“Marsoc: Conquering the mission, failing the men”
Just read a great take on issues inside the MARSOC program in the essay, “Marsoc:Conquering the mission, failing the men”
“The current regimental sergeant major of MARSOC, for example, is a 27-year motor transport Marine, whose previous assignment was – you guessed it – battalion sergeant major of 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, MCRD San Diego. I’ll say that again; the regimental sergeant major of MARSOC holds the MOS of Motor Transport Mechanic. This is the guy sitting on the selection board at the end of A&S deciding who’s fit to become an operator. This is the guy attending joint staff briefings, senior SOF leadership symposiums, liaising with key personnel within SOCCENT, JSOC, etc, sitting across the table from Army E-9s with decades of ODA time, NSW master chiefs, etc. Making policy. Influencing critical decisions. Representing MARSOC. It sounds ridiculous as I sit here writing it, yet it’s a very sad and sobering truth. The operator base is 95 percent enlisted men, and this is our senior enlisted representative. Just to construct a frame of reference for the uninformed, and in the interest of beating a horse well beyond death, a command master chief with NSW – anywhere within the command – is a SEAL. A command sergeant major of an Army special forces group – hell, the command sergeant major of USASOC – is a Green Beret. But the glorious USMC, in its infinite wisdom, perpetuates this ridiculous mantra of “A Marine’s a Marine’s a Marine! We’re all the same, you’re not special, hell, we’re all special because we’re Marines!”, effectively sabotaging the very fundamentals of SOF and its institutional imperatives.”
