Marines do it their own way

MSNBC ^ | 9/30/01 | Sue Lackey

[kattracks]

A different approach to special forces
A Marine awaits orders during urban war training exercises last week at Camp Pendleton, California.
By Sue Lackey MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR

Sept. 30 —  For the average Marine, it is both amusing and a bit galling to hear all the talk about “special forces” and their capabilities. For while the Army, Navy and Air Force have created Special Operations Commands with a unique structure, the Marine Corps has taken its basic forward deployed unit — the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) — and trained every one in special operations tactics.

THE FAMED Delta Force is often celebrated as the nation’s most elite special operations team, but its position as a member of the the Army’s Joint Special Operations Command gives it a narrow focus restricted to counterterrorism and hostage rescue. In contrast, each MEU must be qualified in 18 separate mission areas, including counter terrorism. This broad focus in training and qualifications makes the Marine unit more versatile than any other service’s special operations forces.
       Gen. Alfred M. Gray, who served as Commandant of the Marine Corps in the early 1980s, helped create the Joint Special Operations Command. But while the command often requests Marines to flesh out its capability, the Corps is the only service which has refused to join the command at an organizational level. “It goes against the reason the Marine Corps was developed,” says a Marine officer who is a special operations specialist. “It would have forced the Corps to focus on one mission, when the nation needed an amphibious force for forcible entry, with much broader capabilities.”
       Under a recent reform of the system, traditional special operations forces forces are assigned to specific theater Commanders in Chief — for instance, the Commander in Chief, Europe or the Commander in Chief, Southern Command, which handles Latin America. East of these commands have units with specific specialties, and depend on that regional commander for support. MEU’s, however, an amphibious force that can be deployed at will to any theater. Their floating base of operations gives them the ability to sustain a mission longer than other special operations forces, which are traditionally used for short term insertions, or in the case of the Green Berets, specific insurgency training missions.
 

      The true strength of the MEUs lie in their ability to augment their forces with air and ground combat elements and combat service support. This means any given unit can call in tanks, amphibious assault vehicles, and fixed wing aircraft — all of which are part of standard MEU order of battle. Other special operations forces must rely on conventional service support when additional forces are needed.
       A perfect example of this versatility was in the 1983 Grenada invasion, where Army special forces were inserted to extract U.S. Embassy staff. The team was able to reach their target, but were then bottled up inside the embassy and unable to get out through enemy troops. The JSOC team then called for Marine support. An MEU which had been diverted to Grenada broke through with tanks and armored vehicles to extract their colleagues and the embassy personnel they had rescued.
       The way in which special operations training has been integrated into the basic structure of the Corps has changed the capabilities of the Corps as a whole. The other military services are large enough to allow their SF units to function in some degree of separation. Because the Marine Corps is so small in numbers, its SOC qualified personnel rotate on duty throughout the Corps, which has enhanced the overall quality of training and identification with special operations forces. Most of these men have now percolated to the top of the command structure. “It’s been in place so long now that a lot of the flag officers grew up with this-they’re Al Gray’s boys,” said one Marine special operations veteran. “That’s what you do not get in the other special forces, because they tend to stay in their own areas. When they do go into other units to further their careers, they have problems integrating within the conventional forces and its military bureaucracy. They don’t do well as staff officers; they want to go back to their unit.”
       That lack of experienced special forces officers at high levels to give special forces a voice allows other branches of the conventional forces to marginalize the effectiveness of special operations in budget battles and mission planning — a situation the Marine Corps has managed to avoid.

       

[CHIEF negotiator]

I'm trying to figure...what Marine would want to steal one of them sissy berets?

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Now, dear swabbie, you KNOW it is only professional courtesy,
perpetuating your foul up so you will not be embarrassed!!

Uh, well it was to much time in rough seas that caused me to foul up, LOL
2 different typhoons on a destoyer is NO fun
and training off Cape Hatteras (graveyard of the Atlantic) scramled my brain a little,LOL
PS Rough seas also meant no hot chow, the cooks couldn't cook anything, so we ate lots of sandwiches instead

[CHIEF negotiator]

Silent Souls
Leave .308 Holes

Semper Fi

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

That's because the ones who tried never lived to tell the story...

[jo6pac]

Thanks. Great info.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Qwid-pro-quo.......Thow dost speak the language of the true "Ghost"

[oldngray]

Very interesting post here. If I'm not the eldest Retired Marine on FR I'm pretty close to being so. That doesn't make me any more special than the Marines I witnessed graduating from Boot Camp at Parris Island less than 30 days ago. Might give me a few more sea stories to tell but that's about it.

Now, about the Army's Riverines ... I salute you!

The Marine Rifle Company I was with in Vietnam (2nd tour, 1968) had set up a perimeter defense, truly in the boonies in the waste country north of PhuBai. We were part of a Reinforced Marine Battalion that had been dropped into an area for search and destroy mission. The Battalion was well scattered, no other friendlies within 7 clicks. Just after nightfall one of our perimeter patrols got ambushed. Six Marines, 6 casualties. Try as we might we couldn't get to those guys. Dark as pitch, incoming rockets, mortars, .50cal machine gun fire, you name it, we were getting it. Med evac choppers from an LPH off the coast were orbiting but couldn't get close.

Up on the radio freq comes a voice from nowhere asking for particulars. He was a Riverine in an airboat. He'd been listening to our comm with the patrol leader. After proper ID we gave him the coordinates. We kept the NVA pinned down and he got our troops out. Didn't find out where he took them or where they went for more than 30 days. They ended up in a hospital on Guam.

Took a lot of guts for him to do what he did. We'll never know his name nor ever get to thank him personally. But on behalf of a number of Marines who might otherwise have come home in body bags, since we don't know him, I salute you.

Yes, we are a special breed and I could tell Illbay a few stories of how the rivalry of the services played its part during WWII ... and I mean during the war, not after. It's always been that way. I can appreciate his attempt to try to get his point across but unless he's "been there, done that" he's out of his element ... on this thread at least.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"So i guess no skiing, eh? :-)"

LOL, hell we were lucky to get "swim call" every once in a blue moon.
And when we did I got to stand shark watch with a M-1
Believe it or not we never had any M-14's or M-16's on board.
50 cal 30 cal machine guns, Thompson sub machine guns (my favorite),
BAR's, M1-carbines, grenade launchers, shot guns, 45's, 22's (pistols) but no M-14 or M-16
and being in charge of the armory also I cleaned all those weapons at least a "zillion" times,lol

[CHIEF negotiator]

WHITEFEATHER....

Shall he rest in peace

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

I have only one question, fellow "old Viet-Vet" Since when did Charlie use 50's as ordinance, or did I miss something?

[CHIEF negotiator]

You're thread is up to 250 posts. Will you start Phase II?

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

And so will "Base-Eagle". Something the American public never mourned......

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

bttt

[sneakypete]

We all looked really, really young.

I found and posted a photo of me in VN on a thread here a while back. I KNOW that was me,but I swear there is no way in hell I would sell that little kid a beer! I was 21-22,and didn't look old enough to drive.

[jo6pac]

"Sissy" berets?

Guys that wore them spilled the same color blood as the guys that wore a pisscutter with an eagle, globe and anchor.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Please refer to #244

[jo6pac]

Yeah. Woof, woof, woof.

[CHIEF negotiator]

You'll never catch a Marine wearing a green, brown, black beret. BTW, have they decided on the correct "hue" yet?

[Scuttlebutt]

"You're thread is up to 250 posts. Will you start Phase II?"

Dammit CHIEF, we don't need no steenkin' Thread II. I was kinda hoping that this one would get 1200+ replies and then we could ping Arthur.

[oldngray]

Whenever they captured one, or anything else they could get. Believe me, they used them.