D N A M M O C S N O I T A R E P O L A I C E P S s e c r o f s p r o c e n r a m i 8 INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION It’s about 2 30 a m in a remote mountain village in Afghanistan Suddenly the silence is shattered by the sounds of revved-up dirt bike engines Anyone who sticks his head out the door might be terrified by the sight of men many of them bearded dressed in combat gear and carrying up to 50 pounds 22 7 kg of heavy-duty weaponry gunning their bikes down the village’s main street If that person is a peace ful villager no problem But if he is a member of the Taliban his life expectancy is probably measured in seconds i m a r n e C o r p s f o r c e s S P E C I A L O P E R A T I O N S C O M M A N D 9 These bikers are members of the Marine Special Operations Command or MARSOC an elite special force within the already elite Marine Corps and they are turning the tables on the enemy For years the Taliban would appear out of nowhere on their dirt bikes plant improvised explosive devices IEDs or fire at American troops and flee to their hideaways where they would prepare to strike again In early 2012 MARSOC de cided to fight fire with fire Several dozen operators as American special forces per sonnel are often called learned to ride dirt bikes some of them identical to the ones the Taliban used over rough mountain trails maintaining control during high-speed ascents and descents avoiding obstacles such as large stones and tree roots and roar ing across swift-flowing creeks No one expected these Hells Angels on steroids to single-handedly defeat the Taliban Rather the team could win a series of small victories by using its enemy’s tactics against them another example of MARSOC’s characteristic flexibility and creativity ZzZ MARSOC operates in rough unfamiliar terrain that is home only to terrorist camps
D N A M M O C S N O I T A R E P O L A I C E P S s e c r o f s p r o c e n r a m i 10
i m a r n e C o r p s f o r c e s S P E C I A L O P E R A T I O N S C O M M A N D 11 TACTICS FROM TRIPOLI TO TODAY The same spirit of turning the table on one’s enemies has worked in America’s favor before In the early 1800s pi rates based on the coast of North Africa terrorized American merchant ships during voyages through the Mediterranean Sea The pirates captured the ships and held the crews for ransom In 1802 United States president Thomas Jefferson sent a fleet of American warships to fight the pirates Unfortunately the USS Philadelphia one of the fleet’s most powerful vessels ran aground near the harbor of Tripoli today the capital city of Libya the following year and was captured Navy Lieutenant Stephen Decatur and several dozen volunteers including a number of U S Marines sailed a small captured pirate ship to the Philadelphia as it lay at anchor They killed the guards and burned the ship This daring action ensured that the Philadelphia couldn’t be used against American forces A few months later in the same conflict Marine Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon and eight enlisted men headed up a force of 500 mercenaries who sought to capture Tripoli They had covered most of the distance to their objective and defeated a much larger pirate force at the city of Derna when a peace treaty ended the threat to American shipping Part of the present-day Marine Corps hymn to the shores of Tripoli pays tribute to that long-ago heroism The night of February 16 1804 Decatur’s team set fire to the captured Philadelphia
