The Mayaguez Incident. A warning to the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-Crisis Response Force.

Marines brag and chest thump about battles.

Its part of the DNA.  Its what we do.  We will kick your ass.  We will make you beg for your mommy.  We will win.

Its the Marine Corps way.

There is one battle that the Marine Corps doesn't talk about.  It was an adhoc mission, put together rapidly, depended on a scratch force of Marine, Navy and Air Force aviation.

And it failed badly.

Not only were we beaten, but we left men behind.  Men that were alive.

Men that were later executed by the enemy.

A quick history via Wikipedia.

At 06:12, the eight helicopters (five CH-53 Knifes and three HH-53 Jolly Greens) of the Koh Tang assault force approached the two Landing zones (LZs) on Koh Tang. At the West Beach, the first section of two CH-53 helicopters came in at 06:20 hours. The first helicopter; Knife 21, landed safely, but while offloading its Marines came under heavy automatic weapons fire, destroying an engine. It managed to take off, protected by suppressive fire from the second CH-53, Knife 22, and ditched 1.6 km offshore. Knife 22 was damaged so severely that it turned back with its Marines (including the Golf Company commander) still aboard escorted by Jolly Green 11 andJolly Green 12, and crash-landed in Trat Province on the Thai coast, where its passengers were picked up by Jolly Green 12 and returned to U Tapao.[55][56][57]
At 06:30, the CH-53s approaching the East Beach encountered intense automatic weapons and RPG fire from entrenched Khmer Rouge. Knife 31 was hit by two RPGs, which ignited its left fuel tank and ripped away the nose of the helicopter, it crashed in a fireball fifty meters offshore. A pilot, five Marines, and two Navy corpsmenwere killed in the crash, another Marine drowned swimming from the wreck, and three Marines were killed by gunfire trying to reach the beach. A tenth Marine died of his wounds while clinging to the burning wreckage. The surviving ten Marines and three Air Force crewmen were forced to swim for two hours before being picked up by the gig of the arriving Henry B. Wilson.[58] Among the Marine survivors was the battalion's Forward Air Controller, who used an Air Force survival radio while swimming to direct A-7 air strikes against the island until the battery failed. The second CH-53, Knife 23 was hit by an RPG which blew off the tail section and crash-landed on the East Beach, but it successfully offloaded its 20 Marines and crew of five. They set up a defensive perimeter and the Knife 23 copilot used his survival radio to call in airstrikes, but they would remain cut off from both reinforcements and rescue for twelve hours.[59][60]
Knife 32 was inbound to the East Beach when it was hit by an RPG and aborted its landing, instead heading out over the West Beach to the Knife 21 crash site where it dumped fuel and proceeded to rescue the three Knife 21 crewmen.[61] Two other sections of the first wave, consisting of the remaining four helicopters, were diverted from the East Beach to the West Beach and eventually landed all of their Marines between 06:30 and 07:00 hours, although the final insertion by Jolly Green 41 required support from an AC-130 Spectre gunship in order to penetrate the Khmer Rouge fire on its fifth attempt. Knife 32, Jolly Green 41 and Jolly Green 42 eventually landed 81 Marines on the West Beach under the command of the company Executive Officer, and Jolly Green 43 landed 29 Marines of the battalion command post and mortar platoon a kilometer to the southwest.[62] By 07:00 109 Marines and five Air Force crewmen were on Koh Tang, but in three isolated beach areas and in close contact with Khmer Rouge troops. The Marines at the northern end of West Beach attempted to move down the beach to link up with Col Austin's command element to the south, but was beaten back by heavy Khmer Rouge fire which killed LCPL Ashton Loney.[63] While isolated, the Marines were able to use their 81 mm mortars as fire support for their contingents and devised a makeshift communications network for controlling supporting air strikes by USAF A-7 and F-4 aircraft. It was decided that the platoon isolated on the East Beach should be extracted and following suppressive fire from an AC-130, Jolly Green 13 landed there at 08:15 amid a hail of machine gun fire, but it had landed some 100 m away from the Marines who were reluctant to risk running to the helicopter, and Jolly Green 13 took off with its fuel lines ruptured and made an emergency landing in Rayong, Thailand.[64][65]
Of the eight helicopters assaulting Koh Tang, three had been destroyed (Knife 21, Knife 23 and Knife 31) and four others damaged too severely to continue operations (Knife 22, Knife 32, Jolly Green 41 and Jolly Green 42) and of the helicopters used in the Mayaguez recapture Jolly Green 13 had been severely damaged in the East Beach rescue attempt.[64] This left only three helicopters (all HH-53s - Jolly Greens 11, 12 and 43) of the original eleven available to bring in the follow-up forces of BLT 2/9, so the 2 CH-53s (Knife 51 and 52) whose mission had been search and rescue — the last available helicopters — were reassigned to carry troops.[66] The five helicopters picked up 127 Marines of the second wave at U Tapao between 09:00 and 10:00 hours.[67] At 11:50 Knife 52, Knife 51 and Jolly Green 43 arrived over Koh Tang and prepared to land on the East Beach, as Knife 52 approached fire punctured its fuel tanks and the pilot aborted the landing and headed back to U-Tapao leaking fuel. Knife 51 and Jolly Green 43 also abandoned their landings and assumed a holding pattern.[68]

The above paragraphs just cover the assault portion of the events.  The article covers the planning, execution, extraction and aftermath.  It is one of the best written histories of the event (in abbreviated form) that I have ever read.

But in it lies the warning to the SPMAGTF-Crisis Response Force.

Each time they actually deploy, they could be flying into a Mayaguez Incident. This force is too light to fight and hold ground.  History tells us so.  Using this force to justify the V-22 is a bridge too far and will cost lives.

Professionals for the bad guys read history too.  If I can see the dangers then our opponents can see the opportunity for the destruction of a Marine Unit too.  I hope I'm wrong, but this could end badly...just like it did for an assault force many years ago.