by Dick Couch
The navigation classes move outside, where the TAC sergeants and navigation instructors work with the students. They walk with them over various types of terrain, point out the relationship between their two-dimensional contour maps and the actual terrain features. These outdoor classes in the Fort Bragg training areas also allow the students to calibrate their pace and to learn to take a bearing with their compasses. Now they’re ready to be out on their own—almost. The first two nav problems are a day compass course followed by a night compass course, and these initial outings are done in buddy pairs. The following day, they’re out on their own, first in the daytime, then at night. The waypoints on the course are white five-foot plastic posts sunk in the ground. At night they are lit with a chemical light stick, or Chemlite. When they find the point, the students clip their scorecard with the special hand punch tied to the post, take a new bearing, and set out for the next point. On these first iterations, there are a lot of lost soldiers out in the woods, trying to find their way. It takes practice. After two days in the field, walking in the woods with sixty-five pounds of equipment, some of them are getting it and others aren’t. The class is brought back to the barracks area for additional classroom work and advanced navigation techniques. The nav instructors are now starting to focus their attention on those students having problems. Then it’s back out to the field for more day and night compass courses.
There are seven graded land-navigation problems—three daytime courses and four nighttime courses. Each course has a starting point and four points that each student has to reach in a prescribed period of time. These points or destinations are given to the students in eight-digit military grid coordinates. Students are given their coordinates at the beginning of the course and allowed a few minutes to plot them on their maps. They take a compass bearing to their first coordinate and set off, noting the distance to their first destination and the pace count that will take them there. The courses range from six to ten miles as the crow flies, but that’s seldom how the Pre-SFAS students walk the ground. More often than not, they’ll walk 20 to 40 percent farther to navigate around obstacles—and even farther if they get lost. The allotted time on the courses ranges from four and a half hours on the earlier, shorter courses to nine hours on the final night problem. A student scores a point for each point he finds on the course—seven courses for a total of twenty-eight points, with consideration given to those who may struggle at first but do well later on.
“This was all new to me,” Private First Class Roberto Pantella told me. “I grew up in Queens, and my rural outings were into the city to Central Park or out for a drive with my family on Long Island.” PFC Pantella is a twenty-four-year-old Dominican-American. Prior to joining the Army, he was an aircraft maintenance technician working on 747s. He’s five-eight with a stocky, solid build. “At first, I was doing very poorly. But then one of the nav instructors gave me some one-on-one help. They yell at us a lot, and that’s their job, but when you need help, they’re right there. You see, to do the nav courses, there are three things that’ll get you from point A to point B. You can shoot a good azimuth—or series of azimuths, which you have to do at night—to get you to the point. Another thing that will get you to your point is you have to walk a good line. By that I mean you can’t drift left or right of your azimuth or bearing, and you have to know your pace—dead on. When your pace count says you’ve covered a thousand meters, you’d better be at a thousand meters, give or take five or ten. It’s not easy. And the third thing you can do is find the point by terrain association. That means as you shoot your azimuth and walk your line, you have to be aware of terrain features: low areas or draws, the crowns or hills, the steepness of the slopes, roads that cross the terrain—that kind of thing. I do them all, but for me the key is the pace count. I know almost exactly when I’ve covered a thousand meters. And I shoot a lot of back azimuths, checking the line of bearing I just walked. This helps me stay on course.”
I asked Pantella why he joined the Army. “I always thought I might want to be a soldier, ever since I was a little kid. Then I got into baseball and I was a pretty good catcher. So I worked nights, and in the daytime I went to school and played baseball. I only got as far as double-A ball, but I had my dream. Finally, I got my associate’s degree and was making pretty good money working on airplanes. I visited Ground Zero two days after 9/11, and it made an impression on me. Once I’d paid off my school loans, I quit my job with the airlines and here I am. My family thought I was crazy, and maybe I am. This might sound funny to a lot of guys, but the hardest thing for me is that I miss my family. I’ve never been away from them this long.”
“And the land nav was not a problem for you?”
“After a rocky start, I got twenty-five points out of a total of twenty-eight,” he said proudly. “That’s better than most guys.”
During the navigation exercises, I’m assigned to a student and follow him on his compass course. I have my compass, an old Silva Ranger that I had in the SEAL teams, and I soon learn that for me, 1,116 paces is a thousand meters. Yet my role on the nav course is to trail along a few meters to the rear. Wherever my student soldier goes, that’s where I go. One night my student and I are terribly lost. That’s when I learn about the draw monster. A draw is a low-lying drainage area or slow-moving stream that can be knee-deep mud, waist-deep water, and thick with undergrowth. They have to be crossed walking on a line of bearing, or “boxed.” This is a technique whereby the student goes around the draw or marshy area, boxing it, so he comes out on the other side, on course and with some idea how far he’s traveled. My soldier crosses these draws on a compass bearing. On one draw we are up to our waist in the swamp at night for forty-five minutes, fighting tangles, vines, mud, and bugs. Then we come out on the same side. “Sorry about that, sir, but I think I got it figured out now,” he says, and back into the draw we go. It takes us three hours to get to the first point on the course. My soldier only gets two of his four points, but he never quits trying. We walk a long way that night.
Land navigation is a practiced skill, and the students have to learn by doing. I’m assigned different students to walk with, but after my long night in the draw, I ask if there were someone a bit more accomplished that I might follow. “Put Mister Couch with the Kiwi,” Sergeant Loften says.
The next day I’m out with Private First Class David Rule. Each of the X-Rays is a story, and Rule is no exception. He grew up in Auckland, New Zealand, and left college there to come to America. He holds dual U.S.-New Zealand citizenship. Rule is twenty-five and was working as a waiter in Denver when he joined the Army.
“I’ve always been interested in the military,” he tells me, “and I like to travel.” His accent’s very pronounced. “I’d thought about the New Zealand Special Air Service, but you have to have six years’ time in service before you can try out for the SAS. That was a bit much for me, so I saw this as an opportunity to serve with a special force and do some traveling.”
Rule is six foot and two hundred pounds. He has a soft appearance and a shy manner, and he gives the impression of not being particularly fit. But as I was soon to learn, he can ruck with the best of them. He swings on his pack, and we start out. I literally run to keep up with him. He has sixty-five pounds, while I carry only water, a camera, and a few PowerBars. PFC Rule marches straight to the first point and to the next three in rapid succession. In a little more than three hours of the five-hour allotted time, we are at the fourth and final point.
“I use my compass to give me a general heading—to get me pointed in the right direction,” he says of his technique. “From there I follow the terrain features. I generally know where I am on the map, and I try to choose the best route if not the most direct route. I pick way points along the route that keep me off the roads and out of the draws. When I get close to where I need to be, I find a nearby terrain feature and shoot an azimuth to plot my position on the map so I know exactly where I am. Then I plot a course to the nav-course poin
t and walk there on a line of bearing. It seems to work for me.”
“What about at night?” I ask.
“Pretty much the same thing, except that I have to go a little slower.”
When the Pre-SFAS students finish a compass course, they make their way to a base camp area, which is usually within a mile of their final point. They check in with the cadre, get their compass cards validated, and get their rucks weighed. The cadre sergeants inspect each man to see if he has any injuries or foot problems. They also check their water to ensure that their students are drinking enough. Then they’re given an MRE and sent to a holding area to await the completion of the exercise. There’s only one other soldier there ahead of PFC Rule when we get to the base camp. He’s a former ranch hand who’d grown up in Texas, but had worked all over the Southwest.
“I see we’re not the first ones here,” I say conversationally.
“So we’re not,” Rule replies. “Maybe next time.”
I later learned that this was the first time that PFC Rule had not been the first one to finish a nav problem. It must’ve been the distraction of having an overaged Navy SEAL tagging along that held him back. Getting in early means some time to relax and have a leisurely meal. The third man in is a soldier from Seattle. He’s a University of Washington graduate with a master’s in education. The fourth’s a high school graduate from Minneapolis who’d been working as a carpenter when he joined the Army. Of the forty-some men due into this base camp, only twelve make their allotted four points in the time allowed.
For Class 8-04, a total nineteen points on the seven graded navigation courses were the minimum acceptable, and only about half the class were able to make nineteen or better. Only four members of the class went twenty-eight for twenty-eight. PFC David Rule was one of them.
During these day/night compass courses, the three training platoons of Class 8-04 live in the base camp areas. Their toiletries, change of clothes, extra boots, socks, underwear, sleeping bag, rain poncho, and rain shelter all go into or onto their rucksacks. They must carry their rucks with them on the compass courses and live out of them in the base camp areas. Living out of a ruck is a practiced art. There are issues of comfort, because rest and sleep, brief as they may be, are important in the performance of a soldier. Hygiene in the field is also important. Oral hygiene, cleanliness, foot care, hydration, nutrition—all of these require attention to keep a soldier safe and mission capable. In the base camp area, the students set up sentries and roving patrols, just as they would in hostile territory. It’s part of a soldier’s life; you sleep while your buddies stand guard, and they sleep while you watch over them. Since the beginning of the second week of training, all Special Forces students carry weapons—sort of.
Weapons, the use of weapons, and weapons safety will follow these men through all phases of training and into their Special Forces groups. It’s a way of life. With very few exceptions, a Special Forces soldier is never more than an arm’s length from his rifle. This ongoing link between man and rifle is critical because Special Forces often work in highly exposed, remote areas where they have to provide for their own security. They may, literally, have to go for their guns on a moment’s notice. For the X-Rays, it begins in the Pre-SFAS course. The guns are realistic-looking, hard-rubber versions of the M16 or M4 rifles—the standard combat rifles used by the U.S. military. These “rubber ducks” are treated as the real thing, which includes general safety, muzzle control, accountability, and proximity. A man goes to the latrine, he takes his rifle. He goes to the water point to refill his canteens, he takes his rifle. He also takes along a buddy. Throughout Special Forces training, students and candidates will always have their rifles with them, and they will never venture out from the barracks or base camp alone. It’s much the same for the Special Forces detachments operating in Afghanistan and Iraq. The one exception is the chow hall. Two men will stand guard over the squad’s weapons while the squad eats. Those two will be relieved by two of their squad mates so they can get to chow. In the base camps, the meals are MREs, and the students eat alongside their guns. When they sleep, their rifles are right beside them.
Off to one side of each compass-course base camp is an area bounded by colored surveyor’s tape and away from the others. It’s the VW area—voluntary-withdrawal area. As the nav courses get longer and the students get more weary, more than a few decide that this kind of life is not for them. They quit. It seemed as though there were always one or two men in the voluntary-withdrawal area at the end of every nav course—sometimes more. The cadre questions each of the VWs, as they are called, to make sure it’s not a moment’s lapse or a decision made without due consideration. Yet once a student says he’s through, his decision is respected and the VW is treated with courtesy. He’s also isolated from those who are still in training. The voluntary-withdrawal numbers in the nav-course base camps are higher after a night course than after a daytime course, and higher still when it rains. I’ve no data to prove this, but I sense that those students who spend the most time in the draws tend to leave Special Forces training at a higher rate. On a few of those nights in the draws, I questioned what I was doing there.
Regarding the voluntary-withdrawal issue, it goes on throughout Pre-SFAS Training, but since no one can VW the first week, there are a number of men who quit on the second Monday of training. I watch fourteen men from Class 8-04 step up to the platform and VW on the second Monday morning formation. In something of a ritual, one that reminded me of “the bell” in SEAL basic training, each man who wishes to withdraw has to ring a gong and announce to the formation why he wants to quit. There are a number of reasons, but most simply state, “It’s not for me,” or “It’s not for me at this time.” I suspect this public display of quitting, like ringing the bell in SEAL training, is done to make it difficult to quit. The Special Forces training cadre want these young men to stay with the program. Crossing the Rubicon of having to publicly announce your withdrawal in front of your classmates may keep a few men in training a while longer, and a few of those may just find it within themselves to go on and become Green Berets.
There are those who are asked to withdraw. These are the IVWs, or involuntary withdrawals. These are the men who’ve committed integrity or safety violations, or repeatedly failed to follow specific instructions. The most common of these that relate to the land-nav problems are students walking on the roads or found sleeping on the nav course. The first relates to cheating, and a second offense will lead to involuntary withdrawal. These are called, appropriately enough, roadkills. The second’s a safety issue. A man found sleeping on the course or on the roads while waiting for pickup after expiration of the course time limit will be asked to leave. The sleeping issue may seem harsh, as these men are very tired. Sometimes, just to sit down is to doze off. But the 18X Pre-SFAS cadre take safety issues very seriously. Putting this many students out in the woods at night, in rough terrain by themselves, requires strict accountability. None of the cadre, especially Captain Shields and First Sergeant Carter, rest easy until all men are accounted for. If someone has fallen asleep out there and goes missing, training stops and an all-out effort is made to find and recover the missing student.
“One of the best students in my squad sat down on the road to await recovery and fell asleep,” Sergeant Loften told me. “He was a super kid; his dad is a Green Beret. I went to the first sergeant and the captain to try to do something for him, but he’s gone. He’ll have to go to another Army unit for a while and try us again later. But rules are rules. The poor guy was in tears. Hell, I was almost in tears. We told him to do his time in the 82nd Airborne and come back. I hope he does. He’s just the kind of kid we want in Special Forces.”
While the business of land navigation continues, there are other evolutions and training taking place. If the students are not in the field on a nav problem, there are ruck marches under full pack, squad runs, and the obstacle course. All students are timed on a five-mile run for which the cutoff time
is forty minutes. The fastest member of Class 8-04 came across the line right at thirty-two minutes. On the second to the last day, the class is again graded on the Army Physical Fitness Test. A few of the students are able to improve their scores, but not many. The three and a half weeks of training have worn them down, and most score lower than they did on the first test. With the final APFT, time is running out for Class 8-04. Collectively, there are two basic avenues open to the remaining class members—those who have not left training by the voluntary- or involuntary-withdrawal route. They can be sent forward to the Special Forces Assessment and Selection phase, or they can be recycled.
The burden of deciding who will and who will not be advanced to SFAS and Phase I of the Q-Course falls to Captain Shields and First Sergeant Carter, and to the recycle board. Before we talk about the function of the recycle board, there is another evaluation criterion that comes into play. It’s called the peer review, or, simply, peers. Midway through the phase and during the last week, the students in each training squad evaluate and rank their peers. Each man rates the members of his squad from top to bottom—one through sixteen or eighteen or however many are in his squad. He puts in a chit on the top man, a blue half-sheet of paper, saying why he’s number one or best suited for Special Forces. He also puts in one on the bottom man, and says why he feels this man is last or least suited. These are pink-colored slips. The peer ratings, by average rank and any first or last chits, become part of each man’s package.
“Each class is a little different,” First Sergeant Carter told me, “but after the last APFT, we complete each man’s package and we take a look at them. We have no quotas or numbers, but we do have a clear definition of our role. In the Pre-SFAS course, we prepare; we do not select. If this class is like previous classes, of those still in training, about half of those who came to us four weeks ago will have earned their ticket to selection outright. Of those on their second time through the 18X Pre-SFAS course, about half of them will have met the standard, and while it took them two tries, they have made the grade and, in our opinion, have earned a shot at Special Forces selection. The other half of the recycled students who didn’t quit, but still didn’t make the grade, well, we send them forward anyway. We don’t like to advertise the fact that a man goes to selection phase after two rounds of Pre-SFAS Training, even if he hasn’t met the standard, but that’s about the size of it. Again, our job is preparation, and our job ends when we’ve put a man through two rounds of this training. Anyway you slice it, the easy calls are the guys who perform to standard and the guys who quit or are dropped from the course.”