I have a very high respect for most people that sign up for the military.

However, my experience has been that the just about every Marine drinks the patriotic kool-aid. If their superiors say Iraq is a threat, then they believe Iraq is a threat, no questions asked. Marines are trained to be subordinate, and questioning their country is an ultimate sign of insubordination. Also, just about every single one I have met had extremely conservative views.
The irony is that I probably would have been a Marine Officer if I wasn't medically declined a few months in.

Most of the Marines I spoke with hold the rank of Colonel or above.

I think you're really selling a lot of Marine's short to think they've been trained to not think rationally about orders. Discipline is a different thing...

-spence

That's pretty short sighted to label all Marines as subordinate cool-aid drinking conservatives.

Now that is a completely different story.

My experience was with the hundred or so I was consistently in direct contact with, all aged 18-25.

As I said above, it's an observation based on my direct experience. However, those observations were almost all of low ranking soldiers or soldiers to be.

You might want to have added that portion to your original unpatriotic statement.

Were you going to teach/accept insubordination to/from your direct reports if you achieved the rank of Marine officer?

My Dad was a Marine and a lib dem. And even in his 60s he could kick the livin sheet out of me if he wanted to.

Thats not saying much, your wife could kick your ass :D

I believe it. Marines are some of the toughest of the bunch.

That's right, because observations and free thinking are unpatriotic.

As I said in my original response, "my experience has been". In my beginning days in trying to get into the Corp's Officer school, one of the Staff Sergeants said, "Enlisted men are not trained to think. If you become an officer, you will be trained to think for them."

It doesn't get more blatant than that. And those are not my words.