How do you see MARSOC helping to enable Corps operations in the littorals?

We are working with both SOCOM and the Marine Corps to determine how MARSOC and MAGTFs can best integrate capabilities for crisis response and for enduring, steady-state operations. MARSOC is developing the capabilities to conduct and/or provide SOF support to maritime and amphibious operations, able to deploy very capable company-sized forces that include, through task organization, inherent CS and CSS.

A forward-deployed MSOC can provide subregional C4I [command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence] to a TSOC while conducting distributed SOF engagement operations, all the while maintaining the capability to aggregate for more directed and specific crisis response requirements. That subregional C4I could equally act as a key coordination node for MAGTF operations in the littorals.

 

As the United States pivots toward the Asia/Pacific, how do you see MARSOC and SEALs working together afloat and in force-from-the-sea missions?

The Asia/Pacific will be a key future engagement area. MARSOC and SEAL units are collaborating to conduct SOF operations in the maritime/littoral domains and we are working with NSW to develop maritime SOF concepts and to explore Afloat Forward Staging Base options. Given the vast maritime nature of the Pacific, such concepts will have particular applicability in PACOM [U.S. Pacific Command].

 

The MARSOC selection process has evolved substantially since it stood up; where do you see it going in the future?

MARSOF cannot be mass produced and we will never compromise quality for quantity. We are picking the right people for the right job who will do the right things for the right reasons. MARSOF Marines proactively seek out responsibility and shoulder more than their share of the burden. MARSOC develops highly adaptable combat athletes who are agile and can work on a flexible, adaptable team across the spectrum of our special operations capabilities.

 

How has making MARSOC a career choice rather than a rotation billet been accepted and implemented within the command and the big Corps?

It is important we put the right MARSOC folks in organizations in the Corps to help them understand the requirements and capabilities of MARSOC and with the TSOCs and COCOMs. And that is part of the challenge: What is the right career path for our officers?

Right now it is five years in MARSOC, then they return to the Corps. So what is the right place to put them in MARSOC so they can help inform the Corps and other organizations about MARSOC, then bring them back into MARSOC at the right time? We’re working with the Corps and SOCOM to determine that path and with our COCOMs to determine how to take advantage of the skills they learn here, both in the big Corps and when we bring them back, so we don’t lose that investment.

We rely heavily on our senior officers and staff NCOs [noncommissioned officers], who represent maturity, experience, and continuity. They are our key mentors who will bring MARSOC into the future. We look to them to be our standard bearers and, by leveraging their experience, we can constantly improve what we are doing, specifically in the processes and best practices we use to enhance our advertised capability.

MARSOC’s strength and future continues to be that smart, tough, well-trained, culturally aware, properly equipped Marine we can send anywhere in the world and be confident he will be able to have the desired effects as an individual and all the way to a complete SOTF.

 

What is MARSOC’s position on female SOF, especially in light of DoD’s decision to open some combat slots to women and the record of Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan?

MARSOC will conduct a deliberate, measured, and responsible approach to validate occupational performance standards for all female service members assigned to MARSOC and ensure the standards are consistent with SOCOM policies. Women who serve in MARSOC have very significant roles and contribute greatly to our success – and those roles are not limited to Cultural Support Teams, previously known as Female Engagement Teams. Through our internal review in this area, we will capitalize on every opportunity to enhance our warfighting capabilities and maintain the highest levels of combat readiness through the contributions of all our service members – male or female. It’s simply the right thing to do.

 

Budget issues aside, as an aviator, do you see any need to add an aviation capability to MARSOC – or perhaps training some operators as pilots or existing Marine pilots as SOF?

Most people expected me to push for an aviation element, but having seen how things have worked out in Afghanistan and the demands on aviation – plus the fiscal environment – I think it would put a fracture in Marine aviation to do that. So I have asked, “What are we not getting now [that] we would gain by having an aviation element?” And nobody could tell me.

I don’t think the Corps could handle a MARSOC aviation element right now. And in this case, we don’t need to own it. We have the support of the Corps and Navy and [are] getting what we need right now.

 

What do you believe MARSOC will be by the end of this decade?

It may be a little different than what is out there right now, but I envision us having three battalions and teams out there from single- to double-digit numbers doing engagements and networked back to their companies, which could be anywhere, even back in CONUS. And that we are agile enough to aggregate or desegregate at a moment’s notice, whether it is littoral or even commercial assets, based on the initial requirement. And with the capability to plug into a deployed MAGTF or other organization, working side by side or in support of our allied partners.

One thing we need to do – and we’re playing significant catch-up – is build our senior officer bench with SOF experience as we normalize MARSOC within the SOF community and the Corps.

This article was first published in The Year in Special Operations: 2013-2014 Edition.