GRP 79- We'd like to send our condolences out to the victims and families of those killed in the Manchester bombing attack that occurred Monday, May 22nd, in Manchester England. U.K. security forces are conducting several operations in response to the bombing which has killed 22 and wounded over 50.

I had the honor and privilege of having on former Marine Raider Pete Perry. Pete was a Reconnaissance Marine prior to the Marines Special Operations Command (MARSOC) being stood up. For years the Marine Corps did not have a component within the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Marine Raiders became that force. We discuss what that was like and some of the growing pains that come with a special operations unit being stood up having to move at the speed of war. Below is an excerpt from our conversation:

Pete Perry: This was my 2012 deployment. It was a company clearing operation so we had a handful of MSOT's (Marine Special Operations Teams) with an Army Special Forces team with 3rd Kandak (Afghan Special Forces) with us. During this time my element alone we found 100 pressure plates (IED’s). For this particular mission, we'd inserted and fought all day that first day. You're navigating at night in an extremely highly saturated IED'd area. We got to a compound of interest with one of our Afghan's stepping on an IED. He died. I grabbed myself about four U.S. with about 15 Afghan commandos. We were immediately ambushed.

From that point, we fought all day long. We moved about 2 kilometers to a different compound. We were overextended. We had a British Apache Gunship overhead. We were notified that a guy is walking towards our compound. We spot him and plan on letting him get closer before we dumped him. He turns around and runs. I go chasing after him with my buddy we both had a carbine and one magazine. We start shooting at him. He fell in a field 50 feet away from us. The Apache is reporting all of this unbeknownst to us and a lot of ears are listening. We lost visual on the enemy. I see him and he fires a full burst at me. I'm shooting. I button hooked around and shot him in the face. We came under accurate machine-gun fire from the north. We are now out of ammo. I grabbed the dead dudes AK and start returning fire. The trees to the north began to erupt. After the second eruption, we realized it was the apache going on gun runs. On the 3rd gun run, we bounded back. The next day we found a reinforced machine gun bunker to the north and that's where we were taking fire from. Those guys were squared away.

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