Thank Rock two-five for what he's done. After all he got his picture in magazines and stuff. Now, it's all over the internet. If they gave him a dime for every time...
Well, lets just say you wouldn't worry where the mortgage or rent was comin' from.
As I stated in another post, I have no idea why we weren't involved in some way in Beirut. Not sure how Rock feels about it, but sometimes it seems like the U.S. Gov't sends you someplace and forgets about you. Wait!...You need food? Blankets? Well, try to source it there if you can. No, you can't do this, you can't do that... They still like to control. Now, go out and do the mission.
On the other hand, from what I heard, Beirut became the SEAL's training AO. Yes, they had real missions, but it was pretty well suited to bringing people up to a higher level. People got dead serious, or they got dead.
I always have to add this disclaimer. I get asked a lot who is tougher, Rangers or Seals. I know put 'em in a jar and shake 'em up...
right??
So, toughness is a mindset that anyone can adopt. I like to use the word 'better'. Rangers are Infantry with Special Ops capability. The training requires toughness and endurance. Most things you learn in the Rangers are pretty much advancements of infantry tactics. You get a LOT of hands on and time doing the tasks. Seals get a lot more vetting to even get to the training. Which also requires a ton of toughness and endurance. Both test you to see at what point you will quit. And when they do 'get there', they spend more time in intensive training on more specific tasks. They do get a higher level of quality training. We typically have too many people to to train to the specifics that they train on.
Better? On an individual basis, a SEAL is better because of that. If you were to talk about mission results quality. Again, SEALs. Because of mission requirements, they're kind of more like a scalpel, we're more like the hammer. Rangers today are a lot more like scalpels than we were.
Now, add to this mix the Marines. The 'composite' way their MEU's are set up has always made sense to me. Still quickly deployable. Infantry supported by artillery in one unit. This is great, except the infantry has no higher capability. If we/unit like us were attached, then the base unit could 'reach out' better. Small enough to be efficient and big enough to be effective. The whole point of being composite was so that you could be 'modular'. Put these guys with those guys for X-mission, put them with dem guys for Y-missions. The Marines struggle for enough money to handle even regular training. All the other 'pigs at the trough' services need to back off. That's politics though.
