U.S. Marine Corps To Create Special Operations Unit
By CHRISTIAN LOWE
For the first time since the establishment of U.S. Special Operations Command, the U.S. Marine Corps has been given the go-ahead to establish a unit to deploy alongside Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces and Air Force Special Tactics units for commando missions.
The final push for the Marine Corps to join the snake-eater community was delivered at an Oct. 28 meeting between SOCom chief Army Gen. Bryan Brown, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
While the ultimate makeup of the Marine Corps’ SOCom component, or MarSOC, is still in the works, Marine officials say that roughly 2,700 leathernecks will be assigned to the command.
The component will be commanded by Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, currently the deputy commander of I Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
“We’ve been working with SOCom … on coming up with ideas on how the Marine Corps could better support” the command, said Lt. Gen. Jan Huly, head of Plans, Policies and Operations at Marine headquarters, in a Nov. 1 interview.
“We finally came to the realization that unless we were a full partner in U.S. Special Operations Command we probably weren’t making maximum use of the Marine Corps’ capabilities.”
MarSOC will be made up of three main organizations: foreign military training units; a direct-action group dubbed Marine Special Operations Group, or MSOG; and an intelligence and support group.
The units are expected to begin integrating into SOCom within six months, possibly starting with the foreign military training units, Huly said.
The decision to create a MarSOC comes after several years of considerable effort on the part of SOCom, the Marine Corps and the Pentagon to build a Marine contribution to a community that has been heavily used since the war on terrorism began. The Marine Corps opted out of SOCom when the command was established in 1986, preferring to keep its small community of specialized units, such as Force Reconnaissance, for its own use.
But as the hunt for insurgents in Iraq and terrorists worldwide focuses more on small, covert raids and foreign military assistance, the Corps realized it was time to put aside its initial reluctance and support SOCom more directly.
“The decision that was made last week was a bold decision, but it’s a good and important decision made at the right time in history,” said Vice Adm. Eric Olson, deputy commander of SOCom, in the Nov. 1 interview.
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