While I'm certainly happy for you, and your friends, and my old friend Sgt Vandegrift, I have to wonder what the Corps gets out of it. Since USSOCOM is a sort of "roach motel" for SOF types, why do we want to pay the bill and lose those people to a purple command forever? Once there, they cease to be tasked by either FMF or fleet, thus losing whatever investment we was made. The original justification for re-starting Force Recon was that highly trained Marines would return to the FMF to teach those skills to the grunts. Unfortunately, once he's enjoyed the relative freedom and privlege of SOF duty, it's very hard to interest him in a battalion.

>>The original justification for re-starting Force Recon was that highly trained Marines would return to the FMF to teach those skills to the grunts. Unfortunately, once he's enjoyed the relative freedom and privlege of SOF duty, it's very hard to interest him in a battalion << Let them stay until their knees and/or backs start to give out, or their wives start packing their bags (though, admittedly, this doesn't stop some . . . ), and some will be happy to go back to the line units to finish out their 20 years -- or at least that's how it worked out for some former ranger battalion types I've met along the way . . .

Good, plan, up to a point. Rangers have limited promotion potential, but once an "operator" goes to USSOCOM, promotion potential improves vastly, and he can get high enough that his back and knees are no longer in jeopardy.

Howdy Guys I heard/read that the Corps finally accepted the necessity for dedicated Special Ops units because 1. Recon and Force Recon troops were being recruited by SEAL Teams and Delta Force. So the Corps was losing them anyway. 2. The current war requires more Spec War operators and the Corps wanted to be part of it. Semper Fi 1st Platoon C Company $th Recon BN (best scout troop I was ever part of...)