Gen. Amos: marines are big winners in Gates' budget shakeup.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: DEFENSEINSIDER

* For years, top leaders of the Marine Corps have publicly agonized over the idea that the service was losing its "amphibious roots" and becoming predominantly a land army. The anticipated cancelation of the troubled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle was seen as the death knell for the Corps' beach-storming, sea-based mission. But after the budget proposals announced Jan. 6 by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, marines are breathing a sigh of relief The EFV is being terminated, but the Marine Corps gets to keep the mission, and use unspent EFV dollars to buy a new vehicle.

"The Marine Corps has come out [of the Gates' budget review] in a pretty good position ... even though you'd never know it by reading the newspapers," said Commandant Gen. James Amos.

Gates is giving marines an opportunity to redefine their role and their relevance in U.S. military strategy, and is freeing the Corps' budget from the EFV's oppressive cost overruns, Amos said.

"I am the guy who recommended to the secretary of defense to cancel the EFV," Amos said. "I did it because it was onerous, and it was wearing us down." If the EFV were kept alive, the Corps would be spending 30 percent of its entire procurement budget--and about 80 percent of the Corps' tactical vehicle budget--to acquire 535 EFVs. "Where I come from, that's not a good budget," Amos said.

As part of the Corps' return to its maritime roots, Amos is mandating closer scrutiny of all new equipment, to make sure it's not adding unnecessary weight to the force. In the commandant's "planning guidance" that lays out his vision for the future, Amos listed a directive to "lighten the MAGTF--or marine air-ground task force--the organization that is at the heart of any Marine...