Isn't Force Recon no more? Weren't they dissolved into MARSOC? I could be mistaken but I think I read that somewhere on this board.

quote:

Originally posted by 16796442:
i have linked up with oda, berets and rangers in hot zones. Working with oda and berets was a good experience. I believe that the navy and marine corps are the tip of the spear when it comes to getting the mission accomplished. Your average ranger ranks a tad below the grunt marine. Marsoc has been introduced to socom and has set the bar.
When there is a sense that a recon marine is not so up to par, we send them to ranger school so that they can qualify and graduate so that we can continue to use them in our unit as trigger pullers. I think that oda and green berets are an asset to the special ops community and it would be a wast to go away with them. With that said you should just cut the army off completely and just keep the SF guys. We spend way to much money for the army to sit behind safe wall in hot zones with marines on watch, patrols and raids.

PO2 This Member?

These "planners" forgot how years ago Unconventional Warfare was written off as tactics of a bygone era but that in 2001 SF teams were the first into Afghanistan and that these "unconventionally" trained warriors were the difference between falling to the Taliban as did the Russian Army who attempted to tame the Afghanis. They forget that the Russians were ready to nuke them in the mountains if only the Pakistan government had agreed.

quote:

Originally posted by M123Driver:
This kind of thinking started when they decided to give all soldiers a beret so they could feel special.

You hit the nail on the head and it was a general who should have known better. Berets for everyone is and was an act of disrespect to those who earned their berets.

Get rid of the Green Berets? Surely someone jests, or is smoking funny cigarettes. If a joint OPS were necessary, nothing like a Green Beret or Airborne at your 3 and 9 o'clocks.

Tell you what, these whiz bang people wearing a few stars, and all branches of the military are guilty, are lucky they can find the "Chow Hall" at the Pentagon. What a bunch of meaningless, overpaid buffoons.

I really hate to say it, but, it has to be said. A high school sophomore, with a keen interest in history, especially military history, could do a better job than the politically correct buffoons in the higher echelon.

Get rid of the Green Berets? Not going to happen. John Wayne would be pissed, and we owe it to the "Duke". It's the "Code of the West".

quote:

Originally posted by Hercules1944:
Get rid of the Green Berets? Not going to happen. John Wayne would be pissed, and we owe it to the "Duke". It's the "Code of the West".

PUH-LEEZE!!

Your message is a good one ... until that paragraph. John Wayne did not create SF, and the movie he made ("The Green Berets") is #1 on my list of Worst Military Movies Ever. Grossly inaccurate, even if it was made with the cooperation of the US Army (filmed at Benning). With "friends" like the Duke and Barry Sadler ("Ballad of The Green Berets"), the public's perception of SF is very skewed.

"The next thing they will want is a SF Coast Guard, and a NOAA SF."

I love it! Maybe the NOAA can attack the ozone hole.

It sounds like they trying to steamline special operators. SEALs, Green Berets Same mission types, different specialty environments. SEALs are more offensive in a Special Mission World. Berets are more defensive as they work closely with local militias in an AO. One you have 4 guys teaching many people how to do business, the other you have 4-10 guys just doing the business. I just hope that by merging the specialty capabilities they don't compromise training standards. By merging capabilities it will probably lead to better training, better budgeting and having more operators that can do more types of missions. Face it folks SEALs - GB's the tree trunk is about the same, yet the branches are limited by how much swamp and sky they can reach. Put them both together and you got a damn good and deadly tree. "Only if they do not compromise the training requirements and standards".

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Defendant: "Only if they do not compromise the training requirements and standards".

The above statement is so ludicrous it is not even funny. The military has been compromising training requirements and standards ever since Bush the first allowed the P.C. crowd to control the military. Look how training requirements and standards have been lowered to allow women into combat billets.

The writing has been on the wall for quite some time, there are forces in the shadows that have been whittling away at our military for the past 20 years, the same forces that are controlled by globalist elite. Ultimately, their plan is do away with the United States being a sovereign nation, where the United Nations will be in charge of nation defense. The U.S. military will only be used for police work inside the borders of the North American Union.

If this is truly set in stone, I don't know when it is going to happen. My son is a Buck Sgt in the 1-501st PIR at Ft Rich. Ak. He just went to Ft Bragg and passed the SF qualification and was accepted. He is real stoked and they told him he will most likely get stationed at Ft Lewis with 1st Grp I believe (Asian Theater) as an 18B or 18C. They are going to PCS him and his Family to Bragg for school, then back to Lewis. I told him this is a real good opportunity for career progression and it will open many doors that he would not have had a chance to have if he stayed with the 25th ID asn an 11C2X. Anyway, my point is that they are aggressively recruiting new personnel for the SF mission. I have a cousin who has been SF for 5 years or more and is at Bragg now, he did tours in Afghanistan and Central America. My uncle was SF in Viet Nam and he ended up retiring as a BG. Well, I've said enough, sure do miss the days of hanging out of my CH47C from my monkey harness while flying from Ft Kobbe to Palmerola Airbase in Hondo. Bapster......OUT!

It's usually the high and mighty with false confidence who have never been there, done that - that cause those who have, the most grief.

The empty can rattles the most.

Remember Grenada? How it appeared that every branch of the US Armed Forces seemed to want a piece of the pie and the clusters that happened due to lack of coordination and self promotion?

I think it highly probable that this may be happening again based on the article "Demise of the Green Berets". Which branch or branches have pushed for these changes and why?

Although there is occasional fighting between branches as to who is better (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, etc.) it comes down to this.....we all have lost Brothers in combat. This is what unites us. The Soldiers who have fallen for their Country and their Families who have lost. Don't forget that.

Officers who punch tickets and care little about troops are worthless. It seems that there are quite a few of them. It also appears that the vast majority of our Government have not been there done that and are too busy with their self interests.

Since the early 1980's when I started, SF had and probably still has the highest standards to attend SFQC:

Maturity - E-5 or above
Apptitude - GT of 110 and above
Leadership - Min of PLDC plus you NCO experience
PT -17 to 21 for all members with a min of 270.

Since the late 1980's, the above list have been the requirements to attend SFAS (now a prerequisite to SFQC-doing away with the previous prerequisites).

Then IF you are selected at the end of SFAS, you proceed to SFQC....and you still have to graduate from that!

..or has this all changed since I got out in 95?

I wonder what the requirements are for the USMC Special Operations School or is it even a replacement?

SF has an outstanding history for such a small number of members. Do you remember why they are even in other countries? Think back to the Cold War...........yep unfortunately in my opinion it still exists. Russia still does military manuvers with China. North Korean and Cuban ties with certain Central and South American Countries and etc.

Is there really a problem for SF?

Will this hurt our Country's security?

I hope not. Times have not changed that much.

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Originally posted by Jt10mc:
Well I think you SF types (yes Green Berets) need to take a step back and read history. I suggest starting with Max Boot's "Savage Wars of Peace", then pull out a copy of the "Small Wars Manual", check out who wrote it. Then check who advocated CAP platoons and FID/COIN/UW as the way to go in 1966 (hint: his son was a Commandant) and the person who opposed this course of action was Gen Westmoreland, guess who's point of view won out with President Johnson?
I find it very arrogant for GB's to think that they have cornered the market on UW or FID.
The Marine Corps recent history is an anomaly. Our history is replete with doing UW/COIN and FID, it just wasn't called that in those days.
Saying the Marine Corps or any one else is incapable of conducting this type of warfare the person is either arrogant, ignorant or just plain biased (MG Guest pedigree notwithstanding).
You folks in the Army need to understand that we Marine are the only service that was up for disbandment by another service (read Army). So when we see articles such as this that points out what we Marines can't do...well we simply steel our resolve and prove them wrong. Making we Marines out to be robots that only know how to kick doors in and destroy everything in sight while a little flattering is ignorance at best.
Now I do think that the Army would be foolish at best to disband SF.
Don't point the finger at we Marines, I think SF needs to address their issues to their parent service and SOCOM first and fix any issues they may have there before they start throwing rocks at we Marines. We have our marching orders and will accomplish the mission. If you GB's are so good then teach us the right way to do it so we don't make the mistakes you made starting out, oh and if SF's could take on all the FID missions then maybe other services wouldn't be tasked with it.

I think that a lot of people don't realize the Corp's long history with COIN/UW/FID and forget that we've been doing this sort of stuff long before there ever was Special Forces. Our involvement in special operations didn't just start with Force Recon or the MEU/SOCs but in fact date back to beginning of the 20th century and the so called Banana Wars where Marines trained local the police forces of various South/Central American nations.

A lot of people would greatly benefit from reading (ret.)Gen. Victor Krulak's book, "First to Fight", in there General Krulak talks about the history of the Corps, his time in service, as well as the Corp's fight to survive after WW II. Of particular relevance to the subject at hand is his and the Corp's involvement in Vietnam and the CAP program and the protected hamlet strategy. A lot of what the Corps is doing today in Iraq are a direct result of lessons learned in Vietnam. This is not to say that the Corps can easily replace Special Forces but at the same time we're not exactly strangers to the game either.

quote:

Originally posted by 16796442:
i have linked up with oda, berets and rangers in hot zones. Working with oda and berets was a good experience. I believe that the navy and marine corps are the tip of the spear when it comes to getting the mission accomplished. Your average ranger ranks a tad below the grunt marine. Marsoc has been introduced to socom and has set the bar.
When there is a sense that a recon marine is not so up to par, we send them to ranger school so that they can qualify and graduate so that we can continue to use them in our unit as trigger pullers. I think that oda and green berets are an asset to the special ops community and it would be a wast to go away with them. With that said you should just cut the army off completely and just keep the SF guys. We spend way to much money for the army to sit behind safe wall in hot zones with marines on watch, patrols and raids.

A couple of facts, *****:

1) Your Army counter-part will be promoted faster and therefore make more money and have more opportunities to move into bigger and better things

2)There are around 3500 75th Rangers, while there are hundreds of thousands of Marines...

3)Lets face it, your idea of an Airborne school would be Sheets and 550Cord...

4)When you enter the JSOC then come talk, other wise you guys are simply going augment the Armys undeniable strangle hold in this type of warfare...

5)The Army is not that great, its just that everyone else sucks thats why you guys try so hard to be better than us...

Go away troll, you're probably a regular poster here who is too much of a coward to post his real thoughts...

quote:

Go away troll, you're probably a regular poster here who is too much of a coward to post his real thoughts...

Me thinks Abraham is going to sniff out a new chew toy.

quote:

Originally posted by ssgob:

quote:

Originally posted by 16796442:
i have linked up with oda, berets and rangers in hot zones. Working with oda and berets was a good experience. I believe that the navy and marine corps are the tip of the spear when it comes to getting the mission accomplished. Your average ranger ranks a tad below the grunt marine. Marsoc has been introduced to socom and has set the bar.
When there is a sense that a recon marine is not so up to par, we send them to ranger school so that they can qualify and graduate so that we can continue to use them in our unit as trigger pullers. I think that oda and green berets are an asset to the special ops community and it would be a wast to go away with them. With that said you should just cut the army off completely and just keep the SF guys. We spend way to much money for the army to sit behind safe wall in hot zones with marines on watch, patrols and raids.

How do you get off by saying a Ranger is below a Marine grunt? Who the hell is doing the majority of combat patrols in Afghanistan and Iraq? Yes the army is a larger organization and therefore has more personnel on the ground but to say that the Army is worthless and are pogues following in the foot steps of Marines is B^!!$h!T!! Why do marines drop out of RGR school? And army soldiers pass? How come most of the marines that I served with or led in the army were f---ed up? The Army should adopt a more aggressive attitude in basic training and go back to the days of drill sergeants beating privates a new one for being screwed up. I admire the USMC for their virtues and commitment to honor their high espirit de corps and they start that in their Boot camp. But dont say they are superior to any soldier. Every service has their studs and duds. You must be some civilian contractor or fed employee that never served a day in a green uniform. If you were, get your head out of your 4th point of contact.

As for the disolving of the SF community, I hope this doesn't come to pass. I never understood the hostility RA shows towards SF. Green berets made it cool to be special operations long before SEALS, RGR Regt, and Force Recon. They are the corner stone of the Spec ops and historically been over deployed and over worked. The Brass sucks, they need to use common sense for once. Unfurl the old SF group guideons and add more soldiers. And the pentagon needs to lay off of all the new submarines and aircraft and spend a little money on what the army really needs.

I could not agree with you more!! Great Post!

What are they thinking? SF has seldom been understood by the rest of the army.

Who else is trained to go live among the people, heal their sick with two medics and build what they need with two engineers, etc. in a positive way that enhances American presence?

Who else is trained to morph into a battalion staff and train a battalion of indigenous people? They are the ultimate force multiplier.

They are set up like no other military organization to handle big jobs with few people.

God forbid the people of the US let this happen. They will lose a national treasure and great weapon in any war, especially this one.

We can't let this happen.

I dont like the idea. After all the guys went through, all that time and effort for ****. They deserve the recognition and the right to stick around. They earned it.

God bless 'em.

The Primary mission of SF, like any other unit, is to serve the government. Let's not forget that the President has to be able to understand all of this mess in order to command it. We've been adding more and more proprietary units, and up until recently, we had to feed the CIA as well. USSOCOM is an effort to coordinate Special Ops, so we might be sacrificing proprietary departmental control for expediancy. I would expect Navy SEALS and other branches "SF"s to lose their identity as well. Then what? Do we call them "Special Units?"

History shows that blunders are not limited to just one branch of the military. Some have been true boneheaded, not entirely thought-out, shots from the hip. This is an example of what a historical blunder in the making is. One can only hope those in charge that are championing this idea are lost somewhere between the 13th and 14th hole at the local golf course. Dedicate a sand trap in their names so you will never forget that they tried to arrange for you to lose your mission’s focus. The S/F are a part of the USA and will continue to be as long as the US fights wars, police actions, or skirmishes throughout the world. You would not enter into any of these without ammo nor would you NOT take the S/F with you. They have a job to do that can not be done by any other.

The G.B. are here to stay they have done very good work and are still doing it you"ll never here them complain So lets keep their name.The Green Beret is the USA!