# Force Recon Marines train before reactivation



## tigerstr (Dec 13, 2008)

Curacao – Swimming 500 yards doesn’t sound hard.  Imagine swimming those 500 yards wearing more than 100 pounds of gear, carrying a weapon and not allowing the electronic equipment in your bag to get wet. If that wasn’t enough, add an opposition force on the beach trying to make sure you don’t make it to shore. 

Swimming those 500 yards are the Marines of 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company, 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force, during a training exercise off the coast of Curacao MORE HERE

The rest of the good news is that also Delta Company of 1st Recon Battalion will  soon (before the end of the year) be redesignated as a Force Recon Company, according to the latest newsletter of 1st Recon Newsletter is also very interesting if you want to read about latest 1st Recon training and activity. 


Although part of the respective Battalions, both Force Recon Companies will be under operational control of the MEFs in each coast.

The thing now is how they are going to compete with MARSOC for experienced volunteers. Any opinions on this issue?


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## 7point62 (Dec 16, 2008)

Just curious...which company of 2nd Recon Bn was designated a Force Recon company?


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## tigerstr (Dec 16, 2008)

*Delta*

Delta Company, at least thats what I read. Noticed that Alpha Company seems to be missing from 2nd Recon Bat subunit roster in the site. Dont know why.


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## Cecil (Dec 16, 2008)

Makes me reminisce about the good ole days


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## SgtUSMC8541 (Dec 17, 2008)

Did some training with the Dutch Marines in Curacao.  Very nice.  Great beer.


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## SCCO_Marine (Jan 7, 2009)

tigerstr said:


> The thing now is how they are going to compete with MARSOC for experienced volunteers. Any opinions on this issue?



They won't compete for Marine. A MARSOC tour is 5yrs then they rotate back to the Fleet.  So where do you think 0321 DASR Marines are going to go...

It will more than like be 4-5yrs w/Force 5yrs w/ a MARSOC DASR MSOT, back & forth.


The real Q?s are:

When things slow down in A'stan & Iraq or they can get back to a 6 or 7 Plt rotation (whichever comes 1st) will they return to the MEU?

If so will they bring back MSPF??  Some will make a snap & say "no the MSOC is already deploy on the MEU"...  But the various MEU Commanders & Marine Component Theater Commanders (MARCENT, etc) have felt the sting of not having that Foward Deployed Special Missions Capability at they're dispose for the last 2yrs.  
 ...I'm sure the MSPF would have been Clutch for the Commander of 24th MEU this past yr in A'stan.

If not deploying w/ the MEU will then maybe the SC MAGTF Construct being planned?  W/the Osprey they will never be more than say 12hrs away in most Theaters.


These are just a few of the really important & more interesting Q?s out there.


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## SoloKing (Feb 6, 2009)

*Short History of MarSoc, Force and drama...*



SCCO_Marine said:


> They won't compete for Marine. A MARSOC tour is 5yrs then they rotate back to the Fleet.  So where do you think 0321 DASR Marines are going to go...
> 
> It will more than like be 4-5yrs w/Force 5yrs w/ a MARSOC DASR MSOT, back & forth.
> 
> ...



The biggest issue, among the many we have had and still have, because Marines are stubbern retards and try and reinvent the wheel, is command relation. Big Green Marine Corps, still wants to call all the shoots for their newest and highest speed unit MarSoc, but what they don't understand is we may still be Marines but we work for SOCOM now. So, there has been a power struggle of sorts at every level. Marine Corps says " MarSoc will be part of the MEU" SOCOM says "MarSoc needs to get into CENTCOM now and get off the damn ships, Marine Corps "MarSoc will be the top maritime SOF", SOCOM "No thats why we have SEALs now get your ass to CENTCOM and get some opperational experiance as a new SOF unit", and it gos on and on back and forth. All the while team guys are stuck in the middle waiting for mom and dad to stop fighting, because at the end of the day all a team guy wants to do is just shoot some assholes, we don't care if its in space! Just let us go do the job we been training for for the last 1 1/2-2yrs ......uhhh!

So, that brings us here. My team was the last team to be part of the MEU, SOCOM put it's foot down, and we were off the boats mid float and in CENTCOM, thankfully, doing our job. That same MEU had 1st Recon Delta Co on it, they saw the oppertunity and jumped with both feet into the roll of FORCE and did a great job! Both 1st and 2nd RECON BN saw that MarSoc might get pulled off the ships early on and new it was a oppertunity to fill the gap and bring back FORCE. The MEU along with Big Green Marine Corp was happy to have their capability back. Around the same time there was a change of command at MarSoc and with it, a new command philosify MarSOc will do what SOCOM say.................. for the most part, we still have issues.

As a side note to the drama, FORCE ended up with us (my MarSoc CO) in CENTCOM a few months later kick'n some seriouse ass in a adj AO. I think they smoked more assholes than we did, lucky fuckers......

As far as competing for who gos where, in short there are not enough Recon Marines to go around and the demand has more than doubled in less than two years. But as stated earlyer the rotation is 4-5 years and we all end up going back to our roots. Many of the old school Force guys however, talk about going back to BN just to be in FORCE again, they miss the old school Recon patrol stuff, along with the maritime missions that MarSoc has gotten away from. That and everything about Force is straight forward and to the point. Everything about MarSoc is a building process, and its fucking painful at times, we are learning as fast as we can as we go, because SOCOM's way of doing things is all new to us. Some of the growing pains have manifest them selfs badly and very publicly in the news and other media.............

As far as what the future looks like, Force has been reserected and will take care of the MEU and it's special missions needs. MarSoc will continue it's painful growing process and fill the nitch best suited for them as directed by SOCOM. My personal oppinoin is that MarSoc will continue with less DA and get SR heavy, as that is what Recon Marines (thats who makes up the bulk or MarSoc now) are truely great at.

This is the story as I know it for the last 3 years, I left out some details but that is the down and dirty.


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