Training with foreign forces

[frank83]

I'm curious to hear what US Marines' perspectives and experiences are in training with foreign forces (e.g. Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, Royal Marines, French Foreign Legion, Indonesian Marine Corps, etc).

How frequently do these opportunities arise? How useful do you find these programmes?

[thewookie]

I'm curious to hear what US Marines' perspectives and experiences are in training with foreign forces (e.g. Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, Royal Marines, French Foreign Legion, Indonesian Marine Corps, etc).

How frequently do these opportunities arise? How useful do you find these programmes?

I did an exchange program with the Royal Marines and they are true professionals. But don't ever go into a bar with them, or if you do and hear them yell "naked bar" be prepared to drop trouser and jump around singing. They did it in Scotland all the time, I brought them back to Virginia with us and they tried that in VA Beach and it almost got me thrown in the brig! I spent 2 months in Scotland and England with them, it was a MCSF thing. Then they came across the pond for 1 month. 1 major difference I saw is they don't have nearly the politics/rules that we do when we go live or do live training, they get it on. I also cross trained, or was involved in training with the FFL, and SAS, and they are what you read, and then some. When I was stationed in Greece we used to dive a lot and the owners of the gear locker where we rented our gear from were former FFL guys and they were cool to get to know, regular guys but you could tell they were, I'll say "special". Same caliber of cloth that Recon Marines are cut from. The opportunities to work with them is really random and spontaneous. We do a lot of cross training with the Brits, but it depends on your unit and a whole bunch of variables.

[frank83]

Yeh I read a book about the Royal Marines (Amongst the Marines: The Untold Story by Steven Preece) and it explains vividly the 'bar activities', and the social revolving around the life of the Royal Marine.

Regarding these different 'politics/rules' when it gets to exercises, what do you mean? Do the US Marines have a lot of limitations/regulations during training exercises?

[Covey_Rider]

Regarding these different 'politics/rules' when it gets to exercises, what do you mean? Do the US Marines have a lot of limitations/regulations during training exercises?[/QUOTE]

Hahaha...RED TAPE EVERYWHERE!!!!

[thewookie]

Yeh I read a book about the Royal Marines (Amongst the Marines: The Untold Story by Steven Preece) and it explains vividly the 'bar activities', and the social revolving around the life of the Royal Marine.

Regarding these different 'politics/rules' when it gets to exercises, what do you mean? Do the US Marines have a lot of limitations/regulations during training exercises?

I was treated like a king over there as a Marine Sergeant, I'll tell you that. And the last day I was there we had a big picnic/cookout type of party. Well, at the end of the day they gathered everyone up, the US Marines and the Royal Marines and they took a group picture. There was some big-time brass there. Wouldn't you know, one of those crazy Brits yelled "naked bar" and all of them, except maybe the real high end brass, all of them dropped trouser and they took another picture! So now you have this picture with 1/2 the guys naked from the waist down and the rest, the US Marines are all looking like they just saw a pig fly or something, it was comical! The first time I encountered this I was shocked to say the least, but over there especially in Scotland, US and Royal Marines are like rock stars, and can do no wrong. The Royal Marines reputation for what they did for years in Ireland and the Falkens is the reason for that, they are hard core. Over here, it's very different and that night in VA Beach I had to explain it to the VPD more then a few times to save us all from going to the clink.

I noticed the relaxed range environment almost immediately, but I spent a lot of time on ranges, the Corps is pretty black and white and that's for a very good reason. Sometimes. Keep in mind the guys I was hanging out with over there were seasoned Marines. But overall my experience is they definitely don't have the red tape like we do when you do some basic live squad maneuvers stuff. I don't know what the accident rate is over there but I didn't see anyone do anything stupid because it was a little relaxed then what we were used to. And they all acted, and were very professional when we were live, it was just more relaxed compared to what I was used to at the time, and that's tough to verbalize.

[thewookie]

Another funny thing that I remembered today about the Brits or the Royal Marines, since you pulled my cord, is their tea time. We would be training hard, they had this nasty urban city where they would regularly blow up cars and stuff while we trained. One training day in particular we were doing the whole urban, mout, house on house, town assault and all of the sudden I hear this whistle blow and next thing I know all the Brits start gearing down, and the whole place just shuts downs. Like a broken clock. Around three o'clock in the afternoon, they all sit around and smoke, drink tea, and eat crumpets.

I like those guys they trained hard but they also knew to sit down and take it easy every once and a while. I saw very good discipline and also very good camaraderie. And that brings me to another thing that I was impressed by was the way discipline was dealt. They don't know what political correctness is, they don't care if a guy has a black eye and the Captain sees it. You mess up, you mouth off, you're going to pay. We also do a good job of this but they were different in that their officer's usually either condones it or ordered it. I saw some guy that it looked to me like things got out of control. But that was the norm for them, they police themselves very well.

[frank83]

I hear many positive stories regarding the Royal Marines. What about the Royal Netherlands Marines? I know they train with United States Marines as well. Anyone experience training with them? I understand they work closely with the Royal Marines as well.

Thewookie, you say it depends on what unit you are in. What sort of units have higher tendencies to cross train with foreign forces?

[thewookie]

I hear many positive stories regarding the Royal Marines. What about the Royal Netherlands Marines? I know they train with United States Marines as well. Anyone experience training with them? I understand they work closely with the Royal Marines as well.

Thewookie, you say it depends on what unit you are in. What sort of units have higher tendencies to cross train with foreign forces?

The Neanderthal Marines? Haven't heard of them?

Really, I've been out for 8 years and that's not something I can even take a stab at. Security Forces did, I'm sure some fleet units still do. But we are in war, things like that probably don't happen as frequently. Have to ask one of the active guys to get anything better then that.