Marine special operations troops are now “Raiders” once again
We told you back in August, 2014 that the name change was coming, and now it’s here, according to the Associated Press. MARSOC, Marine Corps Special Forces Command troopers are now officially named “Raiders” drawing from their World War II legacy;
“It’s a great honor to have this lineage carried forward,” said attendee Charles H. Meacham, 89, who served two years during World War II as a Raider in the Pacific. “Now MARSOC’s carrying on the legacy of the Raiders. It’s a Marine tradition.”
In a news release, the Marine Corps said the renaming gives commanders a shorthand way to refer to special operations Marines, similar to the labels “Green Beret” or “SEAL,” in what it called “an official identity.”
Category: Marine Corps
Jonn, did you notice they designated three times the number of units the Army and Navy SF have. I’m just guessing that is to accommodate all of the road guards and Cadence counters they have.
Let’s start a pool to see how long it takes for a Marine Raider poser to surface.
I’ve got three beers on any time between August 2 and 8.
..$20 says this week.
Mike
My money is on, how soon the “Marine Raider” recruitment posters draw the attention of the PC police. To them, that’s just one step away from a scary black gun.
The “Marine Raider” phonies will proudly carry on the lineage and traditions of the “Force Recon” and “Scout Sniper” posers who came before them!
It’s about time! The designation should have never been disbanded in the first place imho
It is worth noting that this will most likely not only apply to the 0372 MOS (Critical Skills Operator) but will encompass other support Marines that are assigned to these units who are required to undergo specialized training before they could do their jobs within these units (intel, data, MPs who handle working dogs, etc).
50,000 “retired” Marine Raider phonies activate in 3, 2, 1….
This is definitely a good thing, since all Marines think they are Special Operations anyway.
I had Marine Corps cooks that were as high speed, low drag as some of the Rangers and Seals I have met…. i’m just saying fast roping AND flipping eggs at the same time… The Army would have to get some KBR Spec-ops types to do that!
Marines have always been good at marketing and this change will make their special operations the “cool guys” to the media and the public moving forward.
I predict a lot of movies, TV shows, and “Raiders > SEAL > Army SF” claims by video game kids in the future.
They should have stayed with DET-1.
We publicize our covert units too much.
Agreed. Between our own President telling ISIS the time frame for retaking Iraqi cities, to his chest thumping for recent special ops to take out terrorists, we may as well hand over the play book. That is, if the Chinese and others haven’t already hacked the NSA and Pentagon systems.
No need for the Chinese to hack, I’m sure they were subcontracted to produce all the operations packages based on scenarios they were contracted to war-game, so I think they are already good there. But hey, at least CiNCUseless has a new shooting to talk about. It sure beats foreign policy!
in the late 90’s they tried this on a small scale with the formation of D co, 3d CEB, 3D MARDIV. everything went well until the balloon went up for the first gulf war and what was D co. 3d CEB was split up and sent to either C co. or B co. one deploying to the Philippines and the other to the gulf. Our Mission was going to be to disrupt enemy communications, command and control, harass the enemy with booby traps and sabotage things like fuel and ammo dumps, destroy bridges and power stations. Eventually it was to become special operations capable, but real world requirements took priority over what would have been one hell of a unit… I have 1/2 the Guide-on, Gunny Reyes has the other…
Furthermore, it will be hard to recruit using “Raiders” as a recruitment incentive when it is impossible to try out for MARSOC straight out of high school or from another service like one may do with the other branch’s SOCOM elements. Being a former Marine recruiter, we never recruited using the “lol be a special elite scout sniper ninja recon warrior, just sign here bro.” It was, “regardless of what job contracts we have open, do you want to be a Marine? No? GTFO.”
Good point.
When will there be a “Raiderette?”
If the designation is given as broadly as some of these comments are saying, would the answer to that possibly be ‘right away’?
Approved!
I see no one has paused to consider the image drag on these Raiders resulting from name association with those perpetually losing Raiders out on the Left Coast.
Losing what? The Cream Corn has proven itself more than enough times and doesn’t need validation.