Captain O'Grady was then escorted from the flight deck down to the medical department, where it quickly became apparent he was in pretty good shape: He had a minor case of dehydration, his feet were a little beat up, and he had minor friction burns on his neck and face. Meanwhile, the Marines from the TRAP force turned in their unused ammunition, cleaned their weapons, went through debriefing, and headed down to breakfast. At the same time, the after-action reports were started…along with the preparations for the inevitable surge of press personnel. All before Colonel Berndt had his morning coffee!
Getting Ready: 26th MEU (SOC) training and operations
Once upon a time when you were a teenager, you probably dreamed of driving an automobile. In those days, making the quantum leap from walking or bicycling to bounding in a car from city to city or from state to state surely seemed comparable to getting the captain's chair on the starship Enterprise. Of course, driving a car didn't turn out to give you the freedom you hoped for. In fact, before anyone would let you loose in a machine that dangerous, you took driving classes and driving lessons in high school. Later, you went down to the Department of Motor Vehicles, took a written and visual exam, and finally took a personal examination that tested your driving skills in actual traffic conditions. All of this for the simple right to drive alone in traffic. Or is it so simple? Badly driven cars kill more Americans every year than we lost in all the years of the Vietnam War. To put this more practically: When we're out there on the freeways, we want the other guys in their big, fast machines to drive as well as we do. Reasonable people take the privilege of driving quite seriously.
Now, if an operation as easy as driving has to be so heavily monitored and regulated, you can imagine how the Marine Corps oversees the training and certification of a Marine Expeditionary Unit — Special Operations Capable (MEU-SOC). Just consider how much has to be done before one of these units can be sent cruising about the world, armed and dangerous. Up until now, we've been looking at the structure, personnel, equipment, and capabilities of a MEU (SOC). Seen through those windows, these are wonderful units. But what makes a collection of regular Marine formations really useful is training. More of the same kinds of training that created the esprit and ethos that made these people Marines in the first place.
To give you an idea of how this is done, let's follow the members of 26th MEU (SOC) as they prepare for their 1995/96 deployment to the Mediterranean Sea. I'll take you on some of the workup exercises, and try to give you a feel for the range of missions that MEU (SOC)s train for and how they are examined and certified ready to go. This cruise was to be no normal MEU (SOC) deployment (as if there is such a thing!). As the 26th was getting ready, the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was coming to a head, and the 24th MEU (SOC) had just plucked Scott O'Grady out of harm's way. It was not hard to see that Colonel Battaglini and his Marines, as well as Captain Buchanan and his sailors, might be headed into the middle of a shooting war.
MEU (SOC) Missions
Today, MEU (SOC)s on both coasts and Okinawa are trained to a single set of standards and missions, which are constantly reviewed and examined to assess their validity in a changing and dangerous world. To support this effort, in 1989 the Marine Corps implemented a set of standard MEU (SOC) training handbooks. These provide a common training syllabus for all MEU (SOC)s. The key to understanding the operations of a MEU (SOC) is to look at its various missions. A quick note about definitions: In the Marine vernacular, 'assault' means to forcibly take an objective and hold it until relieved or reinforced. 'Raid,' on the other hand, means to enter an area, destroy or capture specified targets and equipment, and then return to wherever you started from.
This mission is the traditional amphibious/vertical-envelopment assault so fundamental to the Marine Corps ethos. In the case of a MEU (SOC), this mission could be executed on behalf of follow-on forces, such as Army airborne and/or fly-in units, or perhaps Marine MPSRONs/Army AWR-3 units. This is a forced-entry, 'kickin-the-door' kind of operation, and would likely be done very quickly (a matter of days) after the outbreak of a crisis. Meanwhile, the National Command Authorities would likely rush additional amphibious ships with extra Marines to beef up the MEU (SOC).
In amphibious raids the MEU (SOC) would use its landing capability to move rapidly across a hostile beach to temporarily take an objective, and then render it useless to an enemy. Examples might include strikes at power plants, industrial areas, or military bases. Another possibility is the destruction of weapons facilitates capable of manufacturing or storing chemical, nuclear, or biological munitions. Airfields are also viable targets for an MEU (SOC) raid, as are ports.
A specific kind of raid, the limited objective attack is defined as a short-duration raid or assault designed to divert the attention of an enemy away from a larger or more vital operation. This operation is designed to cause a lot of noise and 'flash,' after which the unit scoots away before the bad guys figure out which attack is the real one. Such a raid might be composed of a single big attack along a narrow front, or a series of smaller simultaneous operations spread over a wider area.
One of the many reasons for having a Navy and Marine Corps is to provide protection for the world's sea lanes. This is more than just a fancy-sounding way of saying, 'Get off of my road.' Maintaining freedom of navigation in the world's sea lanes is a shared responsibility of all naval powers. Therefore, one of the missions of the MEU (SOC)/ARG team is to help protect shipping against piracy and/or capture by terrorists, such as happened to the Italian cruise ship
Sometimes, when you want to make a point, you act like a 'big dog' (large with a nasty growl), show your teeth, and let everyone in the neighborhood know you are bad. This mission is all about acting like a
Though TRAPs come in a variety of configurations — from simple repairs and recovery of damaged aircraft in a benign environment to full-blown raiding forces equipped to forcibly enter hostile territory to recover injured personnel — most TRAPs occur under peaceful conditions in friendly territory. All the same, MEU (SOC) Marines
