Spec-ops Marines, crisis response units may join forces: The Marine Corps' new crisis-response forces in Africa and the Middle East may soon begin working with elite special operations teams tasked with teaching them how to best collaborate with special forces in theater.
The idea is in its early stages, Maj. Gen. Joseph Osterman, the commanding general of Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, told Marine Corps Times recently. It comes as officials evaluate a similar trial concept — attaching six-man special operations liaison teams to Marine expeditionary units — for continuation as a longstanding program.
In a service-wide planning document published earlier this winter, the service's commandant, Gen. Joseph Dunford, emphasized the relationship between conventional Marine units and special operations forces.
"Marines and SOF are highly complementary and have many similar characteristics," Dunford wrote in Commandant's Planning Guidance. "It is only natural that our efforts should work to improve interoperability between the Marine Corps" and U.S. Special Operations Command."
Already, key leaders are talking about how to build on the concept.
