SOF

Remembering John J. Kedenburg Medal of Honor Recipient June 1968

On this day in 1968, SPC5 John Kedenburg’s actions would result in his being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor (posthumously) while on a mission in Laos.

Kedenburg was assigned to Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG known only just as SOG) as the Team Leader (1-0 one zero) of Recon Team Nevada. He’d be the team leader for more than six months, taking over for TL Dan Wagner who was killed in action in Laos in December 1967.

Operating out of FOB2 (Forward Operating Base) in Kontum, FOB2 was one of six bases that SOG operated out of in their secret war against North Vietnam.

The team’s mission was to conduct counterguerrilla operations deep inside enemy held territory in Laos. Not long after initial infiltration into a particularly hot area, the team was attacked and encircled by a battalion-size North Vietnamese Army force. Kedenburg immediately called for a Spare 39 (immediate extraction). The Covey aircraft (Forward Air Controller in OV-10 Bronco) directed Kedenburg’s team to a couple of bomb craters on a finger about 600 – 900 meters in elevation.

SP5 Kedenburg led the team, which succeeded, after a fierce firefight, in breaking out of the encirclement. As the team moved through thick jungle to a position at the bomb craters from which it could be extracted by helicopter, the team lost one man, a South Vietnamese team member who was thought killed. Kedenburg laid down heavy fire against the pursuing NVA troops and called for tactical air support. Amazingly, after being able to break contact from a sizable NVA force, outnumbering the Recon Team by better than 50-1, the team reached the craters and the landing zone (LZ) intact.

Once in the crater at the landing zone, Kedenburg deployed the team into a perimeter defense against the numerically superior enemy force. He directed airstrikes from Tactical Air Support, keeping the NVA at bay long enough for the extraction choppers to being airlifting out the team. The helicopters would hover over the area and drop ropes where the Recon Team would attach slings to be lifted out. The first half of the team was extracted by helicopter in this fashion.

Kedenburg and the remaining three South Vietnamese members of the team harnessed themselves to the sling on a second hovering helicopter. Just as the helicopter was about to lift them out of the area, the South Vietnamese team member who had been unaccounted for and presumed dead after the initial encounter with the NVA, appeared at the landing zone.

Kedenburg immediately gave up his place in the sling to the man and directed the helicopter pilot to leave the area. He then continued to engage the enemy who were swarming into the landing zone. Witnesses from the helicopter reported seeing Kedenburg killing six enemy soldiers before he eventually went down, mortally wounded. The final airstrike was right on top of his position.

From John Stryker Meyer’s book, “The Secret War in Vietnam”, Kedenburg’s body was recovered later by another team:

Another SOG team, RT Illinois, found Kedenburg’s body sitting up against a tree, where he had apparently given himself two morphine syrette injections and had attempted to place a tourniquet around his left leg.
Kedenburg had attempted to burn his Signal Operating Instructions and his CAC Code that was used to encrypt and decrypt messages. It appeared as though he was killed by a large-caliber round which had blown apart the BAR ammo belt and harness he wore and destroyed his CAR-15. RT Illinois was engaged in heavy firefights with NVA soldiers for approximately four hours before the team could extract Kedenburg’s body from Laos.

It is possible that either a large caliber NVA weapon or the final airstrike caused Kedenburg’s death. From an account written by Sherman Batman Spike Team Illinois, the team who rescued his body was the report that his equipment was torn apart:

“There was an open area at the base of the finger that we had to skirt by remaining inside the tree line. Shortly after clearing this area we started to ascend the hill and after 20 0r 30 meters the Point Man halted the Patrol and passed back to me half of a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) belt, with a canteen attached and all pockets full of M-16, 20 round magazines.”
“I knew this belonged to John since I had got the belt for him and helped him set it up and attached/adjusted it to his load-bearing equipment. We continued on up the hill and approximately 20 meters further up the hill we found John, he had apparently given himself two morphine syrette injections one of the syrettes was pinned to his fatigue jacket and the other was on the ground beside him.”
“He had been KIA apparently from a major caliber weapon of some kind because his rucksack had been torn from his body, his BAR belt blown apart and his CAR-15 was a mangled mess of metal. None of this material was found by John’s body but several meters away further up the hill. John was seated in an upright position with his back to a log and had from all appearances attempted to put a tourniquet on his left thigh although there was so signs of a wound to his left leg. He has also attempted to burn his SOI (Signal Operating Instructions) and his CAC Code that was used to encrypt and decrypt messages.”

He was buried in Long Island National Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY.

He was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the Special Forces Regiment on October 28, 2016.

Remember your Regiment.

Photos courtesy of US Army

SOF Selection PT Preparation 6.13.2017

Tuesday is our Leg Day at the gym followed by a run. Begin with pull-ups and towel pullups for those who don’t have access to climbing ropes. Then squats, lunges and the sled followed by a three-mile run.

Training:

Continue to prep for the UBRR

3 x Pullups 10 reps

3 x Towel pullups 10 reps

3 x Front Squat 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x Goblet Squats 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

4 x Sled push heavier weight

3 x 10 reps Dumbbell lunges

3 x 20 Side Planks

3-Mile run

Stretch well after completion

Experts Doubting that Airstrike Killed Terrorist Leader al-Baghdadi

The reports that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghadi has been killed in a US coalition airstrike have not been confirmed or denied by US military officials.

The airstrike on late Saturday was broadcast on Syrian state television. But the British and others have reported that no report has surfaced on either state television or the official news agency SANA.

These reports of al-Baghadi’s demise have been premature many times in the past and it would seem that this latest one is another despite US hopes to the contrary. Al-Baghadi would seemingly have nine lives like a cat if half the rumors surround him were true.

Independent experts are expressing skepticism about the fast-spreading claims of the terrorist leader’s death, which reportedly was broadcast late Saturday on Syrian state television. However, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s monitoring service said Sunday it had detected no such report on either state television or Syria’s state news agency, SANA.
A spokesperson on weekend duty at the U.S. Defense Department told VOA she had received queries about the reports but had no information to confirm or deny it.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has confirmed intense air raids on Raqqa, where anti-IS forces began a major offensive last week. Reports from the region say the Amaq news agency, which is publicly identified with Islamic State, showed video of a body purported to be that of al-Baghdadi.
However, the British newspaper The Scotsman cited a tweet by terrorism analyst Michael Smith saying he has viewed the video and does not believe the body to be that of al-Baghdadi.

Al-Baghdadi has a £20 million bounty on his head because of his sermons that inspired suicide attacks across Europe and his death would be a propaganda win for the Assad government. He also propagated the sex-trade and would sell or give captive Yadizi girls to ISIS fighters as gifts for victories. He personally raped many of them including American aid worker Kayla Mueller who was kidnapped and then killed in a bombing raid by the Jordanians in 2014.

To read the entire article from the Voice of America click here:

Photos courtesy VOA

Syrian SDF Rebels Moving Into Small Neighborhoods of Raqqa

The US-backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) are slowly tightening the noose around the Islamic State (IS) enclave of Raqqa. While forward elements are already getting a foothold in the city’s east side, other SDF units are busy securing the areas surrounding the city.

There are reports of US Special Operations troops being with the SDF rebels but only in an advisory capacity and not engaging in close-quarters combat but by staying with the SDF’s command elements as they begin the battle for the IS “capital” of Raqqa.

SDF said they captured al-Romaniya neighbourhood west of Raqqa city early on Monday.
Al-Romaniya is the third neighbourhood of Raqqa city to be captured by the SDF since the launch of the fifth phase of the Raqqa offensive last week.
The SDF, a group of Kurdish and Arab fighters, are currently battling ISIL for control of Sinaaya and Hetin neighbourhoods east and west of Raqqa city, the press release said.
ISIL captured Raqqa from rebel groups in 2014 and has since used it as their home base.
The US-led coalition said 3,000 to 4,000 ISIL fighters are thought to be holed up in Raqqa city, in which about 160,000 civilians remain, according to the UN.
The SDF forces have captured several neighbourhoods in Raqqa city since Tuesday, including the eastern neighbourhood of Mashlab.
Backed by US- coalition air strikes, the SDF began a major offensive on Tuesday to seize the city.
Ahmad, a Tabqa-based activist who would only give his first name, told Al Jazeera that civilians are expecting ISIL to retreat or surrender in a matter of days.
“People are barely surviving inside Raqqa. ISIL basically told residents if they want to leave, they can leave but without taking any of their belongings.
“If the Kurds take Raqqa, displaced people can go back to their homes. We are literally left with just three options: the Syrian government, ISIL or the Kurds. We choose the Kurds,” he said.
Many of those leaving Raqqa are heading north in search of safety towards Ain Issa, Manbij, Mahmoudli and Tal Abyad, all within a 120km radius of the northern Syrian city.
Some, however, have headed for ‘the Berm’– the border area between southern Syria and Jordan, almost 700km away, where humanitarian assistance is almost non-existent, Doctor’s Without Borders (MSF) said in a report released on June 9.

The coalition airstrikes have reportedly killed a number of civilians, who are caught between the Islamist State fighters and the SDF’s mainly Kurdish troops. Thus far, the numbers have been low but as the fighting moves into the neighborhoods of Raqqa, the number of civilian deaths is sure to rise, a thorny subject for the US-backed coalition.

To read the entire article from the Al Jazeera click here:

Photos courtesy Reuters

Op-Ed: First Woman Battalion Commander in a Special Forces Group

A career Quartermaster, LTC Megan A. Brogden assumed her new position as a battalion commander of the 3^rd SFG(A) Support Battalion.

Her change of command ceremony marked a milestone for the Army’s Special Operations Command. Brogden is the first woman to assume command of a battalion within any of the Army’s seven Special Forces groups. While it is a first in terms of gender diverseness, the matter of her gender has little to do with whether she’ll be successful in her latest assignment. And it shouldn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of determining her fitness to command.

“It was a very humbling moment,” she said after the ceremony on Fort Bragg’s Meadows Field. “It’s such a great organization.”

Brogden is quick to downplay talk of herself as a GI-Jane type of groundbreaking role model, instead focusing on her opportunity to excel in her career field that she’s been in since entering the service in 2000 from a ROTC scholarship.

“I don’t necessarily see it as much of a milestone,” she said. “I didn’t go to Ranger school or selection. It’s a lot about timing.”

Officials have called Brogden’s assuming command a historic moment for 3rd Group and the rest of the Special Forces Regiment. But during the change of command, leaders made clear that she was chosen for her expertise and leadership, not because she is a woman.

LTC Brogden, official Department of the Army photo.

And other than the fact that she’s the first woman, her command of a support battalion in an operational Special Forces group should matter very little. As long as her troops do their job to support the line battalions, her tenure will be a success. Being SF qualified or a man isn’t a precursor to success as a support battalion commander.

The biggest thing she and her troops need to do is perform the three basics and develop a mindset of supporting the line battalions while deployed, in training and while at their home station. The 3rd SFG(A) Support Battalion mission is to provide rapidly deployable logistical, medical, administrative, communication, chemical, all-source intelligence support to the 3rd SFG(A).

One of the biggest complaints the A-teams had in my time in Special Forces was that the Support Battalion personnel other than the communications companies were more self-supporting than focused on taking care of the teams, which is their reason for being in the first place.

In a classic UW (Unconventional Warfare) scenario, the Group’s Support Battalion would help set up an SFOB (Special Forces Operating Base) in an austere environment and form the core of Group’s support staff for a Joint Special Operations Task Force. Until the operation would mature into a Theater Level type venture, the Group’s Support Battalion would be the lifeline for the Operational Detachments for supply and Combat Service and Support. The Group Support Battalion and its commander will be responsible for setting up tailored capability packages to support SF units that may be involved in Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief missions as well.

Brogden served two tours with a Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan and Kuwait and should have ample experience in helping run service and support for Special Operations Forces.

And that’s how she’ll ultimately be judged. No one cares if she’s tabbed out, can clear a building of bad guys, can shoot the eyes out of a gnat at 100 meters or can carry a ruck 20-miles in five hours or less, that isn’t her job. While some people may watch her with more of a jaundiced eye because of her gender, it shouldn’t matter at all, but we have seen this type of thing before. However, her job is to ensure that the guys who do those things have everything they require from the Combat Service and Support personnel.

From reading about her experience and her assignments LTC Brogden is more than qualified to do the job and it sounds like the Army put the right person in the position, regardless of her gender. Speaking from a personal standpoint, I could care less that she’s a woman and it would have zero concerns with that if I am either on an A-Team or commanding one in 3^rd Group.

She is authorized to wear the Combat Action Badge, Parachutist Badge, Rigger Badge, and the German Parachutist Wings. So, she has the requisite background to know what type of support will be needed to support the line battalions. That is all that is required and no more of the support staff. The A-teams are the bread and butter of the Special Forces Groups. They need the support of the support personnel. Go back to the SOF Truths and #6 is “Most Special Operations Require Non-SOF Support.”

And as long as LTC Brogden does that, she’ll be successful in her newest assignment. I congratulate her on the command and can say that I wish her all the best. Take care of the troops. That is all. I don’t care that she’s woman. No one else should either.

Photos courtesy Fayetteville Observer, US Army

SOF Selection PT Preparation 6.12.2017

Let’s start Monday and the week off right with the basics of pushups, sit-ups, and crunches, then to the bar for V-ups, pullups and dips before a 4-mile run. Remember to stay hydrated and mark your progress in your workout log book.

Training:

More preparation for the UBRR

1 x 1-minute Pushups

1 x 1-minute Sit-ups

1 x 1-minute, Crunches

1 x 1-minute, V-ups

1 x Dips as many as possible to muscle failure

1 x Pullups as many as possible or to muscle failure

4-mile run

Stretch well after completion

SOF Selection PT Preparation 6.11.2017

Sunday morning Rucksack march. Do a quick warm up of pushups and sit-ups before heading out. Head out over varied terrain and try to go as fast as you can without running.

Stretch well both before and after the event. Remember to drink plenty of water and stay hydrated out there. With the heat of the warm weather months upon us, it is imperative and you don’t want to go down with a heat-related injury.

Training:

Warm up

2 x 20 Pushups

2 x 20 Sit ups

8-mile Rucksack march over varied terrain with a 45-pound minimum. And mark your times in your workout log book.

Stretch well after completion

SOF Selection PT Preparation 6.10.2017

Back in the gym this Saturday morning for a shoulder and back workout. Towel pullups if you have no access to ropes or climbing ropes if they are available. Followed by a four-mile run. Log your numbers down in the workout notebook and prepare for a long ruck on Sunday morning.

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 10 Lat Pulldowns, rear

3 x 10 Barbell Dead Lift

3 x 10 Wide Grip Pullups

3 x 10 Towel Pullups

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Seated Bent-Over Delt Raise

3 x 10 Dumbbell Shoulder Press

3 x 10 Arnold Dumbbell Press

4-mile run

Stretch well after completion

US-backed Syrian Fighters Move Slowly into IS “Capital” of Raqqa

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) rebel force against the government of Assad has cautiously entered the final Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. They entered thru the eastern edge of the city, fording a river on foot and in light vehicles all the while relaying their position by radio in an attempt not to fall victim to friendly artillery fire.

Raqqa is considered by the Islamic State, (IS) to be their “caliphate” and their “capital” in Syria. The eastern edge of the city, al Mishlab, is just the beginning of what is forecast to be a long and difficult battle.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched their assault to capture the city this week.
As artillery and coalition aircraft pounded targets in the city, SDF fighters moved in small groups into the district during a media trip organized by the SDF.
“The comrades are advancing and Daesh forces are collapsing in front of us, but there are snipers obstructing our movements, and they are also shelling our positions with mortars,” said an SDF fighter who gave his name as Khalil.
For months, air strikes and special forces from the U.S.-led coalition have helped them encircle Raqqa, which Islamic State seized in 2014 and has used as a base to plan attacks abroad.
In a statement sent to Reuters, coalition spokesman Colonel Joseph Scrocca said the militants’ resistance had been “minimal” outside the city and that they were retreating “to protect their fortifications inside the city”.
A few civilians left farmland near Raqqa on Wednesday, waving white flags to SDF fighters heading toward al-Mishlab on a road littered with blown-up vehicles.
At the gates of the city, a bridge lay collapsed, testament to the air strikes that have left Islamic State with no way in or out except by boat across the Euphrates river.
Large plumes of smoke rose nearby. SDF fighters crossed the river into the district through pathways made of piles of rocks, soil and pipes.
A field commander who gave her name as Clara said fighting continued in some parts of the district. Islamic State militants had drawn on mines, car bombs, and suicide attackers as they sought to defend the district in recent days, she said.
The SDF fighters moved in units of five or less, waiting in bombed-out buildings or trenches for air strikes to clear the way for further advances, they said. With every movement, the unit commander relayed their GPS coordinates for pilots to pinpoint SDF and enemy positions.

The SDF fighters also have members of the Kurdish YPG movement which has created a thorny relationship with the US ally Turkey. The Turks consider the YPG to be part of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency within Turkey. The Turks consider them to be terrorists.

The US-Turkey relationship will bear close watching as the battle for Raqqa reaches a climax.

To read the Reuters entire article click here:

Photo courtesy of Reuters

Justice Department Will Not Prosecute in Over-Budget VA Hospital

The Justice Department isn’t just facing questions about the Trump-Russia fiasco. Now they have declined to prosecute two senior Veterans Affairs Department executives after lawmakers accused them of misleading Congress about massive cost overruns at a Denver-area VA hospital.

The House Veterans Affairs Committee asked Justice to conduct a perjury investigation last fall, claiming these executives repeatedly gave false testimony that masked serious problems with the hospital construction project that rose to nearly three times what was estimated.

The Justice Department told lawmakers in a May 19 letter that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado released the letter to The Associated Press on Thursday.
The decision means no one has yet been fired or charged since the cost of the hospital ballooned to nearly $1.7 billion, almost triple earlier estimates.
The VA has said everyone involved in the problems has retired or was transferred or demoted.
The hospital is still under construction in the Denver suburb of Aurora and is expected to be finished next year.
The VA executives targeted by lawmakers were Glenn Haggstrom, then the top official in charge of construction projects, and Stella Fiotes, director of the VA’s Office of Construction and Facilities Management.
Neither returned phone messages seeking comment Thursday. VA spokesman Paul Sherbo said the agency had no comment.
Multiple investigations concluded that the VA bungled the project, providing insufficient oversight, approving lavish design elements, failing to get the designers and builders to agree, and trying to use a complicated form of construction contract that agency executives didn’t fully understand.
The VA’s inspector general, an internal watchdog, said last year that Haggstrom knew the project was veering toward huge cost overruns but didn’t tell lawmakers when he testified before Congress in 2013 and 2014. That prompted lawmakers to call for the perjury investigation of Haggstrom and Fiotes.

Haggstrom retired in 2015, one day after testifying under oath by the VA officials in regards to these problems.

To read the ABC News/AP entire article click here:

Photo courtesy of AP