I remember our discussions earlier, and I was not a supporter of the Marines joining for several reasons. First they already bring a unique capability to our military. Second they're a relatively young force, and you cannot afford to remove several senior NCO leaders from the ranks and put them in one unit within the Corp.

I think there were several senior members within the Marines who didn't and still don't support the concept, so they could, in subtle ways, make it hard to get the new units off the ground. Furthermore the biggest supporter of it, former SECDEF Rumfield no longer has a vote.

Some commented that they were worried the Army would use this as an opportunity to poke the Marines in the eye over rice bowl issues (we have some who will), but I think there is an equal to greater concern that senior Marine leadership will use this incident as an excuse to get the Marines out of SOCOM.

Who knows a year from now this could be old news, and the Marines continue to build their special operations capability, or they announce that the experiment is over (not over the incident) and that they can better serve America's interest as Marines under the Marine Corp instead of as Marines under SOCOM.