Carlson had begun his military career in 1912 by enlisting (under age, at sixteen) in the U.S. Army. He was discharged as a first sergeant in 1916, but almost immediately returned to uniform to join the Mexican Punitive Expeditionary Force under Brigadier General (later General of the Armies) John J. "Black Jack" Pershing.
Carlson later served in France with the American Expeditionary Force, where he was wounded. He was promoted to second lieutenant (May 1917), and to captain (December 1917). Though he resigned from the Army in 1919, in 1922 he applied for reinstatement of his Army commission, but was offered only second lieutenant.
Unwilling to be junior to his former subordinates, Carlson rejected the commission and instead enlisted in the USMC as a private. A year later, he was commissioned as second lieutenant, USMC.
Carlson began, but did not complete, flight training at the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, in 1925. And from 1927 to 1929, he was stationed in Shanghai, China, with the 4th Marines. In 1930, he was sent to Nicaragua, as a first lieutenant, for duty with the Guardia Nacional. For his valor in an engagement between twelve Marines and one hundred Nicaraguan bandits, Carlson was awarded the Navy Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor.
Carlson returned to China in 1933, where he learned to speak Chinese, and in 193S, following his promotion to captain, was assigned as executive officer of the Presidential Marine Detachment at Warm Springs, Georgia.
Roosevelt, who was crippled by polio, often visited this polio treatment facility. In 1945, he died there.
There followed (1937-41) a number of private letters from Carlson to the President, in which Carlson offered his views of the situation in China, his assessment of the possibility of a war between the United States and Japan, and the implications thereof.
In 1936, Carlson was a student at the USMC Schools, Quantico, Virginia, and took courses in international law and politics at George Washington University. In 1937 he returned for a third time to China, ostensibly to perfect his Chinese. As an additional duty, he was assigned as an observer of Chinese Communist guerrilla forces then involved in actions against the Japanese.
For three months, Carlson was for all practical purposes a member of the Chinese Communist Eighth Route Army. During that time, he came to know and admire both Chou En-lai and Mao Tse-tung. His official reports to Headquarters, USMC, reflected not only that admiration but also his professional judgment that the tactics, the morale, and the discipline of the Chinese Communists were vastly superior to those of the forces of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Chinese forces. In his judgment, the Communists would eventually triumph over the Nationalists, and American foreign policy should be changed accordingly.
In April 1939, frustrated by his conviction that he was being ignored by both the Marine Corps and the United States government, Major Carlson once more resigned his commission. He then spent part of the next two years in China as a private citizen, and there and in the United States wrote two books: The Chinese Army, which dealt with the Chinese Communists; and Twin Stars of China, which generously treated Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai.
He also carried on an extensive private correspondence, much of it unanswered, with prominent Americans, including Douglas MacArthur, as first Army Chief of Staff and then Marshal of the Philippine Army.
In early 1941, he reapplied for a Marine Corps commission. He was offered, and accepted in April 1941, a US. Marine Corps Reserve commission as major, was called to active duty, and shortly afterward was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
The lowly reserve captain who, in January 1942, dared to write to the Major General Commandant, wrote a document that was itself only two pages long, but it contained several
appendices, including a newspaper editorial from the San Diego Union Leader of January 6, 1942, which approvingly described British Commando raids in Norway and Malaysia.
The Major General Commandant, after all, was a busy man. Perhaps he hadn't heard what the English were up to with then-Commandos.
Appendix A to the captain's letter was four pages long. It was his proposed organization of "Mobile Columns (Commandos). (To be called 'Rangers' or some other appropriate name.)"
In the introduction to the proposed table of organization and equipment, the captain's letter called for "a closer relationship between leaders and fighters than is customary in orthodox military organizations."
He then went on to explain how this would be accomplished. First of all, the "mobile columns" would not be burdened with ordinary Marine Corps ranks. Each column, to be the size of a battalion, would be under the command of a "commander," instead of, say, a major or lieutenant colonel.
Everybody else in the "mobile column" (except, for example, medical officers and radio operators, who would be known by their specialties) would either be a "leader" or a "fighter." In other words, there would be no captains, lieutenants, sergeants, or corporals.
In the "Qualifications of Personnel" section, the captain wrote that all personnel should be prepared to "subordinate self to harmonious team-work" as well as to be capable of making thirty- to fifty-mile marches in twenty-four hours.
In the next paragraph, the captain touched on the subject of Rank Hath Its Privileges: "Leaders must be then of recognized ability who lead by virtue of merit and who share without reservation all material conditions to which the group may be subjected, arrogating to themselves no privileges or perquisites."
And in the next, on discipline: "Discipline should be based on reason and designed to create and foster individual volition."
The captain's letter was submitted on January 13, 1942.
The very next day, Major General Clayton B. Vogel, Commanding General of the 2nd Joint Training Force, Camp Elliott, forwarded it by endorsement to the Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps. The endorsement read, "The thought expressed in the basic letter is concurred in, insofar as the value of such an organization is concerned. It is believed, however, that the Marine Divisions should complete their organization and train units now authorized prior to the formation of any such new organizations."
It is possible, of course, that General Vogel, having nothing better to do with his time, sat right down and read the letter and the appendices straight through, and came to the conclusion that the captain's recommendations (even if they sounded like the organization and philosophy of the Chinese Communist Route Armies) were touched with genius and should be brought immediately to the attention of the Major General Commandant.
It is also possible that the signature on the letter had something to do with General Vogel's astonishingly rapid action in sending the letter on to the Major General Commandant, and his equally astonishing silence on the subject of throwing out the existing rank structure, and the privileges that went with it.
The letter was signed by James Roosevelt; Captain Roosevelt's father was President of the United States and Commander in Chief of its armed forces.
The very same day-January 14, 1942-Major General Commandant Holcomb, back in Washington, wrote two letters, classified CONFIDENTIAL, that were dispatched by officer couriers. The letters were essentially identical. One went to Major General H. M. Smith, USMC, commanding the Marine Barracks at Quantico, Virginia; and the other went to Major General Charles F B. Price, USMC, in San Diego.
1. Suggestion has been made that Colonel William J.
Donovan be appointed to the Marine Corps Reserve and
promoted immediately to Brigadier General for the purpose of
taking charge of the "Commando Project."
2. It will be recalled that Colonel Donovan served with
distinction in the 27th Division during World War I. He has
since then observed practically all wars that have taken place
and in particular has specialized in Commando Operations