Marine Corps leaders disliked the idea of creating an elite formation inside a service that already regarded every Marine as elite. Their resistance was institutional as well as tactical: the Raider label itself seemed superfluous to senior officers. The later claim that every Marine should be able to raid helped justify disbanding the units. The Navy's subsequent creation of the SEALs gives that decision an ironic afterlife.
Chapter · 7:23-9:14
Marine Raiders as specialists
Marine Corps leaders resisted creating an elite raiding formation inside a service that already regarded every Marine as elite.