MARSOC role in Afghanistan comes into focus
December 1st, 2011 | Afghanistan Kajaki MARSOC The CMC | Posted by Dan Lamothe
Operators with Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command are building stability in Puzeh, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Robert Burns)
Commandant Gen. Jim Amos’ trip to Afghanistan through the Thanksgiving holiday has brought a little reported Marine Corps mission to the forefront: village stability operations.
Associated Press reporter Bob Burns was along for the trip, and outlined in some detail what operators with Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command are doing in Puzeh, a dusty village in Helmand province about 10 miles south of the Kajaki Dam.
In September, I discussed the MARSOC village stability operations mission with Maj. Gen. John Toolan, the top U.S. commander in southwestern Afghanistan. Instead of being involved in raids or other high-profile spec-ops missions, the MARSOC Marines who perform village stability operations are called in to small villages where Marine commanders see potential for progress, even if there isn’t a full established Marine presence, he said.
“The teams are about 20 to 25 Marines, and they team up with Afghani commandos and sometimes they team up with UAE commandos,” Toolan said. “They go into these villages that are in between, in an area that we can’t necessarily cover, or they go into areas that we haven’t gone to yet. Their new areas, but we want them to go in and soften them up a bit and start building relationships with the community.”
Toolan said there are three MARSOC teams performing village stability operations. Over time, their mission may evolve.
“What you may find is that as they finish mentoring the Afghan local police forces, they may continue to serve as advisers, maybe for several village platforms, rather than just one,” Toolan said. “So, I could see maybe their [area of operations]expanding, and them taking on more of an adviser role rather than what they’re doing now, which is really partnering with the Afghan local police.”
Other MARSOC operators are based in western Afghanistan, primarily in Farah province.
Behind the Cover: MARSOC for non-grunts
November 8th, 2011 | Behind the Cover MARSOC | Posted by Gina Cavallaro
MARSOC just keeps growing and changing. This week’s cover story is a good example of that… a course meant to train combat support and combat service support Marines in the tactics, techniques and procedures they’ll be expected to know when they deploy with MARSOC teams, is also an opportunity for non-grunts to learn some pretty high-speed stuff.
During the six-week course at Stone Bay aboard Camp Lejeune, N.C., all students learn to fire a host of weapons, including foreign weapons, and get to do speed reloading and weapons transition drills with an M4 assault rifle and 9 mm pistol. After the course, everyone goes to SERE school, a course usually reserved for special operations Marines, pilots and air crews.
And that’s just the obvious stuff. Support Marines are also taken inside the world of special operations with classified briefings on what it’s going to be like working alongside MARSOC’s critical skills operators.
In this issue, Marines will also read about the new rules for wearing KIA bracelets and why a stronger — lighter — helmet is taking so long to get to the force.
Behind the cover: Go MARSOC and stay
February 21st, 2011 | Behind the Cover MARSOC The CMC | Posted by Andrew deGrandpre
In an exclusive this week, senior writer Gina Cavallaro details the newly approved plan to create three military occupational specialties for operators, specialists and officers assigned to Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. Plus, Cavallaro and San Diego bureau chief Gidget Fuentes team up to explain why the commandant shot down MARSOC’s effort to rename its units and personnel after the legendary Marine Raiders of World War II.
Both stories came to light after Marine Corps Times obtained a detailed presentation provided to Gen. Jim Amos and his most senior general officers late last month in New Orleans. Amos, a self-described “big fan” of MARSOC, was easily sold on the idea of creating a career path for operators, as it is expected to help the command retain experienced Marines, while also serving as a huge incentive to those weighing the pros and cons of trying out for such an exciting and demanding job.
Adapting the Raiders’ lineage is another story entirely, however. MARSOC’s plan had the support of the Marine Raider Association, but Amos is said to be no fan of singling out any Marines as somehow unique. “We’re Marines first,” Brig. Gen. David Berger, director of operations at Marine Corps headquarters, told Cavallaro during a sit-down Friday morning at the Pentagon. “… Your allegiance, your loyalty is to the Marine Corps.”
Read more about these and other stories in this week’s print issue, on newsstands now. Can’t wait? You can subscribe here. All the cool kids are doing it.
Expect new details about the future Marine Corps tonight
February 8th, 2011 | General officers Leadership Manpower MARSOC MEU operations The CMC | Posted by Dan Lamothe
Recruits Bernard Garcia, left, and Emerson Dorsey sight their rifles at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego in October. (Photo by Sgt. Wayne Edmiston)
Commandant Gen. Jim Amos is expected to make a major speech tonight in San Francisco that could provide significant new details about what the future Marine Corps looks like.
Marine officials obviously don’t want to get out front of their commandant, but the speech has been teased to media as focusing on “his vision” for what the service should do next. It will take place at the Marines’ Memorial Club, where Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last August that he was ordering a broad-based review of the Corps’ mission and purpose.
The setting of Amos’ speech is significant. In many ways, it looks like his public answer to Gates’ challenge to redefine the service. The commandant will likely unveil a number of decisions that stem from a Force Structure Review Group that met for three months late last year, considering the future of the Corps.
Considering what we know already — and guidance issued last year to those conducting the force structure review — here are some things we might hear:
More details on the drawdown
Gates already announced Jan. 6 that the Corps would shed 15,000 to 20,000 Marines beginning in 2015, dropping the size of the service to between 182,000 and 187,000 Marines. He didn’t provide details then, saying it would depend on the result of the force structure review.
Those details could come tonight. In fact, Inside Defense reported this morning that Amos will call for a 15,000-Marine reduction, with the elimination of three infantry battalions, an artillery battalion and associated headquarters elements.
The cuts wouldn’t be shocking, and wouldn’t take place until at least 2015. And let’s face it: The Corps always saw this as a possibility.
When the service began expanding a few years ago from 175,000 Marines to 202,000 in the face of deployment stresses, it activated numerous units that had been dormant for years, including three battalions at Camp Lejeune, N.C., that had fallen underneath 9th Marine Regiment during Vietnam.
However, instead of activating the regimental headquarters, it assigned the units — 1st Battalion, 9th Marines; 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines; and 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines — to other regiments. Currently, 1/9 reports to 8th Marines, 2/9 reports to 6th Marines and 3/9 reports to 2nd Marines.
Kind of sounds like a temporary set-up, doesn’t it?
MARSOC Marines take a knee this summer in a wheat field in Farah province, Afghanistan. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Nicholas Pilch/Air Force)
More on MARSOC
This will come as no shock to those following along, but an expansion to Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command is widely expected.
Officers involved in the force structure review group were instructed to consider options for a future service position on how to provide forces to Special Operations Command, whether MARSOC’s structure should be increased by 1,100 support troops, and if MARSOC Marines in the field should be supported by conventional Marine forces, or operate independently with their own logistics support.
That’s a lot to consider. Add in that Amos has been reviewing a plan to set up a complete career path for Marines interested in spec-ops, and it’s clear MARSOC will be priority for years to come.
Changes are coming to the Marine braintrust in D.C.
With headquarters elements in the Washington, D.C., area everywhere from the barracks at 8th and I streets to the sprawling Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., to the south, Headquarters Marine Corps can sometime seem like a maze.
Again based on the review group’s planning guidance, Amos may address that.
Now-retired Commandant Gen. James Conway ordered officials involved in the review to to consider altering the role and composition of several major Washington, D.C., area commands, while preserving units and programs that give the service its unique ability to strike rapidly by land and sea.
Multiple D.C.-area commands were specifically named, including Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Marine Corps Recruiting Command, Training & Education Command and Marine Corps Systems Command. Marine Corps Logistics Command, a three-star command based out of Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Ga., also could be affected.
Thousands of Marines and civilians work at those commands. MCCDC and LOGCOM are three-star commands, MCRC and TECOM are headed by two-star officers and MARCORSYSCOM, responsible for Marine acquisition, is overseen by a one-star general.
A Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit guides a Landing Craft Air Cushion hovercraft last year in Djibouti, Africa. (Photo by Lance Cpl. David J. Beall)
New amphibious plans
It’s hard to picture the commandant making a major speech about the future of the Corps without touching on its amphibious role and what it will need to continue in that capacity.
The review charter tells officers involved to assume that there will be at least one Marine expeditionary unit afloat in the U.S. Central Command area of operations for the foreseeable future, with periodic stops ashore through 2016. It advises officials to assume there will be 33 amphibious assault ships in the Navy’s fleet by 2016, and that the Corps will continue to maintain three prepositioned squadrons of ships, each with the equipment for an entire Marine expeditionary brigade to use when needed.
“Requirements for Marine Corps forces needed for power projection from the sea will not be changed,” the charter said.
The officers also were advised that the Corps must maintain a force that can deploy at least four MEUs at any one time, with two additional MEUs based in the U.S. Currently, there are three MEUs on each coast, along with a seventh based out of Okinawa, Japan. The charter does not specify whether a MEU will remain in Japan or Guam, but it advised that the review group should consider “the lay down of Marines in the Pacific.”
It’d also make sense that Amos will revisit the recent cancellation of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, and the Corps’ plans to develop a new, cheaper amphibious vehicle for the 21st century. That wasn’t in the force structure review charter, but the timing seems right.
Another look at the Marine Corps’ search for a new 1911 pistol
January 27th, 2011 | MARSOC Reconnaissance Weapons | Posted by Dan Lamothe
At left, Springfield Armory's entry in the Marine Corps' competition for a new .45-caliber 1911 pistol. At right, a copy of Colt Defense's prototype entered in the competition. (Photos by Dan Lamothe)
By now, many of you may have heard about the Marine Corps’ search for a new 1911 pistol.
I first reported about it for Marine Corps Times in the fall when a Request for Information was released by acquisition officials, and followed up by walking the floor at SHOT Show last week to discuss the competition with many of the gunmakers assumed to be in the fight.
As outlined in this story, Colt Defense and Springfield Armory have submitted samples to the Corps for the competition, while at least two other bigtime pistol makers — Kimber and Smith & Wesson — have not. Officials with the two companies that bowed out cited competing priorities and the small window of time that the Corps provided to develop and submit samples after a Request for Proposals was issued in the fall.
Another gunmaker, Karl Lippard Designs, has since contacted Marine Corps Times to express its interest in the competition, even though they didn’t meet the deadline to submit samples. Company officials boldly say they have developed a new 1911 A2 design capable of accurately dropping targets at 400 yards — rifle distance. And the guns don’t even look like this.
It has been interesting to see the attention the story has received online in the last few days. Everyone from the 1911forum.com to The Truth About Guns has weighed in, with opinions ranging from excitement to frustration that the Corps is looking at more 1911 pistols, which get dinged on occasion for being difficult with maintenance.
I put it to you, friends: What should the Corps do? Keep in mind the service wants an off-the-shelf solution, and that most of the weapons will likely be fielded to special operators with Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command and door-kickers with Force Reconnaissance units.
Behind the Cover: What Amos wants now
December 7th, 2010 | Behind the Cover MARSOC The CMC | Posted by Dan Lamothe
This week’s Marine Corps Times cover story cuts right to the chase: It’s all about what the service’s new top officer has planned.
Commandant Gen. Jim Amos sat down with Marine Corps Times senior writer Gina Cavallaro and managing editor Andy deGrandpre last week, outlining a variety of priorities for the service. Among them, he wants to see Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command continue to grow, new re-enlistment rules and better unit cohesion. He also disclosed his feelings on the Corps’ tattoo policy.
If you look at the cover image above, you’ll also see a teaser that says he “almost declined the top job” in the service. That’s true, and the details are inside.
Behind the Cover: MARSOC’s new sales pitch
October 12th, 2010 | Behind the Cover Camp Lejeune Fitness MARSOC Recruiting Training | Posted by Andrew deGrandpre
In this week’s print edition, on newsstands now, staff writer Gina Cavallaro takes readers inside the Corps’ new special operations warm-up course at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Called the Assessment and Selection Preparation and Orientation Course, or ASPOC for short, it represents Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command’s latest effort to curtail a 46 percent attrition rate among Marines looking to become elite critical skills operators. The commandant has challenged MARSOC leadership to cut that rate to 20 percent — a tall order indeed, and one the command is taking very seriously.
This three-week course, conducted at Lejeune’s Stone Bay training facility, eases candidates into the spec ops mindset and incrementally works them up for the rigorous physical demands that accompany MARSOC’s initial screening, and subsequent assessment and selection process. Additionally, participants get ample face time with active-duty operators, who provide detailed glimpses into the spec ops lifestyle.
“You used to come to assessment, you had a few days to check-in, get your things sorted out and then we’d roll you into our screening validation,” Col. James Parrington, commander of the Marine Special Operations School, tells Marine Corps Times. “For an individual who isn’t at his peak level of performance, it would be a shock to the system.”
Parrington and others within the command hope, too, that the course will help erase longstanding apprehension among quality Marines who may feel that making the cut is simply too tough. It is tough, they say, but it’s not impossible. With more focused preparation, MARSOC has identified a means to give CSO candidates the leg up they may need to become the best of the best.
Cavallaro teamed with staff photographer Sheila Vemmer for this assignment, putting boots on the ground at Stone Bay and hanging out — in the rain — with Marines slogging their way through the first ASPOC, which wrapped in early October, and the instructors on hand to coach them. It’s a detailed, gritty look at the new first step to joining MARSOC.
Behind the cover: The MARSOC workout
July 6th, 2010 | Battle Rattle Behind the Cover MARSOC | Posted by militaryonline
Whether you are a grunt with multiple combat tours under your belt or a personnel clerk who is not used to humping it with a pack, Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command has come up with a w0rkout that is sure to whip you into shape and Marine Corps Times spells it out for you in detail in this week’s cover story.
“First Look: The MARSOC Workout,” includes a four-page special pull-out section that walks you through each day in the 10-week program. MARSOC recruiters hand the program out to Marines who are interested in attending Assessment and Selection, the 19-day tryout where Marines are tested to see if they have what it takes to become a special operator, but anyone can give it a shot.
The six day a week workout regimen, will test you both physically and mentally. It will require you to swim hundreds of meters in cammies, hike up to 14 miles with a 45-pound pack, run and complete regular strength training exercises. Ooh-Rah!
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