What I Learned Working With ♠️MARSOC® The Last Few Years Of My Career(Things Big Marine Corps Needs To Seriously Think About) via Reddit

Posted here... if you have a chance and you have something WORTHWHILE to offer, post it there to feed the discussion.

We've all seen the cool guy gear, the high speed training videos and CQB, and everything else. But working with them for the last few years of my career has gave me a new respect for MARSOC beyond the superficial shit. Their ship is run ziploc bag fucking tight. Here's 4 reasons why.


Treat Your Marines With RESPECT FIRST and they will treat you with respect. In MARSOC nobody talked down to anybody. Everyone is on the same playing field, and if somebody fucks up they are shown the correct way to do it without making a big fuss about it. Respect is a big deal with these guys. And they treated support and other enablers just as good as anybody else if you could do your job. If you fucks they fucks with you back. Vibes are reciprocal is somebody tried to DI everybody and knife hand them they would laugh at that NCO and walk away. They just don't respond to that type of disrespect. Just tell them the right way to do it and move on.


Gear doesn't mean shit if you suck. The Big Marine Corps was obsessed with gear. When I was in the infantry, everyone thought the latest plate carrier or boots were going to turn them into tactical jesus. It never happened. You've got to train. MARSOC's gear is really not THAT much better than everyone elses, but they train harder and move faster. I'd put their worst team up against the best infantry squad I've seen and they would win. Training matters and your guys need more of it.

Hardicking it all the time is boot camp shit and should end there. Probably the biggest out of the 3 things I noticed. We had more fun days, parties, barbecues, cookouts, fucking everything you could think of there. They actually ALLOW people to be somewhat normal and stop Marine Corping for a period of time, and guess what? Performance actually increases. It costs literally nothing to throw a cookout in the middle of the day for morale instead of everyone sitting on their ass waiting to go home hating life. It does nothing to let guys out early if there isn't shit to do. It increases morale and performance. Including PT performance as guys get more time to recover.


It does nothing to let guys see the doctor or get some physical therapy if their injured. A hobbling infantryman is useless and it's not their fault they got injured. Letting your guys use the FREE services the military gives(without talking shit to them or calling them weak) to stay healthy increases performance. I saw MARSOC guys in and out of physical therapy or counseling all the time. They said it helped their game and make them more resilient physically and mentally. None of their leadership gave them any shit and actually encouraged it. One E8 I talked to said he will literally TELL guys to go every other week. As a result these guys are in their 30s moving like 19 year olds. Some dudes in there 40s with their better times than 99% of the Marines in their 20s. All from physical therapy, nutrition, stretching, and recovery work and some TRT. Some of these guys could be operating until 65 honestly, if they'd let them. They've figured out the secret to staying fresh.


TLDR: Treat all Marines with Respect(treat someone like you would like to be treated, if they fuck up just tell them what to do without any bs, chances are it will work better long term). Train more and worry less about gear, that being said make sure your gear works and is functional. Don't wear under/oversized boots, kit that doesn't fit your body, and make sure your rifle is zeroed and your mags feed properly. Basics over sex appeal. And being tough isn't a virtue, it's just stupid 90% of the time. Being smart is finding way to do less and achieve more. That's all SOF really does from what I've seen. If they don't have to do it they won't. Less is more mentality.

ATTN: Anybody else work with MARSOC, Recon, or any other SOF units want to add anything else post it. We need to make this a superthread where everyone's just dropping good shit maybe it can be useful in the future for some young NCOs and Officers, it could make a difference.

Hmm.

This has been talked about forever and I THINK Berger is acting to bring this to the conventional side of the house.

Is it solved right now?

Nope.

Is it being worked on?

I believe it is.  Problem?  It'll take about 8-10 years to see the fruits of the effort.

I have no issue with the effort.  I do wonder though how we can build a "commando" Corps while still retaining an "assault" Corps.

Always remember this.

Special Operations are vulnerable to conventional forces.  That still hasn't changed.  The further we push to make conventional forces tilt toward being SOCOM Jr, the more vulnerable they'll be to forces they face that are being built like we once were.