United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance

United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance

The Force Reconnaissance companies (abbreviated as either 'Force Recon' or FORECON) are one of the United States Marine Corps's special operations "capable" forces (S.O.C.) that provide essential elements of military intelligence to the command element of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF); supporting their task force commanders, and their subordinate operating units of the Fleet Marine Force (FMF).

Historically, the Force Recon companies, detachments and platoons performed both deep reconnaissance and direct action (DA) operations. Some missions are now shared by the Marine Special Operations Teams (MSOT), due to the establishment of the U.S. Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC) in 2006. MARSOC was formed from Force Recon's direct action platoons, and now are capable of performing many of the same mission sets for USSOCOM. This dual existence now allows the FORECON companies to focus on excelling in their primary intelligence-gathering mission, as well as the VBSS (Visit Board Search and Seizure) side of the specialized raid mission.

FORECON is responsible for operating independently behind enemy lines performing unconventional special operations, in support of conventional warfare. The unit's various methods of airborne, heliborne, submarine and waterborne insertions and extractions are similar to those of the Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, United States Army Rangers, or Air Force Combat Controllers, although Force Recon's missions and tasks do differ slightly with a focus on primarily supporting Marine expeditionary and amphibious operations.

Read more about United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance:  Mission, Organization, History, Mission Training Plan, Equipment, Creed, FORCE RECON in Media

Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, marine, corps and/or force:

    The rising power of the United States in world affairs ... requires, not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism.... Our job in this age, as I see it, is not to serve as cheerleaders for our side in the present world struggle but to help the largest possible number of people to see the realities of the changing and convulsive world in which American policy must operate.
    James Reston (b. 1909)

    Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kow-tow before any United States pro-consul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.
    Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (1909–1989)

    If the dignity as well as the prestige and influence of the United States are not to be wholly sacrificed, we must protect those who, in foreign ports, display the flag or wear the colors of this Government against insult, brutality, and death, inflicted in resentment of the acts of their Government, and not for any fault of their own.
    Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)

    God has a hard-on for a Marine because we kill everything we see. He plays His game, we play ours.
    Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)

    The Washington press corps thinks that Julie Nixon Eisenhower is the only member of the Nixon Administration who has any credibility—and, as one journalist put it, this is not to say that anyone believes what she is saying but simply that people believe she believes what she is saying ... it is almost as if she is the only woman in America over the age of twenty who still thinks her father is exactly what she thought he was when she was six.
    Nora Ephron (b. 1941)

    Men have two ways of righting their wrongs, by force and by the ballot. Both are denied to women, one by nature, the other by man.
    Ida A. Harper 1851–1931, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. Fireman’s Magazine, repr. In The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 423-5 (May 1887)