Marine Raiders

I've always had that as a value, but when I had the, you know, I, a thing you may know that I go back and I swim.

In fact, this weekend I'm swimming again with our special operations folks who, to raise money for those folks who are transitioning out, which gives me the opportunity and the honor to speak to a lot of these Navy SEALs and Green Berets and Marine Raiders.

And what I realized after talking to them, I asked them a question.

I asked them, I said, "What does it take to be the elite of the elite?" And they says, "It really comes down to two things, Tom.

Did, uh, uh, deployments with 1st Marine Regiment with, uh, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines.

Uh, then assessed, got selected, went to our individual training course, which is now, now known as the Marine Raider course, and, uh, became a Marine Raider officer and, uh, served, served with, uh, uh, 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, um, uh, for, for about f- uh, a year, um, before I got hurt.

Uh, s- sort of a, a series of traumatic brain injuries.

Uh, I think a lot, a h- a lot of the i-

But [laughs] I've talked to a lot of the guys in 51Vets who are, like, been through the SEAL pipeline or Green Beret pi- pipeline, but I think we just need more guys from MARSOC to, uh, so we need to recruit more.

Um, but, like, w- what, what are some of, like, your most, uh, vivid memories of going through selection and then, you know, being, you know, put on a team?

But I think, like, the most comical parts of, of our selection is, like, you know, Marine Raiders are, you know, we have an aquatic m- we have an aquatic mission capability.

Like, we have an amphibious capability.

He was initially posted to the 22nd Marine Regiment, no slouch of an outfit, but for the young gung ho Ed, they were subpar.

He w- was determined to become a Marine Raider.

The Raiders were the Marine, uh, the special forces of the Marine Corps, calling themselves the elite force within an elite force.

Through determination and sheer guts, Ed Barse made the cut and became a Marine Raider.

However, disappointment would result for Ed.

He contracted malaria and was confined for, to an, an infirmary.

Something huge is happening across Latin America right now.

US Marine Raiders and Special Forces are officially joining ground raids against the cartel inside Ecuador, leading to the arrest of over 30 narco-terrorists, because advise and assist now comes with a breaching charge.

But I found this is just one small part of something even crazier that's happening across the entire Western Hemisphere.

American combat aircraft are being snuck into the region, new covert action campaigns are being launched, and it's all building toward a much larger mission that is unlike anything we've seen in recent history.

Over 300 Ecuadorian police officers, including their elite GEMA unit, took part in the massive operation, alongside 50 American operators, about a platoon of Special Forces, who are doing missions where you could probably wouldn't even need to pay them to do this.

Just GG [beep] easy.

The US contingent included members of the Green Berets from Seventh Group, whose area of operations is already Latin America, and surprisingly, it appears Marine Raiders, an elite unit that's one of the newest to the US Special Forces community, was seen on the scene with their uniforms and a patch that gave them away.

But when you think about it, Marine Special Forces are perfect in a sense for this kind of counter-cartel mission because of their maritime capabilities.

Totally agree with you.

and now we are going to fly the other end of the world and we're going to go down to the south southern border of the united states with mexico and south america where I guess Green Berets and Marine Raiders are doing raids with the Ecuadorian police with doing counter-narcotic operations.

Let's key up this video real quick.

I'm going to play a few clips, get everyone going from big to small, all the zeroing in.

About 50 personnel from U.S. Southern Command and the Drug Enforcement Administration participated in the operations.

Photos and videos that were released showed U.S. personnel also wearing Marine Raider insignia.

And that is the part I want to focus on.

The United States has been working with Ecuador on counter-narcotics operations for some time now.

He enlists in the United States Marines.

Becomes an elite Marine Raider, served on Guadalcanal.

He came back.

He finished the year.

And, you know, I'm going to tell you what.

Those Marine Raiders, they're tatted from head to toe, brother.

Wow.

Wow.

And so what I'm getting at is, did you think that or did you believe that you had a good network set up when you got out and then found out maybe that you didn't or that you just had to strengthen it?

does that make sense yeah so it was a combination but really what happened with me is i had a really good network inside of marine raiders and then i got notified that i was getting medically separated so in one day i got notified that like my identity's gone basically it's like it's like an athlete whenever they go back to their the locker room and their jersey's not there anymore And they got to go talk to the office and they're like, yeah, you're, you got cut or, you know, you're injured.

So you're out or whatever.

So that's what I, you know, I went to work one day and I thought I was about to deploy to the Philippines.

Not just Navy SEALs, the best Navy SEALs.

Not just Marine Raiders, the best Marine Raiders.

The best of the best are here.

And that weighs on you.