An SF general and a Marine general got into a discussion about this on FID. The Marine general's position was that his men were fully qualified to go out into theater and conduct FID, even though they had no training or experience in FID itself (though were undeniably expert in the tasks that they were planning to go out and teach).

"Fine," says the SF general, "and I'll send my guys out to conduct training on how to fly helicopters."

"That's rediculous" retorts the Marine, "you have no training or experience in rotary-wing operations!"

"Exactly." replies the SF general
You know the more I get into this, the more I realize how much SF types don't understand how Marines are developed and trained.
I do know that a team of Marines has recently returned from SOUTHCOM AOR in which they were carrying out a true FID mission and weren't MARSOC.
SF doesn't have a patent on this. Am I saying that a basically trained Marine can execute at the level an ODA team can? No. Am I saying that it does takes experience and maturity, some specialized training to execute a FID mission. Yes.
One thing I have noticed is the SF types like to point to their way of doing things as the standard, one in which I don't necessarily disagree with, however to take the stance only ODA can do it, well is myopic at best. There are missions that do take detailed specialized training that are high end and really demand very highly trained people to do so.
What puzzles me is this constant, well lets put an ODA team in the lead, because that's what they do. Well I would submit that just because you are an SF soldier, it doesn't mean that you are an effective advisor.
As far as the GO illustration, the Marine is right, Marines have done this type of duty and are doing it as I type this. Are some better than others? Sure. Would it be beneficial to screen the members of the teams a little tighter and train them better, you bet, but its not like SF are the only force in this world he can do this. Using the helicopter example is poor at best, how do you get experience and training?
I will remind you that we did write the Small Wars Manual, and refer you to the NY Times article on the 2 young Marines in Afghanistan. Would they benefit from better training before going to Afghanistan, sure, but it is what it is.
Lastly why are we doing this? (GPF), because the SECDEF said so.


Boot