The USMC-SOCOM Connection

By OTTO KREISHER

Otto Kreisher is a reporter for Copley News Service.

In a nondescript office at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Lt. Col. Robert Coates and his staff are screening hundreds of applicants for what soon may be considered a prime assignment for Marine Corps personnel.

The Corps is forming a new unit at Pendleton that could bridge the artificial divide between the Marine Corps and the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) that has existed for 16 years. SOCOM, founded in 1987, is composed of specialized units from the nation's other armed services--except the Marine Corps.

But that may soon change. With the global war on terrorism putting greater demands on all of the armed services, the Marine Corps is working on ways to lighten the much heavier load imposed on SOCOM since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One way, Corps officials say, is the formation of a Marine unit that could be the first to deploy as an element of SOCOM. Coates, now director of the Marine special operations training group at Pendleton, will command the Corps' Special Operations Command Detachment of 81 Marines and five Navy corpsmen.

"It's all about how we can best contribute ... complement, supplement" the special operations forces, said Lt. Gen. Emil R. Bedard, the Corps' assistant commandant for programs, policies, and operations.

A Bridge-Building MOA

The initiative to promote a much closer working relationship between the Marine Corps and SOCOM is the result of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed in November 2001 by then-Commandant Gen. James L. Jones and Air Force Gen. Charles R. Holland, commander of the Special Operations Command. "We need to move the Marine Corps and special operations forces [SOF] closer together, to establish the framework for building bridges between the two organizations," Jones said at a defense writers' breakfast in November 2002.

The Pentagon's senior leadership wants more special operations forces, Jones explained, "so we are looking for ways to use Marine forces to go into what were previously SOF missions that we can do and were trained to do."

There are "some cultural things to overcome" as well as certain "institutional ties and confidence-building measures that we have [to deal with]," Jones said. But, he quickly added, "I think it is going to happen and I think it is going to be very capable and very good."

The Marines' interest in working much more closely with SOCOM comes at a time when the SOCOM forces have been deploying at their highest operational tempo since Vietnam. Special operations troops have been increasingly in demand for use in unconventional conflicts since the end of the Cold War. They currently are heavily engaged around the world in the global war on terrorism, and played a crucial role in the U.S.-led victory over the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. Following that success, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld gave SOCOM the authority to plan and execute antiterrorism missions on its own initiative and to seek support from regional combatant commanders if necessary.

New-Found Respect

The new focus on and respect for SOCOM is in sharp contrast to the years following World War II, when unconventional warriors enjoyed only episodic support from the nation's senior military leadership. The Marine Raider battalions that conducted a number of daring strikes against the Japanese during the early years of World War II, for example, were disbanded when the Corps expanded to six divisions in preparation for the massive amphibious assaults in the Pacific.

The largely unconventional conflict in Vietnam led to a proliferation of elite units, including the Army's Green Berets, the Air Force's Air Commandos, and the Navy's SEALs--who evolved from the underwater demolition team "frogmen" of World War II and Korea. But those units were cut back sharply after Vietnam.

In 1980, special forces of various types, hastily formed into a special mission unit, were assigned to the fatally flawed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran. The 1983 Grenada operation is remembered in part for the poorly planned missions assigned to the SEALs and the secret Delta Force. Several U.S. military personnel died, partly because of equipment failures, while attempting reconnaissance of the Point Salines airport. In addition, an attempt to rescue an American thought to be held prisoner in an old fort was thwarted by a hail of heavy gunfire.

In 1987, Congress stepped in to upgrade the status and improve the capabilities of the nation's special forces by creating the Special Operations Command, giving it its own budget and four-star commander.

The command today has about 46,000 personnel in its active and reserve units. It includes Army Special Forces (the Green Berets), Rangers, and the 160th Special Aviation Regiment; Navy SEALs, special warfare boat units, and SEAL delivery units; and Air Force Special Operations airlift units, AC-130 gunships, and special tactics teams. The Army, Air Force, and Navy special operations commands are components of SOCOM.

The Bush administration's fiscal year 2004 defense budget proposes to increase SOCOM funding to $4.5 billion, a 50 percent increase over the amount appropriated for FY 2003. The command's end strength would increase by 1,890 personnel, primarily to expand the 160th Special Aviation Regiment.

Elite Warriors

The Marine Corps has never assigned any of its units to SOCOM, but hundreds of individual Marines have served with special operations forces on exchange duty. There currently are 105 Marines in the elite force--serving as helicopter pilots, as intelligence officers, and in other specialized duties.

Marine Brig. Gen. Dennis J. Hejlik is the Special Operations Command's chief of staff, and Marine Maj. Gen. John F. Satler is commanding Task Force Horn of Africa, which includes a large contingent of SOCOM warriors searching for terrorists in that volatile region.

In February, Master Gunnery Sgt. Joseph G. Settelen received the Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict Achievement Award, presented by the National Defense Industrial Association, for service that included classified duties around the world with an unnamed Defense Department unit.

When SOCOM was being formed in 1987, however, the Corps refused to assign any Marine units to it, arguing that it had no fighters to spare.

Instead, the Corps began to train its Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) to conduct 23 particularly difficult types of missions--several of which, Bedard said, "fall into the lower end of the special ops [operations] spectrum." Certification to perform those missions, which include noncombatant evacuation operations (NEOs) and the tactical recovery of downed aircraft and personnel (TRAP), earns an MEU the designation "special operations capable," or SOC.

Rescues and Evacuations

Marine units already have conducted real-world NEOs in Somalia, Liberia, and elsewhere. The Corps' most famous TRAP mission was the daring rescue of Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady after he was shot down over Bosnia in 1995. The Marines also have relieved SOCOM of certain burdens, replacing special-forces personnel who were training troops in the Republic of Georgia, and sharing SOCOM's training and advisory missions in the Philippines. When a Marine brigade became the first sizable U.S. conventional force in Afghanistan, it worked closely with the special operations units already on the ground in-country.

"In Afghanistan, we did everything," Bedard said. "Everything" included the transport of special operations troops, the evacuation of casualties, providing fire support, the refueling of special operations helicopters, and cooperating in various intelligence efforts. Those kinds of shared missions, he said, "are all the more reason we should work together."

Each MEU also has a number of highly trained reconnaissance Marines, who work very closely with the SEAL teams that deploy with the Corps'expeditionary units.

The MOA signed in November 2001 was in large part, Bedard said, an outgrowth of: (1) the close cooperation developed between the Marine Corps and SOCOM in the political and budgetary fight to save the threatened V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft program; and (2) the joint combat missions the two elite organizations teamed up for in Afghanistan.

The Marines have been the leading advocates of the Osprey, but the Air Force Special Operations Command also urgently wants 50 or more Ospreys to replace its current helicopter fleet.

The MOA led to the formation of eight Marine-SOCOM working groups, Bedard said, to address such issues as doctrine, equipment, tactics, techniques, and joint training.

The Marine unit intended for eventual assignment to SOCOM is expected to include a 22-person headquarters element, 30 reconnaissance Marines, 28 intelligence specialists, and a six-man team to coordinate fire support. The recon element will include four six-man teams led by staff sergeants and a command staff led by a captain. The intelligence section, led by a major, will include teams to handle signals intelligence, human intelligence exploitation, radio recon, and an "all-source" fusion team to assemble information from various sources, then analyze and distribute it to all who need it.

The fire support unit--composed of three ANGLICO (Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company) Marines, three radio operators, and a forward air controller--will be led by a field artillery major. The detachment is expected to start training on its own this June, and to join the SEAL squadron in October for joint training in Coronado (Calif.). If the concept is validated and the unit demonstrates its readiness, Marine officials said, the detachment probably would deploy for the first time in April 2004.

Cutting-Edge Missions

The detachment will focus on four types of missions: special reconnaissance, short-duration combat strikes, the internal defense of foreign nations, and the support of international coalitions--the training and advisory role Marines already are playing in Georgia and in the Philippines, for example.

If the two-year trial is successful, the Pendleton unit could be expanded or duplicated elsewhere, Marine officials said.

Jones said in November that creation of the special operations unit stems from his earlier decision to make force reconnaissance a career MOS (military occupational specialty) for Marines. "That gives you ... [a] higher-end specialty that becomes attractive to Special Operations Command," he said.

The Marines are confident that their proposed new unit will be successful, but a SOCOM spokesman emphasized that the concept is still being studied. "There has been no determination of what we are going to do," said Army Col. William Darley. "We are looking at the interoperability of having the Marines ... [assigned] as a detachment to the Naval Special Operations Command. But no final decision has been made," he said.

Jay Farrar, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the proposed integration of Marine units with SOCOM would benefit both organizations. "They [the Marines] can take advantage of the cutting-edge training ideas the Special Ops Command is always discovering," said Farrar, a retired Marine officer. "And SOCOM can take advantage of what the Marines are doing in small-unit operations." *