UCF VLP Presents: US Marine Corps History

The end of World War II ushered in the atomic age, which began a new chapter in US foreign policy. While the world slid into a Cold War between the nuclear-armed US and the Soviet Union, the US military establishment reorganized and refitted to face the threats of the nuclear battlefield. Many of its leaders and those in Congress questioned the mission of, and even the need for, the US Marine Corps. In this episode, we explore the debate that enshrined the Corps into law, and how the Corps' combat

World War I marked a turning point in Marine Corps history. It transformed the Corps from an expeditionary force at the forefront of American interventions in the Western Hemisphere into a modern fighting force essential to the US military's larger operations. To explain this transformation, this episode explores various places and events that the Marine Corps canonizes in its historical narrative, including the wheat fields of the Battle of Belleau Wood in World War I and the Pacific Theater of

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) valorizes its history more than any other branch in the US Armed Forces. History remains a critical asset in the arsenal of transforming recruits into US Marines and maintaining that title throughout one’s career. In other words, history enables and sustains the identity of a Marine and the organization’s culture. This first episode of a three-part series about USMC history answers the fundamental question of why the Marine Corps places so much onus on its past