MARSOC: CONQUERING THE MISSION, FAILING THE MEN

Maybe I need clarification. Wouldn't they be fall under joint special operations command? If I'm wrong please straighten me out. I'm not former special ops so I might be using the wrong termanology.
 
mark c said:
Maybe I need clarification. Wouldn't they be fall under joint special operations command? If I'm wrong please straighten me out. I'm not former special ops so I might be using the wrong termanology.
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No. You are wrong.
 
mark c said:
Goon, I thought that the reason MARSOC was formed was to get the Marines under the JSOC umbrella? The Marines originally resisted sending Recon and Force Recon to JSOC for a few reasons. One, the higher ups didnt want to lose control of the asset by putting them under control of a non-Marine command. Two, the Commandant(and several after) didnt want to label any Marine unit as "Elite" or more elite than any other Marine unit. They felt ,and I share the opinion to an extent, that the entire Marine Corps was already an elite unit given its mission and the size of the unit compaired to the other branches. Not having the exposure to the JSOC enviroment and operating tempo has left the MARSOC community in a state of "catching up" with the other services that have a broader history of SOF experience. They are Marines and they will succeed and shine. Having said all of that I can only wonder if egos,envy and lack of knowledge at the higher levels are the real culprit here? From what I have read and been told by a few NSW guys is that MARSOC CSO's are very talented.
Whatever the case the higher ups have a duty to facilitate the needs of the men they are charged to lead and a moral obligation to do so.
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I think you are confusing SOCOM and JSOC. MARSOC falls under SOCOM just like USASOC, AFSOC, and NSW. They do not, as far as I know, have any elements that fall under JSOC.

EDIT: Didn't see the more recent replies, my bad.
 
goon175 said:
Completely agree, I know for a fact there are Marines serving in JSOC. But, that doesn't mean that the Marines have an entire unit that falls under JSOC.
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I wasn't directing at you sorry, just throwing that out there. All the elements within JSOC are ostensibly joint after all. People forget that we have had Marines at JSOC pretty much since the beginning of that organization.
 
MARSOC started with a failure by having the 4th MEB brass in charge of standing up MARSOC. While I was never a part of MARSOC, I was a member of the 4th MEB my entire enlistment. Here is a pretty good piece by Captain Lynch which details exactly why it failed(http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a503951.pdf). The failure of the MEB started at the top and could have been much worse had there not been solid NCO leadership (certinally not trying to toot my own horn, as there were plenty of other NCO's who were leaps and bounds greater than I). It sounds very much the same thing that is happening at the CSO level. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
 
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SOTGWarrior said:
MARSOC started with a failure by having the 4th MEB brass in charge of standing up MARSOC. While I was never a part of MARSOC, I was a member of the 4th MEB my entire enlistment. Here is a pretty good piece by Captain Lynch which details exactly why it failed(http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a503951.pdf). The failure of the MEB started at the top and could have been much worse had there not been solid NCO leadership. It sounds very much the same thing that is happening at the CSO level.
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Good find and worth a quick read for anyone interested.
 
Hitman2/3 said:
Didn't realize the Marine Corps still hadn't increased the number of officers in the force structure to account for our command structure. That seems pretty shortsided considering the increase in size we're trying to reach. Especially with the draw down in forces. I don't know the exact demographic they're cutting from but I have to imagine that if we're cutting over 25k Marines a percentage has to be officers. If that's the case I wonder how they'll even staff all of the teams and or staff billets? Let alone the various billets at SOCOM.
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It looks like the Marine Corps may close loop MARSOC officers now. I think that is a bad idea. Let's say there are 16 team leaders in a battalion. I don't know if there are or not but let's use this as an example. 16 team leaders do their team time and go away somewhere like SOCPAC LNO, S3A, MARSOC HQ, etc. Then they have to compete for 4 company commander slots. They may be able to juggle the timing so a few more guys get a shot at company command but the majority of team leaders will not. No command equals no promotion in the Marine Corps for the most part. Certainly no battalion command without company command. Currently a MARSOC officer can check that command box in his primary MOS and get promoted. I don't know how the SF manages promotion but I think we would and suspect we already have a lot of team leaders get out after their team time because they don't want to become staff officers. Also, the Army has nearly many SF battalions as we have infantry battalions. That probably helps.

The Marine Corps, not SOCOM, manages promotion and manning and I don't think that a MARSOC primary officer MOS would survive in our manning and promotion model. It's just my opinion but I think that you will find yourself short handed with field grade officers very quickly if you close loop the officer MOS. I think are too small of a service and MARSOC is too small of a community to handle that. MARSOC should probably adopt the Ranger Regiment officer assignment model instead.
 

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