Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command

[Elder]

marinesmagazine.dodlive.mil

[S. Richards]

Nothing more than a fake ass SEAL team if you ask me. Personally, they're cool dudes to chill with and shoot the shit. But they're not Tier 2, let alone Tier 1 capable. They're just special operations capable and most of the time I see or hear of them, they're usually in an embedded element training up the foreign armies.

[Pangilinan 1st MRB]

  Animal said:

Nothing more than a fake ass SEAL team if you ask me. Personally, they're cool dudes to chill with and shoot the shit. But they're not Tier 2, let alone Tier 1 capable. They're just special operations capable and most of the time I see or hear of them, they're usually in an embedded element training up the foreign armies.

Not to rag on the Marines, but the Army and Navy already had their own forces. Each with their own history already. They've been in the game longer than anyone. I can somewhat understand the need for the Air Force to get the ParaRescue blokes, but you'd think the Marines would already be fulfilling the part these guys are doing.

[McKenzie 1st MRB]

  McDowell 1st MRB said:

It's too bad that the Army Green Beret is equivalent to the basic Marine

Boom.

But he is right though McDowell, we were kind of lacking. However, that was before they got rid of Force Recon. So, the Marines have had a long history of their own Special Operations capable groups themselves.

[Pangilinan 1st MRB]

I guess the nature has changed nowadays, with a heavier emphasis on Counter-Terrorism Ops and Nation Building. The nature of the Corps in their old traditional role, basically as MPs and trained soldiers for Boarding/Counter-Boarding ops turned into shocktroops/amphibious capable troops, I guess it's the vanguard, a test bed if you will, in new methods for which to eventually find their way to the Corps.

That said, Force Recon (a completely separate and still active unit) conducts different operations than MARSOC. MARSOC is an offshoot from Force Recon, if Wikipedia has any credibility here, and handles the direct ops, the bits we see in the news or fantasize about in our dreams and vidja games. While Force Recon does what it does best. To conduct deep recon patrols for intel.

[S. Richards]

  McDowell 1st MRB said:

before the army comes to keep the peace

More like drop the ball and then call the Marines back in to clean up their mess. Just curious, have you ever noticed in the Marine Corps Times obituary section that when Soldiers die, they always die with their battle buddy same unit/same day/same battle if not half their squad KIA, were as Marines are usually a single name from one unit. Kinda speaks volume as to who trains better and harder. Thank god for stress cards

[Englebretson 1st MRB]

I have 1 cousin who is in force recon and 2 others that are just grunts. I did lose one of my cousins back in 07 when he was on his final month in iraq.

[S. Richards]

  Englebretson 1st MRB said:

I have 1 cousin who is in force recon and 2 others that are just grunts. I did lose one of my cousins back in 07 when he was on his final month in iraq.

I'm sorry for your loss brother. I've lost quite a few in Iraq and a couple to Marjah. A good chunk of my boot camp class that are in combat arms are no longer with us. This pissed me off the most, he was from our TOW's section in my BN:

Good kid, Bullshit way to go.

[Pangilinan 1st MRB]

  Animal said:

I'm sorry for your loss brother. I've lost quite a few in Iraq and a couple to Marjah. A good chunk of my boot camp class that are in combat arms are no longer with us. This pissed me off the most, he was from our TOW's section in my BN:

Good kid, Bullshit way to go.

That's...yeah. A really stupid way to go. :|

[McKenzie 1st MRB]

  Pangilinan 1st MRB said:

I guess the nature has changed nowadays, with a heavier emphasis on Counter-Terrorism Ops and Nation Building. The nature of the Corps in their old traditional role, basically as MPs and trained soldiers for Boarding/Counter-Boarding ops turned into shocktroops/amphibious capable troops, I guess it's the vanguard, a test bed if you will, in new methods for which to eventually find their way to the Corps.

That said, Force Recon (a completely separate and still active unit) conducts different operations than MARSOC. MARSOC is an offshoot from Force Recon, if Wikipedia has any credibility here, and handles the direct ops, the bits we see in the news or fantasize about in our dreams and vidja games. While Force Recon does what it does best. To conduct deep recon patrols for intel.

Actually Force Recon is going to be absorbed BY MARSOC, and they will eventually merge together and form the same function they did before, as well as other functions as designated by those in charge. Force Recon was deep recon yes, but it would also perform missions of sabotage and ambush, much like they did back in 'Nam.

[Englebretson 1st MRB]

In vietnam they did similar things the rangers did s&d prisoner capture etc. My dad did his last tour with the rangers in 70 right when the army and marines were starting to pull out. He has some crazy stories about his time over there and some of them scare the shit outta me.

[S. Richards]

  Englebretson 1st MRB said:

In vietnam they did similar things the rangers did s&d prisoner capture etc. My dad did his last tour with the rangers in 70 right when the army and marines were starting to pull out. He has some crazy stories about his time over there and some of them scare the shit outta me.

I had an uncle in as a sergeant in the Marines in Chu-Lai, only 20 yrs old at the time! Did he tell you how the viet cong used to brainwash villagers by showing them american food packages? They would show the villagers a bag of chips, point to the picture of chips on the bag, open it up and wah-la chips are inside. Then they'd show them another snack, lets say cookies. Picture of cookies on the outside, actual cookies on the inside. But the kicker is when they show the villagers baby food meat product now, picture of an innocent baby on the outside, chicken on the inside except they would tell the villagers it was baby. Hence the phrase, Kill Bodies Eat Babies. But yeah, other then that my uncle doesn't speak much of it, just now that he lost pretty much everyone he knew or was close to.

[Englebretson 1st MRB]

Nah the few stories ive heard when him and my barber his best friend were about going out on patrols chasing battalions in squads of 6 guys and not having shit for air support if they needed it. He said the QRFs out of the base he was at were the laziest pos he had ever met and half the time they were to blazed to even walk straight let alone shoot someone.

[S. Richards]

  Englebretson 1st MRB said:

Nah the few stories ive heard when him and my barber his best friend were about going out on patrols chasing battalions in squads of 6 guys and not having shit for air support if they needed it. He said the QRFs out of the base he was at were the laziest pos he had ever met and half the time they were to blazed to even walk straight let alone shoot someone.

Damn, 6 man fire teams? Fuck, those are some giant cajones. It sounds like he did LURP's, if so, that's some pretty BA credentials. Read up on them in a book and it's basically Rangers that go on near suicide recon missions deep in the sticks in fire teams of 4-6 men. Your old man is a true hero and warrior man, thank him for his service for me if you get the chance.

Book btw, if interested

Edited April 8, 2011 by Animal

[Englebretson 1st MRB]

Yeah I have like 30-40 books just on vietnam and have read each of them at least twice. It seemed in vietnam since the whole sf lone wolf shit was just being utilized as a "recon" element they didnt think you needed that many guys I mean traveling through the jungles with what 40-50 guys in a line company making lots of fucking noise aint my idea of finding the enemy on my terms lol. He said he went out by laos one time with 12 guys so 2 teams to mark shit for b52s. I still find it funny that if you wanted to get into force recon or the rangers you just volunteered and they sent you to some courses in taiwan to learn how to act as a small element E&E shit etc. You ever read up on the SOG guys and the how the CIA used them as their own little pit bull?

[S. Richards]

  Englebretson 1st MRB said:

Yeah I have like 30-40 books just on vietnam and have read each of them at least twice. It seemed in vietnam since the whole sf lone wolf shit was just being utilized as a "recon" element they didnt think you needed that many guys I mean traveling through the jungles with what 40-50 guys in a line company making lots of fucking noise aint my idea of finding the enemy on my terms lol. He said he went out by laos one time with 12 guys so 2 teams to mark shit for b52s. I still find it funny that if you wanted to get into force recon or the rangers you just volunteered and they sent you to some courses in taiwan to learn how to act as a small element E&E shit etc. You ever read up on the SOG guys and the how the CIA used them as their own little pit bull?

I've heard some interesting bits and pieces about them doing deals and supplying drug barons over in Nam, especially the MACV-SOG operations along the Ho-Chi Minh. Shady stuff, almost hard to believe that our politicians would allow that kinda stuff, but 3/4 of war is politics.

[Englebretson 1st MRB]

Not only that the scuttlebutt ive heard is that they also conducted assassination missions using locals they trained so it was us soldiers pulling the trigger. I know just like they did in afganistan was help train local forces to fight the vietcong and nva forces around laos and cambodia.

[Pangilinan 1st MRB]

  Animal said:

I've heard some interesting bits and pieces about them doing deals and supplying drug barons over in Nam, especially the MACV-SOG operations along the Ho-Chi Minh. Shady stuff, almost hard to believe that our politicians would allow that kinda stuff, but 3/4 of war is politics.

"It is clear that war is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means"

Carl von Clausewitz, "On War"

There are always situations where politics will get in the way of an operation, fund it, order it, etc... When diplomacy and the other veiled niceties end, it's often warfare that comes about, well, in the past few centuries at least.

[Englebretson 1st MRB]

Of course there is politics in war why do you think Pang is on point during realisms 9/10 times hmmm its not cause he wants to be there

[Pangilinan 1st MRB]

Because I scream like a little girl when I get killed and that's enough of a warning to the rest of the squad? XD

[S. Richards]

I fear the day when war is no longer political, but just a mere means of survival to find and obtain more natural resources. Sad part is, it's already in the process. 80% of Iraq was securing our oil lifeline and keeping it open to the United States, the FBI had already interrogated Saddam in 2003 after his capture where eventually he cracked and denied connections to Osama Bin Laden and that the whole WMD clusterfuck was just a means of keeping Iran at bay from invading Iraq.