United States Marine Corps 101
This podcast is the audio recording of a video interview with Major Lowell Krusinger. Major Krusinger was the officer representative on the men's basketball team when I was at the academy. He is a great mentor to me.
He attended the University of Utah where he completed his bachelors degree in English literature with the German minor and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps in December 2003. Major Krusinger became an infantry officer and attended the infantry officer course. He reported to Camp Pendleton, California to serve as a rifle platoon commander during the battalion’s training and deployment in support of Operation Freedom in Iraq.
He was accepted into the Marine Corps Foreign Area Officer program and attended the Naval Postgraduate School earning a masters degree in National Security Affairs with an emphasis in East Asian studies in 2009. He attended the follow on Chinese language training at the Defense Language Institute and then served for one year in the People’s Republic of China.
His assignment at Naval Academy at Annapolis in 2014 was to serve on the Commandant of Midshipmen’s staff. In addition to his regular duties, he was the men’s varsity basketball officer representative.
He takes us through the basics of the United States Marine Corps as an introduction to a series about the USMC and it's connection to the United States Naval Academy.
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Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
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Grant: 0:03
This is your host Grant Vermeer Naval Academy class of 2017 and I'm your academy insider. It's my goal to be your guide through the Naval Academy experience. By sharing my stories and providing you inside information into the life of a shipment. Academy insider is in no way officially affiliated with the United States Naval Academy. All over the content on Academy Insider is my own and does not reflect the views of the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy nor the Department of Defense. Everyone and welcome to the academy instead of podcast. Today's episode is gonna be all about the United States Marine Corps. For this. You don't know which is totally great. The Marine Corps is actually part of the Department of the Navy, which means that the United States Naval Academy actually graduates in commissions second lieutenants in the United States Marine Corps as well as Ensign's in the United States Navy. As a result, there actually is a really large presence of Marines on campus at the United States Naval Academy, and because of that, I wanted to start incorporating more Marine Corps knowledge into Academy insider, So we're actually lucky enough today to have major Cruise Singer who was the basketball officer representative during my time at the academy, as well as on the common on staff. Just an absolute meant to remind someone that I spent Ah lot of time with talking, getting to know and who just invested a lot of time in my life, in my development as a person and as a leader. So I'm tremendously grateful, and he's actually agreed to do a video series about the Marine Corps and the United States Marine Corps presence at the Naval Academy. So this podcast is actually basically just the audio recording of that video. If you want to see the video, absolutely, head to my Facebook page and we'll post a link in the show notes. If you want to go check it out. Otherwise, enjoy the podcast and we'll have many more coming in the future. Everyone and welcome to academy insider in this video, Siri's We're gonna be talking about Marine Corps 101 We're lucky enough to be joined by Major cruise singer, who was the basketball rep during his time at the academy and during my time as a basketball player while he was on the common on staff. Tremendous mentor to mind and now willing to help give back to the academy is at a community by talking about the Marine Corps. So, sir, thank you so much for being here. And if you don't mind just introducing yourself to the audience and telling a little bit about yourself in your time of
Major Krusinger: 2:21
the record, Okay, so I'm major little cruising. Er, I'm an infantry officer in the Marine Corps, and I started out I did not attend to the Naval Academy, actually commissioned through the Naval ROTC program out of the University of Utah, So I came to the academy Later in my career staff. I started out as a second lieutenant as a rifle platoon commander in second Battalion, first Marines. I did a couple of combat deployments to Iraq with them, then went on to Monterey, California, where I got a master's degree in national security affairs, learn Chinese and then spent a year in China, which was pretty incredible. Can we talk about it? After that? I went to Hawaii, served as a company commander and assistant operations officer did in Afghanistan to play the deployment of Toki Nala. From there, I went to the academy where I worked on the staff. So I was able to go from leading Marines to working with young people that wanted to become officers in the Navy and the Marine Corps, which was a pretty awesome opportunity from there. I left the academy and I went to Twentynine Palms to their battalion, seventh Marines and surges of Battalion executive officer, which was a phenomenal experience. We did it appointed into Centcom into the Middle East, where were kind of spread all over, did a lot of different stuff there. And now I've moved over to the first methe information to appear in Camp Pendleton, California I'm married, have a family, and I got three wonderful kids. They've been with me for the whole journey, pretty much so. It's been an experience,
Grant: 3:43
absolutely. And for those of you, if you're not tremendously familiar with the military, which is great and glad that you are joining us on Academy insider, you may be wondering, why is a Marine at the Naval Academy? It's the Navy, so that's why we basically want to break down them re core at its most basic simple level and just talk about Rick or 101 which starts, basically with the Department of Defense falling into different departments. So there's the department of the RV department of the Navy and Department of the Air Force that fall under the Department of Defense and within the Department of the Navy. The Marine Corps is a component of that department, so there is no rink or academy. There is the Naval Academy. And at the Naval Academy we commissioned both Navy and Marine Corps officers, and as a result, we have staff at the Naval Academy who are Marines, as well as not only officers there, but as well. A senior enlisted leaders who were enlisted Marines that come and help train the midshipmen and their progression to commission as either an officer in the Navy or Marine Corps. So with all of that being said, that is why the Marines are at the Naval Academy. And now let's talk a little bit about just basically, what is the Marine Corps? What is the
Major Krusinger: 4:56
role of the Marine Corps within the armed forces? That's a great question grant. So the Marine Corps was really designed inside the Department of Navy. We really What's interesting is we started out. Is the Fleet Marine Force? Working hand in hand with the Navy is the primary role on purpose of the Marine Corps was to seize advanced naval bases and sees advanced airfields in preparation for follow on forces. So that aspect and the purpose of the Marine Corps is Thio Go and work together with the Navy to create space for fallen forces. The Army and Air Force, which you're much bigger, enable that and have much more equipment to come in later and carry off the mission later off. So, really, that is the purpose of the Marine Corps. And that's why we are in the Department of the Navy. You know, we work with our sister service, and what's interesting is that the new comment on the Marine Corps general burgers get getting us back into the mindset of naval integration. What's interesting is wear now the Fleet Marine Force been. I
Grant: 5:58
love it absolutely. And so that's a big piece, that amphibious kind of integration with the Navy, absolutely supporting the Marine, all the ground now on Academy insider. We've talked a lot about the cultures of different communities. So there's Navy culture. There's recourse culture. And even within the Navy, they're a bunch of different cultures between naval aviation and submarine warfare and surface warfare. And for me, the information warfare committed. All of us have our own unique cultures, and so so I just want to pass it over to you to talk a little bit about what is the Marine Corps
Major Krusinger: 6:31
culture. What is the ethos of being a Marine? That's another great question is probably one that has a lot part of it. Re court culture comes from a tremendous amount of history, and I think similar to or maybe brother in that and family that we were old. We come. We were born November 10 17 75. You know, the Navy was born a little bit before us. So a lot of our traditions and a lot of our culture comes from the Navy from being a naval service. So we have a similar language to the Navy. We speak differently than the Army and the Air Force a lot of times, and I think in addition to that, our culture comes from being warriors of the sea, so I know we were gonna talk about warrior ethos, and I think that's part of the Marine Corps culture. We always refer to ourselves as Marines again. That is what we are, first and foremost, and to be a Marine, just like if you come into the Marine Corps on the enlisted side and everybody goes to boot camp and they all go to the same boot camp and they all learn primary infantry skills. So first and foremost, a Marine is a warrior on the officers and similar. So everybody goes through what we call the basic school. It's the basic school for a reason. So they go to the basic school to learn infantry tactics and to be an infantry platoon leader. And that is the basic 1st 6 months. So whether those officers go off and learn to fly F 18 Hornets or whether they go off and do communications and work with computers and networks, or whether whatever they end up doing there first and foremost leader of Marines, so that is absolutely part of our culture, I think an important part of that is eyes were servants. First, it's very much I mean, we talk about military service all the time. But that's not That's a term we take very seriously. We serve our Marines, especially as the officer side. You hear a lot these days about how leaders eat last, and I would say that's very much not just on the officer side, but even he enlisted. That's that's how we operate is each. If you are, if you have additional responsibilities, you are in a position of responsibility. Then you are going to serve those that work with you, and that's a big aspect of our culture. There's a lot of heritage looking back through previous conflicts and previous wars on we very much look at those people, and at times it could be pretty, pretty intimidating to think back on former Marines and the things that they've done on. And I think that is absolutely built into who we are as Marines,
Grant: 9:13
absolutely and something. I'll just comment from the outside and during my time at the academy I was saying off the camera that the mentors that I looked up to most during my time at the academy, even though I decided to go into the Navy, were Marine's Marine officers specifically Captain Green major here was a huge mentor of mine. I love how proud they were to be Marines. I love this fear to core that they had for their service, and I loved how much pride they took into helping mentor and train the mid shipment. And I think that's a big thing that I have grown to love about. The Marine Corps culture, even though I'm not a part of it, was that piece of service in the pride that you guys have in being a Marine and a Marine first in the Marine, always once a Marine, always a Marine. So if you have a sound or daughter or a loved one who's thinking about going recourse selected Marine Corps, that's what you have to look forward to Is that true pride in what they do and bring a Marine first and living that life of service so that right there is what we're going to talk about for the Marine Corps 101 If you continue to join us on this video, Siri's will be talking about raking uniforms, the Marine Corps presence on the Naval Academy grounds and a bunch of other topics. So make sure to continue watching these videos. If all of this on academy insider, thank you guys so much. And major, thank you.
Major Krusinger: 10:33
You're welcome.
Grant: 10:35
All right, Thank you to everyone who listen to the podcast. I really appreciate it. I hope you got some good information and really enjoyed it. Please leave me a review on iTunes and be sure to subscribe to the academy instead of podcasts. You get notified whenever a new episode is coming out. If you want to learn more about the Naval Academy now, especially about the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps presence at the Naval Academy, please go to my Facebook page academy insider, where we'll be releasing that video, Siri's so you can find more information about it. And again, if you subscribe, will notify you whenever a new podcast episode comes out. And, as always, you can go to my website. Www dot academy insider dot com to find more information. Articles about life at the United States Naval Academy Again, any links discussing the show, especially this video, our list in the show notes to go check him out. I'm great for me or the academy insider. Thank you so much for letting me be your guide to the United States Naval Academy