The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is an independent branch of the US armed forces. The unit was established in November 1775, and the first branch of this unit was formed a year later. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, US Marines served primarily in the region of South and Central America, guarding American interests in this part of the world. It was also then that the principle was established that it was the USMC that was deployed to the area of operations as the first among other units of the US armed forces. Corps soldiers fought in World War I, but they gained special fame in the course of bloody and heavy fights in the Pacific in 1941-1945, taking part in such battles as Guadalcanal (1942-1943), Tarawa (1943), Iwo-Jima and Okinawa (both from 1945). Often in the face of the enemy, the soldiers of this formation showed a lot of courage, an example of which can be, for example, John Basilone was awarded the Medal of Honor for his accomplishment during the battles on the Gudalcanal. After 1945, the soldiers of the Corps fought, for example, in the Korean War (1950-1953) or especially in the Vietnam War (1964 / 1965-1975), suffering heavy losses in the latter war. After the end of the Cold War, USMC soldiers took part in, for example, both Gulf Wars (1990-1991 and 2003). Currently, there are 182,000 soldiers in the Corps, and about 38,500 in the reserve. The motto of the Corps is the Latin motto Semper Fidelis (Polish always faithful).
The Korean War (1950-1953) was fought between the troops of South Korea, supported - on behalf of the United Nations - by American, Australian and British troops, and the troops of the DPRK, i.e. North Korea, supported more or less officially by the USSR and the PRC. Infantry, of course, was the largest type of US armed force fighting in Korea. The US Army and USMC sent several infantry, infantry and marines divisions to Korea, including: 2nd Infantry Division, 7th Infantry Division and 1st Marine Division. The main strike force of the infantry division were three regiments of infantry, supported by divisional artillery and various types of support units (e.g. sappers, communication and logistics). On average, in 1950-1951, the division had between 12,500-13,650 officers and soldiers. Over time, the division structure turned out to be ineffective and the infantry units were reorganized into brigade formations, relatively well saturated with artillery, communications and sapper units. It is worth noting that the basic shooting weapon of the American infantryman was still the M1 Garand rifle and its modernized version of the M1 C / D Garand. The WWII M1918A2 BAR rifle was also used as a manual machine gun, while the M2 Browning was the heavy machine gun. It is worth noting that the American infantry had quite good, especially at the end of the conflict, hand-held anti-tank weapons in the form of Bazooka and Super-Bazooka armor.