George Barnett - Advanced Base Commandant
GEORGE BARNETT – ADVANCED BASE COMMANDANT John S. Naylor - 1 May, 2026 George Barnett has not been widely remembered or celebrated for his tenure as the 12 th Commandant of the Marine Corps. Indeed, after six-years as commandant, he was replaced in the post by a Marine eight years his junior, three years before he was required to retire. During his career he had been awarded no personal decorations for combat heroism. His most important service friendships were most likely those he developed among his Naval Academy classmates. Other Marines judged him as being “political”, and historians don’t remember him much for his accomplishments. However, there may have been no Marine of the era more perfectly positioned to run the Marine Corps. Barnett was a product of the Naval Academy, class of 1881, and his early professional career coincided with the excitement created by the writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan. Mahan’s works, and a country looking outward and overseas created an optimism t...