An integral part of the MAU (SOC) concept was the simultaneous development of the Maritime Special Purpose Force (MSPF). This internally sourced and task-organized, highly trained rapid-response force could participate in all of the above missions: specifically TRAP, demolitions, and operations. However, its essential role was conducting in-extremis hostage rescues. The MSPF, like its parent MAU, was never intended to be a special force. Instead, it was designed to provide Marines with special training and mission-essential equipment, keeping them ready and able to conduct the nation's bidding in circumstances requiring rapid response and quick thinking.
Since the formalization of the SOC program over a decade ago, and with a name change from amphibious (MAU) to expeditionary (MEU) to better reflect its adaptive nature and fast response focus, the ARG/MEU (SOC) continues to carve a unique and vital niche in America's defense establishment. The stark fact is that any MEU (SOC) can execute any one of its eighteen missions within six hours of an alert. They are trained and prefer to execute all their missions at night, or in limited visibility from over the horizon with tightly controlled communications. These operating characteristics put the MEU (SOC) at the cutting edge of night-flying and night-shooting technology. With the now-proven rapid-response-planning sequence, and years of exhaustive development of standing operating procedures and execution checklists, the MEU (SOC) program remains at the cutting edge of Marine combat training and preparation.
For almost forty-one years it was my honor and privilege to be a United States Marine. For much of that period, I was closely involved with the execution and refinement of the MEU (SOC) skills and initiatives just outlined. Through it all, some of my proudest moments were reserved for those many gallant warriors who selflessly answered their nation's frequent and clarion call to "send in the Marines." The history of the MEU (SOC) program has been written in their sweat and blood. It is a history that once again offers proof that special men with special training, forged in the fires of discipline and sacrifice, and operating as a team, can routinely achieve uncommon success when accomplishing even the most challenging missions.
Tom Clancy's engaging work on the MEU (SOC) captures much of this history and spirit. It provides the reader a lens through which to see today's Marines, and to experience their training, their challenges, and the intense confidence and camaraderie that continues to bind them. I commend it to your reading. It reaffirms my long-held belief that Marines are truly America's warriors, "…the few and the proud." Again for a brief moment, it has been my honor to reflect on the history of the courageous accomplishments of our Marine warriors. To all the Marines and sailors who have made our nation's Marine Expeditionary Forces truly special operations capable, take care of yourselves, take care of each other and — Semper Fidelis!
Al Gray, Marine
General, United States Marine Corps
29th Commandant of the Marine Corps
Introduction: Marine — Part of the American Soul
Let me pose a question to you. Do we actually have to learn who the men and women of the United States Marine Corps are? Or is it just an inbred part of our identity as Americans, like baseball and apple pie? Well, no, not really. Nevertheless, the Marines are older than baseball, much older in fact. It's generally accepted that America's birthday is July 4th, 1776, with the signing of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Interestingly though, the Marines were there first. Their institutional birthday is November 10th, 1775, predating the birth of the United States by fully eight months. Thus, the history of America is the history of the Marine Corps, and they have always been there for us.
It is perhaps the vision of Marines storming ashore onto a hostile beach that is the most enduring image of the Corps. Their amphibious tradition began in the Revolutionary War with the successful assault on Nassau in the Bahamas (we gave it back). Since then the Corps and its members have been at the crossroads of American and world history. Later, our first overseas assertion of national power was in the Mediterranean to fight the Barbary Pirates — Marine Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon on the "Shores of Tripoli," successfully attacking Derna and winning the Mameluke sword, which is still part of the uniform today. Marines also helped to raise the Bear flag in California. Marines even captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry, while under the command of two native Virginia Army officers, Colonel Robert E. Lee and Captain J.E.B. Stuart. When World War I came, Marines so impressed the French in 1918 that the forest they captured (Belleau Wood) was renamed in their memory. In World War II, Marines engaged in America's first major ground actions when we took the offensive against Japan on the steaming island of Guadalcanal in Operation Watchtower. During the Korean War, Marines anchored the stop line around Pusan, and then blew the Korean War wide open with their dramatic landing at Inchon. Almost everywhere our country has gone in the last twenty-two decades, the United States Marine Corps was the team that knocked on the door — or just kicked it in! Marines have even led us into outer space. The first American to orbit the earth — Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr. (now the senior senator from Ohio) — was a Marine aviator. They do get around.
The Marines have a global reputation. Whether it's fear or respect — probably a little of both — people around the world know exactly who the U.S. Marines are. At the Royal Tournament in London back in 1990, I saw the U.S. Marine Corps Band welcomed so warmly as to make me wonder if the British thought it was theirs. Clearly the Marines have a highly developed sense of public relations, but all that does is make people aware of who they are and what they've done. The Army's 82nd Airborne, the proud "All American" division with its bloused pants and jump wings, calls itself "America's Honor Guard," but look outside the White House and you find Marines. Probably there is no more easily recognized symbol of our country anywhere in the world — aside from the Stars and Stripes itself — than a Marine in dress uniform. What does it mean? It means the Marines are America. The Corps is an organization in which legend and fact intertwine to the point that you have to believe it all, because it really is true, ought to be, or soon will be. As recently as this last summer, in the science-fiction movie Independence Day, who saved the world from destruction? A Marine fighter pilot (ably played by actor Will Smith), of course.
The United States Marine Corps is America's national SWAT team. When there is trouble, they usually get there first. Their lifelong partnership with the U.S. Navy sees to that, since almost every nation in the world is accessible from the sea, and the Marines can appear like a genie from a bottle, deployed by helicopter from ships well beyond the horizon, projecting force within minutes of the President's phone call. Why? Lots of reasons. To rescue American citizens. To render disaster assistance. To stabilize a dangerous situation. To begin the invasion of a country to be liberated from tyranny. To do almost anything, because the Marine Corps by its nature is both a sharp and flexible instrument of national policy, with a lot of weight and power behind it.
Weighted? Flexible? These are terms that may not seem applicable to the "devil dogs" of the Corps. You would be wrong to assume this though. The Marine Corps is a package deal. Under the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) structure that every unit of the Corps fights from, you get almost every kind of combat power that can be imagined. Mostly you get riflemen — because every Marine is a rifleman. Tankers, artillerymen, helicopter and fixed-wing aviators, all one integrated MAGTF force package whose members all wear the same uniform, attend the same schools, pass the same standard tests, and talk the same language. Their Navy brethren are kind enough to provide transport, logistics, and medical corpsmen — and heavier air and fire support if any is needed. As a result, person-for-person, the United States Marine Corps may be the most dangerous group on the planet.