by Dick Couch
Each candidate’s SATCOM message, text or imagery, is beamed to a satellite twenty-three thousand miles in space and back to the commo facility just a few miles away. There, a team of staff communicators receives and acknowledges each transmission. The facility is manned 24/7, and these are graded transmissions. Inside the commo facility is a large board that identifies each individual message, the Echo candidate who sent it, and any irregularities of format and procedure. During the course of the Max Gain exercise, each candidate will make a total of fifteen graded SATCOM transmissions.
“Block time is evaluation time,” Keller says. “For the most part, I didn’t have any trouble, but on a few of them I was sweating it. Fifteen minutes isn’t much time if something’s not working. But we’ve been trained for that; it’s called the ABCD protocol—antenna, batteries, connections, data. Ninety-nine percent of all problems come to this. When the gear doesn’t work, you begin a formatted series of troubleshooting procedures. A loose connection almost caused me to miss my comm window, but I got it fixed in time to make commo.”
“High-frequency communication is all about the antenna,” David Altman explains to me. “We use either an elevated dipole or an inverted ‘V’ configuration. For Max Gain, we were communicating with a commo station in Florida, some four hundred miles away. The signal has to skip between the earth and the ionosphere to travel that far, so we have to adjust the antenna to get a good signal—to achieve the right bounce. But the PRC-137 is a good radio. We had ten graded HF voice and HF ALE transmissions on the 137.”
In 18 Echo Class 1-05, there are seventy-some students out working in two patrol bases for Max Gain. The cadre pretty much leave them alone, but stop by periodically to see if there are any problems and to ensure they are maintaining a tactical posture. The patrol base locations are each scheduled for one move to drill the candidates in breaking camp, along with the radios and the aerials, and setting up in a new location. One of the patrol bases gets a little sloppy in their fieldcraft discipline and are forced to move a second time to refocus their attention to tactical detail. The cadre, based on feedback from the commo facility at Eureka Springs and in Florida, know if an individual candidate is having trouble. Usually, it’s a technical issue or a piece of gear that needs to be swapped out. Then the staff is right there to work with the student communicator. As one cadre member puts it, “The groups need these guys, and we want to give them every chance to succeed.”
“When they finish with Max Gain,” First Sergeant Blowers tells me, “we feel they can communicate to standard—anytime, anywhere. During the course of twelve days in the field, they’ll be hot, cold, attacked by bugs, and get rained on. That’s what we want; they still have to communicate. Commo is very important in the operations of a deployed Special Forces detachment. This is why we put them out there and have them do it again and again and again. It’s our responsibility and their mission to see that they can make commo anytime and under any conditions. We also want them moving around in the woods under a load. It gets them thinking about Phase IV, where they’ll move under this much gear or more, and they will be walking a lot farther.”
“How about class attrition?” I ask him.
“Our job is to get these guys through this, and by and large we do. If they’re having problems, we come in and work with them at night or on the weekends. We lost two from this class. One was for a family problem, and he’ll probably be back. The other was a guy who for some reason just couldn’t handle the technical material. Hard as we tried, we just couldn’t get through to him. It’s like that sometimes, but we try to get them all through here and on to Phase IV.”
“Never been in the field that long,” David Altman says of Max Gain. “But I learned a lot, and I’m ready to communicate in Phase IV. I also learned that I’m going to have to build a better ruck to see if I can shed a few pounds. We carry a lot of gear.”
“This was a challenging course,” Justin Keller reflects. “I was a little beat up from Phase II, so the classroom time at the beginning allowed me to heal up. I know we have a ways to go, but I’m starting to think about duty with an ODA team. The 18 Echo is in the middle of everything, and I can’t wait to do my job on deployment as a communications sergeant.”
“But first there’s Phase IV.”
“Oh, right, Phase IV. I’m looking forward to that as well.”
At the end of Phase III, the 18 Bravos, Charlies, and Echos join their officers, the 18 Alphas, for a return to Camp Mackall and Phase IV. By now, most of them, to one degree or another, know each other. They are joined by a contingency of 18 Deltas who began their combat medic training over a year ago. Ahead for these soldiers is a crash course in unconventional warfare and the storied Robin Sage exercise.
TEAM LEADER. Captain Miguel Santos confers with his team in the field during one of the Phase III tactical drills.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE DETACHMENT COMMANDER
Following the battalion commander’s and battalion command sergeant major’s briefing to the Phase III gathering, the class officers make their way to the Alpha Company area at Aaron Bank Hall. There they meet in a classroom with Major Jim Brooks, who commands Alpha Company, 4th Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group. Brooks came to the training group from Iraq, where he served with the Free Iraqi Forces in Nasariyah. Brooks is a quiet, understated man whose soft demeanor belies his reputation as a top Special Forces professional. He lays out the administrative, academic, and professional requirements of the course.
“I don’t have to tell you gentlemen just how important the next three months in your Special Forces career are. What you learn here will determine your success as a detachment commander. We’ll throw a lot of information at you—so much you might feel smothered at times. Work through it. This is information you will take with you to war.”
Major Brooks then introduces his company operations warrant officer, Chief Warrant Officer Frank Bonner. In contrast to his company commander, Bonner is animated and direct.
“Good morning and welcome to the 18 Alpha curriculum. Let me echo what the major said; the next three months are going to be challenging and important. From here, you will break up into your small groups, where most of your work in this phase will take place. Before you do, I’m going to brief you on your duties and responsibilities of your team warrant officer—your 180 Alpha. As team leader and detachment commander, you’ll have a lot of talent and experience to help you get the job done. Your 180 Alpha is an important part of that talent pool. He’s your assistant detachment commander and he can do a lot of things, but his primary job description is to assist and advise. Remember that, gentlemen—assist and advise. He will also command in your absence.”
Bonner quickly goes over the history of warrant officers in Special Forces. Warrant officers have been serving as assistant detachment commanders since 1993. Warrant officers are drawn from the ranks. Typically, a capable Special Forces soldier will move along a career path that leads to becoming an ODA team sergeant—a sergeant major and the senior enlisted man on the team. A few of these superior-performing Green Berets will elect not to take the team sergeant route and take the path that will lead to their becoming commissioned as a warrant officer.
“Your warrant officer can do a lot of things for you,” Chief Bonner tells the new 18 Alpha candidates. “He’s a wealth of experience—experience that ranges from your budget to your training. And above all, remember where this guy is coming from. He has enlisted history and possibly enlisted history with the team and the team sergeant. Like you and the team sergeant, he is a type A personality and wants what’s best for the team. You, the team sergeant, and the warrant are the top three on the ODA. What the team does, how it trains, and any problems on the team are going to be handled by the three of you. There may be times when you disagree and have to go behind closed doors to work it out. That’s OK. As team leaders, you are the final authority and will make the final decisions, but don’t overlook the fact that yo
u may have as much as forty years experience between that warrant and that team sergeant. Get to know these guys; break bread with them. Listen to them and treat them with respect.”
Chief Bonner goes on in detail about the duties and responsibilities of the assistant detachment leader. “And one more thought before I let you go. As a detachment leader, you’re the boss—the final authority on that ODA. But keep in mind that when dealing with your warrant and your team sergeant, it’s their team. You will come and go, but in most cases, they will remain with the team. Good luck to all of you.”
Chief Warrant Officer Bonner releases them, and the officers head for their team rooms. There they will meet the key instructors for their Phase III training—perhaps the most important individuals in their entire Special Forces Q-Course training: their two small-group instructors.
“One of the most important things I do here as the battalion commander,” Lieutenant Colonel Robert Sandoz told me, “is to find and select the right officers and noncommissioned officers to serve as small instructors for officer training. My command sergeant major and I personally interview each of them, and not all that I interview are right for the job. There was a time in Special Forces when we got less than the best here for instructor duty. That was true for all phases of training. But that’s no longer the case. To build the force properly, you have to bring your best back here to train the new men, especially the new officers. The good ones naturally want to stay in operational rotation. We’re at war, and they want to keep their guns in the fight. My job is to convince our best officers and NCOs that they can contribute to the fight by coming back here and passing their experience along to the new detachment leaders.”
The officers are broken down into ODA-sized groups for their phase training. In my group, along with Captain Miguel Santos and Captain Matt Anderson, there are two other infantry officers, one of them coming from the 75th Ranger Regiment. There is a field artillery officer, an engineer, an air defense officer, and a chemical warfare officer. There are also two foreign officers, one Czech and one Pole. All are captains. Among the Americans, five are married, two have never been married, and one is divorced. Both of the foreign officers are married. Matt Anderson is divorced with two daughters, and Miguel Santos and his wife are expecting their first child in four months. All of the American officers, with the exception of the chemical warfare officer, have been to Ranger School. As in other phases of training, the group will train and function as a student ODA. My group is designated as ODA 912. The ten officer candidates file into the 912 team room and take their seats. The walls of the small classroom are plastered with maps, organizational charts, briefing formats, combat photographs, and technical information. This will be 912’s home for the next three months when it’s not traveling or in the field. Their homeroom teacher and senior small-group instructor is Major Eric James.
“Good afternoon, men, and welcome to 912 and Phase III. My name’s Eric James, and this is Master Sergeant John Rameres. We’ll be working with you for the next three months. The master sergeant is a former marine and a combat veteran. He came to Special Forces from Southern Methodist University by way of the post–Gulf War X-Ray Program. Get to know him; there’s a lot you can learn from him to help you be successful in this phase. All of you want to lead an ODA—to become detachment commanders. After this phase, Master Sergeant Rameres will be returning to 7th Group as a team sergeant. We’re a small community; he may be your team sergeant. I especially want to welcome the allied officers. We look on the allied officers as training aides, as well as brothers in the international special operations community.
“There’s a lot of information in this phase that you’re going to have to get your arms around. Master Sergeant Rameres and I are here to educate, train, and mentor you. We’re also here to push you—to see that you understand the mechanics of planning and executing special operations as well as understand the big-picture special operations environment. There’s a lot to learn, and you’ll put in a lot of long, hard hours to get through this. All of you were outstanding in your branches before you selected for Special Forces; you will work hard to be average here. You’ll leave here with the tools to solve difficult, complex, and ambiguous problems. You’ll learn to plan operations on a level you never thought possible. A lot of this will be death by PowerPoint, but we’ll spend some time in the field as well. We’ll counsel and evaluate you. This phase of training is designed to identify and improve on your strengths. It’s also designed to point out your weaknesses so you can work on them.
“I’m very passionate about this training and the skills you must have if you’re going to be an effective detachment commander. If I yell at you, don’t take it personally. I’m a fire-and-forget kind of guy. If there are problems, call me anytime, and that includes at home. If you have an issue, let’s get it resolved. I’ve been married quite a while, and my wife understands my commitment to this business and this training. If there’s someone in your life, then this job will affect them and will undoubtedly create hardships for them. Your wives, girlfriends, and/or fiancées are welcome to call or e-mail my wife if they want to talk about it. No problem.”
James hurriedly writes his home phone, cell phone, and e-mail on the board. Eric James is a straightforward, square-jawed officer from 10th Group. He’s been in the Army for eleven years and in Special Forces for six. He’s from Colorado and has a degree in mechanical engineering, as well as a master’s degree in unconventional warfare. He has made deployments to Kosovo and was with the Kurds in northern Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom. James comes across as an open and affable officer with a passion for getting the job done right. He also projects a very crisp, no-nonsense approach to his work.
“Time is very short, gentlemen,” James continues, “and you have a great deal to learn. The next time you see some of this material it will be downrange and it’ll be for real—with lives and the mission on the line. Master Sergeant Rameres and I will be watching to see that you’re engaged and putting forth your best effort. I’ll always ask, ‘Is this guy doing the best he can with the knowledge he has?’ For staying in shape you are on your own; big-boy rules apply. You’ll take the phase six-event physical fitness test, the one with the bench presses and pull-ups, now and when you leave the phase. You should be stronger at the end.” He pauses a moment to survey his student officers. “This business is like no other. There are very broad left and right boundaries. Work hard and use your time well. When we’re here in the team room, bring your lunch if you like. We’ll eat together and talk about Special Forces.”
Major James then pushes through the phase administrative details and evaluation criteria. On a break from the classroom, I speak to a few of the officers about their senior group instructor.
“Don’t let that Boy Scout image fool you,” one of them tells me with a note of resignation in his voice. It seems Major James’s reputation was a pass-down item from previous classes. “The guy’s a workaholic,” another student officer says, “and a perfectionist. We’ll bust our ass every day and every weekend to get through this phase.”
The 18 Alpha curriculum for this class, Class 1-05, is broken down very precisely into blocks of instruction: five days of MOS orientation, ten days of adaptive thinking and leadership (ATL), and five days of strategic reconnaissance and direct-action analysis and planning, followed by a ten-day field training exercise, a fourteen-day foreign-internal-defense training module, thirteen days of unconventional-warfare training, and four days of advanced special operations training. The final four days of training is a full-immersion unconventional-warfare planning drill that will prepare the student captains for the extended unconventional-warfare exercise and field problem of Phase IV—the Robin Sage exercise.
The MOS orientation is a crash course in the duties and responsibilities of detachment specialties—one day for each. Assigned to Alpha Company are a cadre of experienced senior Special Forces sergeants who serve as instructors and support staff. On succes
sive days, these veteran sergeants lecture the future detachment leaders on what their brother technical specialists can do for them and their teams. They also bring to the class an impressive array of weapons, radios, night-observation devices, cameras, laser designators, and (inert) explosive firing assemblies for hands-on training. A cadre medical sergeant accompanies the officers to the Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center for briefings and a facility orientation. By the end of the week, these captains more clearly understand the capabilities and responsibilities of the weapons, engineering, medical, and communications specialists who will be their teammates. Again and again I heard these veteran Green Beret trainers caution the officers: “These men are the subject-matter experts in their MOS, but you have to manage and supervise them, and take an interest in what they do. And remember, they know the gear and the weapons systems. The company supply sergeant will have you sign for this equipment—all of it. Ultimately, you’re the one who’ll be held accountable if something goes missing.”
The adaptive thinking and leadership (ATL) training module is a unique experience for the 18 Alpha candidates. This is a relatively new block of training and, in some ways, as difficult to put into words as it is to put into practice. The purpose of this training is to equip Special Forces officer candidates with the ability to change or modify the way they approach problems and unfamiliar situations. The ATL training also helps them to understand how others perceive them. Much of Special Forces work is about relationships—relationships with superiors, subordinates, indigenous counterparts, hostile parties, insurgent actors, and nongovernmental organization types, to name a few. Put simply, often the success of a detachment commander is his ability balance the goals, needs, and cultural norms of others with his mission requirements.