Seeing the success of the Army Special Forces in Afghanistan, the marines have decided that they can do that sort of thing just as well. The marines tend to attract more than their share of free spirited warrior types, and the idea is to train some of them to do espionage and intelligence (including interrogation) jobs that are much in demand these days. The marines actually have a long history of Special Forces type operations, doing quite a lot of it in Latin America and China before World War II. The marines have already agreed to put most of their "Force Recon" LRRPs (long range reconnaissance patrol) under SOCOM (Special Operations Command) control. What marines do with all these new proposals will be interesting to watch, if only because the marines usually pull off ideas like this.