Chosen Soldier

by Dick Couch

  I clearly remember those turbulent days following the 9/11 attacks, when the face of this enemy became Osama bin Laden. Americans suddenly became aware that this was a new and dangerous enemy. My work on basic Navy SEAL training, The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228, had just been released. I knew immediately that those fine young men whose SEAL training I documented would soon be actively engaged in this fight. Very quickly we learned that bin Laden and his al-Qaeda Islamist organization operated under the protection of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But Afghanistan was a very nasty place to do battle. The Soviet Union had poured troops and money into that feudal nation for more than a decade, and the Afghan mujahideen, with our help, sent the Soviet army home in defeat. Many feel that the steady flow of body bags with Russian soldiers hastened the fall of the Soviet Union. But we had two things going for us the Soviets didn’t: General Tommy Franks and Army Special Forces.

  General Franks, as the theater commander, was asked to come up with a battle plan that would remove the Taliban and allow us to pursue bin Laden and his terrorist organization in Afghanistan. The general laid out his plan and sold it to Secretary Don Rumsfeld and President George Bush. Unlike the Soviets, Franks, who was a conventional artillery officer, opted for the unconventional. In a definitive by, with, and through operation, a handful of Special Forces detachments mobilized the Afghan tribesmen, who were loosely organized under the banner of the Northern Alliance, and executed a classic unconventional-warfare offensive. With the help of the CIA and a generous dose of American precision airpower, the Special Forces—in a word—“took” Afghanistan. What they did and how they did it is chronicled in Linda Robinson’s fine book, Masters of Chaos. It was a marvelous piece of work on the 5th Special Forces Group, who took the lead in this campaign. The details of this action, I’ll leave to Ms. Robinson. This work, Chosen Soldier, is an inside look at the selection and training of special warriors who can accomplish such feats. I can only imagine the awe and bewilderment of the Soviet generals who watched this amazing feat. It must’ve stunned them. It stunned all of us.

  I also recall the dire predictions that America would be bogged down in a war of attrition, as were the Soviets in Afghanistan and as we were in Vietnam. There was a lot of conventional wisdom about the tenacity of the Afghan fighters—how we were poking a tar baby that would drag us into prolonged bloodletting. Fortunately, Tommy Franks saw things differently and was able to convince the administration that Afghanistan was a candidate for unconventional warfare. And, to Franks’s credit, he never wavered. When the campaign stalled for a few days and Congress tried to press conventional forces into the fray, Franks stayed the course. The U.S. marines were not landed at Camp Rhino, southwest of Kandahar, until the Taliban was pretty well beaten. My image of Iraq will always be of brave young soldiers and marines pushing their armored columns along the Tigris and Euphrates toward Baghdad. In Afghanistan, it’s of a Special Forces team sergeant, standing at the head of a group of Northern Alliance irregulars. He’s bearded, just like his Afghan fighters, and he’s dressed as they are—in tribal scarf and native headgear. He has a radio in one hand and an M4 rifle in the other. His Northern Alliance troop leader is standing by his side as they plan their next move against the Taliban. As we move to counter the insurgencies in Iraq, we might do well to reflect on what the Special Forces were able to accomplish in those early days. Well-led irregular forces, fighting on their home ground, can be a huge force multiplier in an unconventional-warfare campaign. They can also be the deciding factor in the internal struggle against insurgents. History will, in my opinion, record our success or failure in Iraq by how we were able to assist the fledgling Iraqi democracy in dealing with its insurgency.

  The history of Special Forces training is a story of growth and maturity. In the beginning, back in 1952 when Colonel Aaron Bank stood up the 10th Special Forces Group, he personally selected the volunteers for his new unit. “Most of us came from the 82nd Airborne,” one of the originals from the 10th told me. “The only ones who could speak a foreign language were the ‘stateless guys,’ the Poles and Czechs who were serving the U.S. Army. Initially, there were about two hundred of us. The training lasted fourteen weeks and was a lot like basic training, only we learned about sabotage and assassination techniques. We were training to go behind the lines if the Communists attacked Western Europe. There was a map and compass navigation course, calisthenics, and daily runs. Colonel Bank himself led us on the runs.”

  That’s how it was then. Over the years, Special Forces training has changed dramatically. For the most part, each year, each new commander—and, indeed, each training class—brings change; what was good enough for making a Special Forces warrior yesterday is not good enough for the one we have to train for tomorrow. It’s a dynamic, evolving process. Today, Special Forces training is a formal and highly formatted regimen called the Special Forces Qualification Course, or, simply, the Q-Course. Chosen Soldier is about that course, but, more to the point, it is also about the men who train to become these special warriors. You will read about the Special Forces candidates who began their training in the summer and fall of 2004. It’s the story of but one iteration of Special Forces training—a single Q-Course. As you read this, the Q-Course I experienced has changed; today, it is more focused, more efficient, more professional, and more tailored to the global war on terror. Before we get to the selection and training of Special Forces soldiers, let’s take a look at the organization of Special Forces from the bottom up. And I’ll apologize in advance as we wade into a few more acronyms and military jargon. Stay with me.

  The basic building block of Special Forces is the twelve-man Operational Detachment Alpha, or ODA. There are two officers—a captain (designated as an 18A or 18 Alpha), who is the detachment commander, and a warrant officer (180A), the assistant detachment commander. These officers are often referred to as the team leader and assistant team leader. The detachment or team has ten enlisted non-commissioned officers, or NCOs, and each of them is trained in a military occupational specialty, or MOS. There are two sergeants, a senior and a junior, for each Special Forces MOS—weapons (18B), engineering (18C), medical (18D), and communications (18E). The “18” designator is that assigned by the Army to Special Forces. In addition to these eight specialists, there is an intelligence sergeant (18F) and an operations sergeant (18Z). These enlisted Special Forces “specialists” are usually referred to by their phonetic titles—Bravos, Charlies, Deltas, and Echos. The intelligence sergeant is called the Fox. The 18Z, or 18 Zulu, is a master sergeant and serves as the detachment enlisted leader. He’s usually referred to as the team sergeant. Each member of the team fills a specific and important role, but the team sergeant is the element or personality around which the ODA functions. All these men are cross-trained in the various specialties. The Special Forces Qualification Course has one primary goal: to train officers and soldiers to become effective members of an Operational Detachment Alpha. The term “A-Team” is interchangeable with ODA, but those in Special Forces prefer the use of ODA or detachment. During the Q-Course, the trainees are organized into student ODAs for much of their training.

  Six ODAs, along with an Operational Detachment Bravo, or ODB, make up a Special Forces company. Three Special Forces companies, together with a support company and a headquarters element, comprise a Special Forces battalion. Although the force can be mixed and matched to suit the requirements, the battalion is a self-contained force and is the basic Special Forces deployment element. Quite often, the battalion staff and support elements will form the backbone of a deployed forward operating base, or FOB. Said another way, each battalion can field eighteen operational detachments and can provide the command, control, and logistical support to keep these teams in an operational environment. Each line company in a Special Forces battalion will have one or more of their company detachments specially trained in military free-fall parachute operations, underwater (scuba) operations, or urban combat operations. And, finall
y, three battalions, along with a headquarters company and support personnel, constitute a Special Forces group. A Special Forces group will have an authorized strength of about 1,400 personnel, of which some 650 soldiers make up the operational detachments, the ODAs. That doesn’t mean that the ODAs are the only guns in the fight. The company bravo detachments and even members of the SF group staff may be called into action when conducting operations. But it’s the twelve-man ODAs that carry the operational load. They’re the ones who are out there day in and day out, working with the locals and conducting independent combat operations.

  There are five active groups and two Army National Guard groups. First, the five active groups. The 1st Special Forces Group is at Fort Lewis in Washington State with one battalion forward deployed to Okinawa. The 1st has responsibilities in the Pacific theater. The 3rd Special Forces Group is based at Fort Bragg and focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. The 5th Special Forces Group, once tasked with Vietnam, is now the group with primary responsibility in the Middle East. They’re based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 7th Special Forces Group is oriented toward South and Central America. They call Fort Bragg home. The 10th Special Forces Group is based at Fort Carson, Colorado, with a battalion forward based in Germany. They have responsibility for the European theater. There are two National Guard groups, the 19th and the 20th. The 19th is based in Draper, Utah, and is made up of units generally located in the western half of the nation. They focus on support of the active groups in the Pacific and the Middle East. The 20th, with eastern-U.S. National Guard units, is based in Birmingham, Alabama, and provides support to the 7th Special Forces Group and Latin America. These two National Guard groups play a significant role in the current Special Forces deployment posture in Afghanistan and Iraq.

  The active and National Guard Special Forces groups train for and maintain a regional orientation—tactically, operationally, and with the appropriate language skills. The 5th Special Forces Group again carries a heavy operational burden. The men call their area the sandbox, or, simply, “the box,” and they deploy on a routine basis to Afghanistan and Iraq. The other groups split time between their duties in their assigned areas and helping the 5th in the active theater. The Guard groups, like many Army National Guard units, are very busy. The “part-timers” in the 19th and the 20th are spending a great deal of time overseas and a great deal of time in harm’s way. More than the other SOF organizations, the Army Special Forces Command relies on and deploys its National Guard groups. The active groups have no problem integrating their guardsmen into their deploying units. In reality, they’ve no choice. Since 9/11, SF soldiers in the active groups are deployed 270 to 275 days a year. Any way you slice it, that’s above and beyond, for the men and for their families back home. And the National Guard groups? They, too, are gone a great deal of the time. Those volunteering for recall, which many reservists have, can be gone as much or more than their active-duty brothers.

  Prior to 9/11, the Special Forces groups were undermanned, perhaps as low as 80 percent of their authorized strength. That has changed. With aggressive recruiting and the training pipeline running at full capacity, the active groups are approaching their authorized strengths. If the recent pay incentives and bonuses now being made available to seasoned SOF personnel achieve the desired result, the groups may plus up in excess of these authorized levels. As of this writing, we have something on the order of forty-five hundred Green Berets to carry this fight to the enemy. We could certainly use more, but as you’ll see, it takes time to make a Special Forces soldier, and even more time to season him on deployment.

  There’s another SF group that resides at Fort Bragg and operates under the commanding general of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, usually shortened to the acronym SWCS. It’s the training group, the 1st Special Warfare Training Group. This is the group that is responsible for training Special Forces soldiers. In addition to the Q-Course, the 1st SWTG also conducts Advanced Special Operations Training, Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) School, language training, and training for the Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations units. In the course of writing this book, I was under the close supervision and direction of the 1st SWTG. Before we get to the various phases of training, a word or two about the Special Forces training cadres. Special Forces training, like all SOF training, is part teaching, part testing, and part mentoring. The effect of these trainers on young men who want to become Green Berets is incalculable. They’re the role models, and the new men watch them carefully. They want to be just like them. The quality and success of the force is in the hands of these Special Forces trainers. Currently, this training staff has never been better. Prior to 9/11, there were only a small number of Special Forces soldiers with combat experience. And duty at the training command was not all that desirable. Most veteran Special Forces sergeants wanted to stay with their detachments and remain in deployment rotation. We were not at war, yet they didn’t want to be away from their operational team if there was a chance for an active deployment.

  Today, things are different. Almost all of the training cadre are combat veterans; they’ve been there and done that. Today, deployment rotations are active and dangerous, and they can keep an operator away from home 75 percent of the time. But even the best of the best need time away from the fight. Now, experienced cadre are coming to SWCS after their third or fourth combat rotation. They bring with them current operational experience and knowledge. More than that, they bring a passion for all those things a Special Forces warrior must master—attention to detail, total focus on the mission, cross-cultural awareness, and a sense of duty to their nation and their teammates. And when they go back to the fight, they will go into combat with the men they have trained. This experience, the commitment to excellence, and the inherent role of Special Forces as teachers have produced a superb faculty of Special Forces trainers. Perhaps never in the history of Special Forces has the critical need for top-quality Special Forces operators been met with a more capable and qualified training cadre. I feel privileged for the opportunity to observe their training and write about it.

  Before you can train men for this special work, you have to find men—men who are special before they even get to this training. The selection process is critical. For every five men who enter Special Forces training, only about one of them will ever wear a Green Beret. From the perspective of training resources, the higher the quality of the recruit, the fewer men you have to put in the pipeline to get the quality and quantity of Special Forces warriors the groups need. The aptitude and intelligence tests help, but they can only do so much. The tests don’t always predict if a man can readily adapt to foreign cultures and play well with others. And there has yet to be a reliable test for heart and determination. Cast the net too narrowly, and we miss out on some good men. Cast it too widely, and the attrition rates drive up the cost of this already expensive training. I came away from Special Forces training with the sense that quality must never be sacrificed for quantity, though as you will see later in this text, that issue can be hotly debated. So where do these men come from? How does the Army find them? Why do they volunteer for this training? This is the stuff of chapter 2.

  RUCK INSPECTION. Special Forces recruits in Pre-SFAS Class 8-04 muster for instruction and inspection prior to a field problem.

  CHAPTER TWO

  RECRUITING THE UNCONVENTIONAL

  A great deal of time, effort, and thought goes into the criteria for deciding who comes to Special Forces training and who does not. The Special Forces, just like the rest of the Army, the other military services, and private industry, are looking for bright young people to fill their ranks. In each case, the more adept they are at recruiting the right kind of people, the easier and more effective the training and the more accomplished the finished product. Special Forces has a unique task. It has to train its recruits to a more rigorous, and yet in some ways a more ambiguous, standard than do other organizations. There is a defined military sk
ill set that includes small-unit tactics, marksmanship, interpersonal skills, mission planning, and the like, but much of the Special Forces’ work comes under the heading of “getting the job done.” So they’re looking for men who can think and improvise—men who can operate independently with little or no help, or direction, from a conventional command structure or logistics support train. They’re also looking for men who can teach, lead, and operate independently from any other U.S. military presence. Because they are frequently alone and in remote areas, they often are the United States of America. They may be on their own, but they still represent our nation. As such, these men must have a firm moral foundation. A Special Forces soldier must abide by the Rules of Land Warfare, theater-specific rules of engagement and the code of the American fighting man.

  The Special Forces are looking for more than someone who is tough and smart and plays well with others. They are looking for adaptability and flexibility, men who can look at a given task and come up with any number of ways to solve it. Someone with good entrepreneurial skills is a good candidate for Special Forces, since the work of the Green Berets often involves calculated risk and creative thinking. If one solution to a problem fails, they have to immediately come up with another way to accomplish the mission. Since the work often involves working as a team or in a cross-cultural environment, the Special Forces are looking for candidates who have good interpersonal skills—men who are open to listening and working with other people and foreign communities. More crudely put, it may come down to whether a man is more comfortable in shooting people or trying to make friends with them. Some soldiers are very proficient in a tactical situation and very comfortable behind the gun, but they don’t really want to make the effort to communicate with someone different from themselves. A Special Forces soldier has to be good behind the gun and be able to deal effectively with other cultures.