputs from the functions implemented in the package RLA allows the assessment of user-defined performance metrics, such as time to reach a given fraction of carrying capacity under a given level of removals compared to the time needed given no removals.

Predictions of attrition among US Marine Corps: Comparison of four predictive methods

ABSTRACT The present study compared the performance of logistic regression models with that of machine learning classification models (classification trees and random forests) in the context of predicting training attrition from the Delayed Enlistment Program in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) with scores from the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System (TAPAS). Performance was assessed according to the type of misclassification error and across a variety of different reasons for attrition. The base rate of attrition was low, which impeded the training process, but the machine learning models outperformed logistic regression in predicting voluntary attrition in a stratified 50% attrition sample.