Vroom, vroom
Don’t look now Chuck Norris but “duh Mareens” are training on dirt bikes for an up coming Afghan deployment. I’m sure all you Batt Boys are just tickeld to find out this is news but it also peaked my interest. I have to ask two questions.
One: who gives a shit? Is the fact that MARSOC bubbas are getting training on a dirt bike really news worthy?
and
Two: Why would you advertise the training curriculum of special operations units about to head down range? To include, I might add, their general topographical location. Has the war really gotten that boring Gannett?
Our vets are getting their solemnly promised medical coverage jacked up to save the welfare state some money, our brothers and sisters are getting killed by their trainees and the entire war effort has been regulated to the category of “political liability” by the C-in-C but dirt bikes. Dirt bikes, dude. Front page material that we all really care about. It’s no wonder I get the eye roll when I mention the “Military Times” these days. How about doing your job fellas?
Category: Marine Corps
as if Marines needed to be “trained” on dirt bikes to begin with.
And this s*(t has been in-theater for… um… about 8 years now? at least?
Plz.
They just drmo’d the old dirt bikes, now they’re buying new ones. Makes sense.
Plus the picture of the KTM in the article is a 2 stroke, so they’re going to be rebuilding bikes in theatre now?
What does MARSOC do, what niche do they fill? That’s the question NSOM. I don’t have a problem with the USMC being in SOCOM as long as they were bringing a new capability or filling a new role. I am opposed to Marines being there for the sake of being there. What separates them from the rest of USA/USMC or the other Operators?
Maybe I missed it but MARSOC seems to be an entirely redundant entity.
re #3
Well, as a total aside from this thread? They don’t fill a niche. They’re numerical stopgaps for two wars that are prety much over. Where the political knife fighting from here gets us…I don’t know.
4#”They don’t fill a niche.” That’s my point.
“They’re numerical stopgaps…” They were far from the only ones used for stopgaps… “for two wars that are prety much over.” Here is a perfct example of a a program that should be eliminated or at least the funding, rolled into something DOD/USMC relevent. If a capability issue, now that we’re winding down the wars, the previously over extended entity should get priority again.
“Where the political knife fighting from here gets us…I don’t know.” I got a feeling MARSOC isn’t going anywhere.
re#5
SOCOM isn’t about strategic capabilities, it’s about money and missions.
The Corps didn’t join SOCOM because they had a mission set to fill, they joined because their perfectly capable assets were getting left behind in the bureaucratic and political chess game that is the DoD these days. Watching SF and the SEALs hit the dirt while MEU(SOC)s bobbed in the water was the last straw.
On my first deployment to Iraq LAR was still using dirtbikes. They got rid of them shortly after that because Marines kept hurting themselves on the dirtbikes.
The Army has been playing with scouts on dirt bikes since I was in, back when Jeremy McGrath was on a 50cc.
The real question is whether these bikes will have rockets on them or not.
#6 “SOCOM isn’t about strategic capabilities, it’s about money and missions.” In practical terms that maybe how it works but that violates the spirit of why Operators were created, dating back to the second world war. The capabilties or niche should be the catalyst for said missions and funding. Not the other way around.
“The Corps didn’t join SOCOM because they had a mission set to fill, they joined because their perfectly capable assets were getting left behind in the bureaucratic and political chess game that is the DoD these days.” How is that different then the US Army? Three quarters of the regular Army could make nearly the same argument and for almost 30 years no less. Even if you accept your statement at face value, that is an argument for the USMC’s assets as they were, not the creation of MARSOC. Again what niche does they fill?
“Watching SF and the SEALs hit the dirt while MEU(SOC)s bobbed in the water was the last straw.” Please, again the Army can make that argument better then the Marines can. Putting SOC at of the end of something doesn’t make it so.
My big problem with this entire dynamic is the way we are recreating a two-tier ground force, like the pre9/11 Army. The separation defined less by personal and resource, then by initiative. This had been a giant institutional failure in the Army since the late 70s. It’s a simple fallacy, there has never been a “Grand Canyon” sized gap in capabilities between the Operators and general purpose force(GPF). Regulars can generally ad-lib Operators, Operators can’t ad-lib regulars.
This overreliance on Operators will make it tough to attain national objectives. Get ready for some serious strategic failures in the future.
#11 In addition to the steaming crap pile of strategic failures in the recent past?