"Bolivia doesn't have a seacoast", they said. "Bolivia doesn't need a navy", they said. "Bolivia can't even have a marine corps, they said."

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Well we're here to prove the haters wrong, and today, in 1956, Bolivia has announced the formation of the National Revolutionary Bolivarian Marine Corps, or simply the Marine Corps for when one doesn't have the spare type for three extra words. The Marines, numbering 2,000 strong, are at their core a veteran force--soldiers that have proved themselves in Bolivia fighting against the Paraguayans, against the Bolivian counter-revolutionaries, and even, and especially, against the Spanish fascist-imperialists in their war against the Moroccans--they are no neophytes.

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Organizationally, the Marines consist of two independent battalion elements, with an independent central staff and a political bureau made up of about 100 experts in the Bolivarian Revolution, also fluent in Mao-Zedong-Thought and Marxism-Leninism. Each heavy battalion consists of a headquarters company, support company, an armored company, and three rifle companies, the rifle companies being organized around the three-man fireteam first introduced by the Chinese communists and employed to great effect in the Chinese Civil War.

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Headed by their Commandant [a colonel], and a special political commissar of equal rank, the latter being responsible for the welfare of the men and the ideological reliability of the unit, the Marines have been assigned both the task of conducting amphibious warfare operations as well as forwarding the cause of anti-imperialism abroad--they are expeditionary in nature. Recruits to the Marines are thoroughly instructed in Maoist theory--not really the ideological bits, but rather his framing of the stages of insurgency and its effective prosecution. Similarly, they are armed with new Chinese Type 56 submachine guns, potent automatic weapons that are more advanced than the old Swiss AK47s in Bolivian inventory and that outclass pretty much any other small arms weapons system presently in service. Their tanks, on the other hand, are currently cars with plywood strapped on, which they are attempting to use to practice on best they can until such time as they get actual tanks, which is hopefully soon.

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The Marines also have been set to rehearsing amphibious operations on the banks of Lake Titicaca, in a move that is probably mildly unnerving to the Peruvian government, but it's not like we have anywhere else for them to train. Yet.