The Force Reconnaissance companies (abbreviated as either 'Force Recon' or FORECON) are one of the United States Marine Corps's special operations "capable" forces (S.O.C.) that provide essential elements of military intelligence to the command element of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF); supporting the their task force commanders, and their subordinate operating units of the Fleet Marine Force (FMF).[1]
Historically, the Force Recon companies, detachments and platoons performed both deep reconnaissance and direct action (DA) operations. Recently the DA missions are now primarily conducted by the Marine Special Operations Teams (MSOT), due to the establishment of the U.S. Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC) in 2006. MARSOC was formed from Force Recon's direct action platoons, taking over the DA side of Force Recon's missions. This now allows the FORECON companies to focus on excelling in their primary intelligence-gathering mission.