
The focus of our visit to MARSOC‘s Schoolhouse was Special Operations Training Branch, currently housed in an orderly formation of a dozen or so modular classrooms while construction is underway nearby on a more traditional campus. There, Lieutenant Colonel Clark Watson, SOTB’s Director, walked us through the high points of the Initial Training Course, a comprehensive SPECOPS basic training program that is the next step following Assessment and Selection for those seeking to become CSOs….

It defies logic that United States Special Operations Command did not include the Marine Corps until a little over five years ago. All the more so because the Corps is arguably the most nimble, aggressive and experienced component of the U.S. Armed Forces in the dirty and demanding business of fighting “small wars” in remote corners of the world….