The Operation That Nearly Wiped Out An Entire MARSOC Team

About this video

A former Marine special operations team member recounts operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He describes the evolution of tactics in Iraq from aggressive raids to building relationships with Iraqi families during house occupations, and details how his team member taught himself to become a sniper through studying manuals. The guest also discusses the MARSOC selection process and later deployments to Afghanistan, including village stability operations.

Key takeaways

• The guest recounts how his team evolved from ‘smashmouth’ tactics to relationship-building in Iraq, occupying homes during the day while earning trust of families through payment and respectful treatment
• The guest describes how his RTO, Brian, taught himself to become a sniper by reading manuals and math, successfully shooting a moving target through car glass at 300 meters
• The guest argues that village stability operations (VSO) and the Afghan local police program were successful approaches that empowered locals, similar to early 2001 special forces tactics, but conventional force tactics during the surge failed

Episode details: published September 21, 2025 · 26.9K views · 19:11 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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