MARSOC Q & A

B

Boondocksaint375

Guest
Just revised on the site:


Summary Statement: On 23 May 08, the Commander, MARCENT, announced his decision regarding the findings of the Court of Inquiry into the events surrounding the VBIED ambush of elements of Marine Special Operations Company F in Afghanistan on March 4, 2007. He determined that the members of the MSOC-F convoy acted appropriately and in accordance with the rules of engagement and tactics, techniques and procedures in place at the time in response to a complex attack.

Q1: Does this finding by the Commander, MARCENT, mean that no further action will be taken against the MSOC F Marines?(23 May 08)
R1: Administrative action related to incidents separate from the March 4 ambush will be initiated against three MSOC F officers by MARCENT. Additionally, the Commander, MARCENT, recommended that two MSOC enlisted Marines face administrative action by MARSOC. The Commander, MARSOC, received that recommendation and has not yet made a determination regarding what actions, if any, he will take.

Q2: Do the findings of the Court of Inquiry mean that the issue is resolved?
(23 May 08)
R2: Although it was determined that MSOC F reacted within the operations plan, rules of engagement, and law of warmed conflict at the time of the March 4 ambush, the scope of the Court of Inquiry extended beyond that single event. Administrative actions will be initiated by MARCENT against three MSOC F officers and the MARCENT Commander concurred with the Court of Inquiry recommendation that MARSOC initiate administrative action against two enlisted Marines for incidents distinct from the March 4 ambush. The MARSOC Commander will determine what action, if any, is appropriate with regard to that recommendation.

Q3: One Marine was injured during the March 4 ambush and was not awarded a Purple Heart medal because of the investigation. Will he finally receive his Purple Heart?
(23 May 08)
R3: Receipt of a Purple Heart award requires that a service member's actions following a distinguishing act are honorable. The findings of the Court of Inquiry that the Marines’ response to the ambush was consistent with the operations order, rules of engagement, and law of armed conflict clears the way to award the Marine injured in the ambush with a Purple Heart medal. The ongoing investigation also delayed the presentation of several Combat Action Ribbons. The MARSOC Commander, MGen. Dennis Hejlik, is the awarding authority for MSOC F. He has directed that any awards placed on hold due to the ongoing investigation be processed as quickly as possible now.

Q4
: Did the Court of Inquiry make any other recommendations that were endorsed by the MARCENT Commander? (23 May 08)
R4: Yes. MARSOC was advised to review its Joint Mission Essential Task List(JMETLs) and organizational structure to determine if any changes might be made to further improve the ability of MARSOC units to integrate operationally with other SOF units. In fact, this review was conducted several months ago on MARSOC’s initiative and resulted in a significant re-organization and alignment of our personnel and capabilities. These changes occurred in two general areas.
First, we recognized a need for a more robust “indirect” warfighting capability, so we re-aligned our table of organization to more teams within the Marine Special Operations Advisor Group and we injected Foreign Internal Defense training into the pre-deployment training cycle of the Marine Special Operations Companies.
Second, we reduced the size of the Marine Special Operations Companies to free up structure spaces for more maintenance and sustainment personnel.
The basic building block of any MARSOC unit is now the Marine Special Operations Teams that consist of approximately 14 Marines and Sailors. These teams can deploy individually or as Marine Special Operations Companies of that include three teams and are task-organized as needed to include additional teams and specialized enabler detachments to provide intelligence fusion, fire support, maintenance, logistics, and a wide range of capabilities based on the needs of the mission.

Q5: When this incident occurred, some people held the opinion that the MSOC F Marines were falsely accused and that they were caught up in the gears of an inter-service rivalry. Now that the Court of Inquiry found that they reacted appropriately after the March 4 ambush, do you think your Marines were treated fairly?
(23 May 08)
R5: The senior leaders in this situation made decisions based on the information available to them and that were within their authority and responsibility as leaders. Our concern from the start has been to preserve the presumption of innocence of our Marines while at the same time ensuring the investigative process was carried out fairly and thoroughly. This sort of investigative process is one of the key distinctions between the U.S. military and our enemy. Our enemy kills civilians without hesitation and with complete disregard for the law of armed conflict; Your military sees this type of behavior as reprehensible and investigates allegations of such incidents in order to ensure that we maintain the rule of law. In this case, the investigative process did exactly what it was intended to do: We investigated thoroughly and determined that the MSOC F Marines reacted appropriately to the March 4 ambush.

http://www.marsoc.usmc.mil/questions-responses.html
 
Is it just my impression that 2-3 young Officers got burned maybe for nothing? Will they pay the bill (by admin action) for mistakes made in the first time employment of a MSOC?

Remains to be seen, but I am afraid that now that the "high profile" aspect of this deployment (the incident) has been proven false, nobody in the media will care about what happened to the career and personal dignity and life of a major and 1-2 captains.

Is something going to happen to the Army brass that were so quick to fill "ashamed" and apologize about the so-called incident?
 
Our concern from the start has been to preserve the presumption of innocence of our Marines while at the same time ensuring the investigative process was carried out fairly and thoroughly.

Hear that, Murtha?
 
Remains to be seen, but I am afraid that now that the "high profile" aspect of this deployment (the incident) has been proven false, nobody in the media will care about what happened to the career and personal dignity and life of a major and 1-2 captains.

Yeah, they'll put this story on page 10 of section 12...
 
Back
Top