US SOCOM

Philippine Military Loses 11 Troops in Errant Airstrike

An errant airstrike by the Filipino Air Force that fell on their own troops and killed 11 men while injuring seven others on Thursday was confirmed in a statement by government officials. The incident occurred in a battle to retake the city of Marawi from insurgents from the Islamic State.

Delfin Lorenzana, Defense Secretary for the Philippines military said the deadly accident came about because of the “fog of war” and that a mistake was made.

The incident came during what was the first offensive deployment of fixed-wing aircraft in the nine-day operation, aimed at flushing out the Islamist gunmen who have defied expectations by clinging on through days of ground assaults and helicopter rocket attacks.
“Sometimes in the fog of war a lot of things could happen. Accidents happen, like this,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told a news conference.
“It’s very sad to be hitting our own troops,” he added. “There must be a mistake somewhere, either someone directing from the ground, or the pilot.”
The Maute group has been a fierce enemy of a military with superior firepower and greater troop strength.
The government is concerned that the group’s brazen attack and its resilience could strike a chord with the Islamic State leadership in the Middle East and win its endorsement as its Southeast Asian affiliate.
The deaths of the soldiers takes the number of security force members killed to 38, with 19 civilians and 120 rebel fighters killed in the battles in Marawi over the nine days.
Lorenzana said militants who were Saudi, Malaysian, Indonesian, Yemeni and Chechen were among eight foreigners killed in the fighting, in what experts say is a sign the Philippines may have a major problem on its hands.

Two light military aircraft, SF260TP jets were positioned to strike, but the second one failed to hit its target and struck instead members of the 55th Infantry Battalion, Lorenzana said in a news briefing in Malacanang.

To read the entire article from the Reuters click here:

Photos courtesy Reuters

Will the US Policy of Annihilation and Humiliation Work?

The United States has shifted its focus from a war of attrition against ISIS and radical Islamism to one of annihilation and humiliation. Secretary of Defense James Mattis outlined the plan recently and he believes that this is a plan that the US and its allies can win.

But the big question is, will this plan work? History is basically against Mattis’ plan although the theory of destroying the enemy on the battlefield is always a prerequisite to winning a war. But against an enemy that melts away into the civilian population, it is easier said than done.

Mattis pointed to the battles for Mosul and Tal Afar as models for how these tactics will be implemented in other places. In both cases, forces on the ground, some with U.S. help, have surrounded IS targets to try to prevent Islamic State militants from retreating and foreign fighters from leaving the battlefield to return home. The forces then advance and clear these cities block by block, a hard task that takes time. This is what Mattis described as annihilation. The Islamic State’s greatest strength on the battlefield has been its ability to retreat and regroup, and the goal of annihilation is to destroy that strength. But this strategy comes with a high price. Iraq sent its best trained and equipped fighters into Mosul first, and casualty rates were reportedly around 50 percent for some units. The battle is about to enter its eighth month.
According to Mattis, this will be the blueprint for destroying the Islamic State’s caliphate, and the table is being set to apply this model on the de facto IS capital of Raqqa. Mattis is optimistic that IS will lose this fight, but even if this happens, the challenge will then be to prevent another group like IS from emerging.
This is where the humiliation tactics come in. In his interview, Mattis pointed out that the fight against the Islamic State is not just a military conflict. It is “a fight about ideas.” Mattis said the Islamic State’s recruiting and fundraising capabilities must be destroyed. The way to do this is to degrade the IS “message of hatred and violence” and any nation that would support it.
This is easier said than done. At multiple points in the interview, Mattis emphasized that the U.S. does everything possible to avoid civilian casualties, which he said differentiates the U.S. from its adversaries. On the simplest level this is true. The U.S. does not target civilians; the Islamic State does. But reality is more complicated. People who have lost loved ones in an accidental U.S. airstrike take no solace in the fact that the U.S. tries to avoid civilian deaths.

Mattis’ best hope is to get the US’ European and Middle East partners to completely buy into this line of thinking. If they do, and our partner nations do their part, then the plan has a chance of success until the next foe rises from the ashes.

To read the entire article from the Geopolitical Futures click here:

Selecting a Better Green Beret: Interview with Brian Decker Pt. 1

The Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) was in a bit of a crisis mode back in 2011. Candidates were failing at about a 50 percent rate which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but the reasons why they were failing was a big concern with the powers in the Special Warfare Center (SWC). The issue was the Special Forces Selection and Assessment Course (SFAS) wasn’t identifying nor culling candidates that weren’t properly prepared to pass SFQC.

There was a disconnect inside SFAS, which hadn’t really changed since its inception in 1988. The John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center Commander (JFKSWC) Gen. Ben Sacolick approached the SWC Training Group about the issue. The SWC Group Commander Col. Ashton Naylor knew exactly who to task to identify and fix the problem. He picked Major Brian Decker, “the smartest guy I knew in Training Group,” Naylor said.

I’ve known Naylor for 25 years and he’s not one to heap praise on those who are undeserving. I first met Naylor when he was a candidate at Selection and Assessment and later went through the Special Forces Officers Course with him. I knew him as an outstanding Detachment Commander of an SF A-team in the 7^th Special Forces Group. He later commanded a battalion of the 5^th Special Forces Group in Afghanistan and then risen to command the SWC’s Training Group.

With SFAS selecting at about a 50 percent rate at that time, the same percentage of candidates failing the SFQC was unacceptable. Decker was told, to fix it, in the SF way,… just get it done. And did he ever. He made sweeping changes to the way the SFAS course was run and while the selection rates of SFAS plummeted to 30 percent or below, the successful completion of the SFQC from candidates selected from Decker’s SFAS classes skyrocketed to 80 percent. That’s exactly what the command was looking for.

How did he do it? Did he just use smoke and mirrors? Nope.

He showed the confidence of Sacolick and Naylor had in him was justified. He quickly learned that one of the best attributes of a successful SF operator, the ability to think quickly and clearly while the stress level is pegged out to the max was missing in the course failures. Worse, many showed that they were incapable of functioning on a small team and not completely devoted to the teamwork necessary on an A-Team.

Every candidate wants to graduate the course, Decker set out to find out who wanted to walk the walk and live the life of an outstanding SF operator. The internal drive, the will to succeed is either there or it isn’t. But how to identify it?

He put together an information-driven program where he identified 1200 data points on each candidate. He could identify a successful SF operator as a guy in his early 30s, with a high I.Q., who came from suburbia. But the one factor that stood out was, each successful candidate responded to stress in their lives with a heightened sense of motivation.

So, who IS Brian Decker? How did he make the changes that made SFAS a much better indicator of success than the one that hadn’t changed in over 20 years? Having been a cadre member of SFAS, I was intrigued…no fascinated by what I’ve read. The SWC and school would frequently have high-level visitors and it wasn’t long before people from all walks of life wanted to talk to Decker. Would his system of identifying successful traits in SF operators work in the corporate world?

The NFL came calling, first the Cleveland Browns and then the Indianapolis Colts who hired him to identify what will make a successful NFL player. But more to that later. I reached out to Naylor and asked him about Decker. “You need to talk to Brian,” he said. “I guarantee that you’ll come away very impressed.” He put us in touch with each other and being a busy man with the NFL offseason workouts in full swing, he arranged a time to talk in the evening.

After quick introductions, I could tell right away that Naylor’s comment about Decker being an extremely smart man was dead on. But I’ve been around smart people before and many spend all their time trying to impress upon you how smart they are. Decker wasn’t like this at all. He was talking about these sweeping changes of his as if he were talking about carrying the groceries into the house. Which made it even more intriguing.

So, here’s part one of the interview I did with Decker as we discussed SFAS, the Q-Course (SFQC), and problems facing the SF guys in combat. Later we just touched on his new career in the NFL and the ground he’s breaking there, but that is mostly proprietary information, and we were there to talk SF.

Spec Ops: We’ll not waste any time here. So how did these changes come about?

Decker: I met with Gen. Sacolick and he said, “we have to restore the image of Selection in the Regiment.” We had only around 50 percent of the soldiers being selected at SFAS completing the qualification course. He told me to spend some time and figure it out.

I had just finished the Naval Postgraduate School and wanted to use that education so I immediately went looking for the data. And what I tried to do was tie that data to outcomes. Passes and fails and find out where we weren’t doing well.

I met a Ph.D. student from UNC whose husband is a Green Beret, she was in the Air Force and I asked that if we took all of the data that we had, how well would we be doing, what would our batting average be?

The organizational efficiency could be maxed out at about 58 percent, so that told me that the answers were probably not quantitative and were probably more qualitative.

Spec Ops: And how did this information get analyzed?

Decker: I took the information from 500-600 course failures, and the data that the school gives about that student gives a short narrative as to the reasons why. We then turned that into a language, passes and fails into something that we can select for. What we really found out was that the failures were really more social in nature.

So, we went back to the leadership assessment during Selection and Assessment and a candidate was getting one patrol during team phase as a patrol leader or as an assistant patrol leader for one of the four days.

As you remember being a cadre member there, those events were taken straight out of the British SAS Selection. We’re going to give them a really difficult task to do and we’re going to punish them for several hours and see how well they can function in a very demanding environment. But demanding in only a very narrow sense. But based upon that one grade, we had to make a determination on whether you were a select in the course. And I saw tons of flaws with that. First, we were basing the entire selection criteria off of the one report of one SFAS Cadre member. On one day, in one event.

I looked at those leadership evals and found that they were negatively correlated to success later in the qualification course.

Creating an evaluation using a “Leaderless Group”:

Spec Ops: So that was a big indicator right there?

Decker: Well we looked at that and said, ‘What is the nature of Special Operations?’ It is complex, it is dynamic. And the biggest thing is we don’t lead from what I tell you to do. We lead from within. We went to what I called a “leaderless group” so the leaderless is a misnomer what we did was, we stopped grading a candidate on the patrols and began grading on attributes.

(Editor’s note: the attributes he mentioned above was a three-year data collection program that Gen. Sacolick implemented at the SWC to identify what were the core attributes that were needed for a successful Special Operations soldier)

So, in the leaderless environment, instead of getting graded on one day during team events, you were getting graded all four days. How it worked is, you’d go to the group and drop this problem in the middle of it and you watch and evaluate on how they self-organize around the task and requirement.

Within five or ten minutes you can tell who the leaders are. And you can tell within those first few minutes based on ability who are going to struggle and the rest of the time you are going to figure out where these other guys in the middle, fit in.

So, now you’ll get four cadre evaluations, peer evaluations and then the candidates grade themselves during this time and everyone gets the same evaluations and you can put together a good 360-degree assessment.

Spec Ops: Those are some interesting changes, so how does that change in the evaluation process?

Decker: Well, we looked at it like, in Week 1 we adjusted the levels where the data was predictive, right? We screened out those who were not smart enough, who weren’t fit enough and weren’t prepared and knocked those out.

In Week 2, we evaluated the candidates’ performance on the Star Exam, (Land Navigation) where the intelligence and physical fitness are highly correlated. Week 2 is more of a practical application of your abilities and we’d screen those out and then the selection decision comes down to Week 3 in Team week.

During the events of Week 3, we select the future leaders of the Regiment based on their ability to lead or contribute to the performance of a team in a dynamic and complex environment.

What we’re looking for is a candidate that isn’t looking for external solutions, you look internally and you look to the group for solutions. And it was at this point that we moved away from the two-event day (during Team Week). Because the solution to any problem in Selection is stability. Because during those events, all you are doing is measuring a candidate’s ability to persevere.

So, we would have days where we’d have 10 events. It may not look like 10 events but you remember the tires and poles right?

Spec Ops: Oh yeah, that was always a tough event.

Decker: What we’d do is, they’d start out where all they have is poles and lashings. And after carrying that for 5ks and after that, we may add three logs and you go another 3-4Ks and then you get tires. So every time you give them something, it forces them to reassess the problem, reorganize and solve it.

We do what we’d call progressive builds and we’d stop them at times during the event and break them into small groups to do construction exercises where they do different things to break them into small groups. And all that while giving that soldier an opportunity.

What we found, with that data-rich environment is that our Selection rate went way down. We went from a little over 50 percent when I got there to ….where we were trending, when I left to just under 30 percent.

But on the inverse side, the selects that we were pushing through at Selection were on track to graduate at about an 80 percent rate in the qualification course when I was leaving.
______________

Tomorrow we’ll continue our interview with Decker and discuss further changes that the Selection and Assessment Course brought and what other attributes the cadre looks for in the successful Special Forces candidate.

Any questions or comments can be emailed to me [email protected] or at my Twitter account @SteveB7SFG

Photo courtesy of ESPN

SOF Selection PT Preparation 6.1.2017

Chest and Triceps workout at the gym today before a 5-mile ruck march with 45-pounds minimum. Remember to stretch well before and after and to stay hydrated. Mark your progress down in your workout log book.

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Bench Press

3 x 10 Dumbbell Flies

3 x 10 Dumbbell Incline Press

3 x 20 Pushups (alternate sets with wide, narrow and shoulder width)

3 x 10 Kip Ups

3 x 20 Sit ups

3 x 20 Cable Push Downs (rope)

3 x 20 Dips or until muscle failure

5-mile rucksack march (45-pound minimum) over varied terrain, note your time

Stretch well after completion

Noriega Surrendered to Rock in Panama Invasion 1989

Panama’s former dictator Manuel Noriega died in prison this week at the age of 83. Few, outside of his inner circle of military officers will shed a tear for the man who ruled Panama with an iron hand before his undoing by US forces during “Operation Just Cause” in late December of 1989.

With his military shattered and running out of options. Noriega sought refuge in the Papal Nuncio, the Vatican Embassy in Panama City. Many of his officers and cronies were already arrested and put on planes to Miami to answer to drug charges.

Rather than staying in relative peace and quiet, Noriega was blasted by rock music, loud rock music, around the clock as the US tried to force him to give up. The soldiers playing the music began taking requests from troops coming in from the field.

The favorites included “Welcome to the Jungle,” by Guns N’ Roses, “Wanted Dead Or Alive,” by Bon Jovi, and “The End” by The Doors.
After several days on the run, Noriega was allowed to enter the Vatican Embassy on Christmas Eve. And on Christmas Day, the radio station broadcast only Christmas music.
But with requests streaming in, the U.S. effort ramped up after the holiday.
On Dec. 27, “someone who identified himself as a member of the PSYOPS [Psychological Operations] team from Fort Bragg [N.C.] called to tell us what they were doing with their loud speakers,” the military report said.
U.S. Gen. Maxwell “Mad Max” Thurman had ordered speakers placed as a “musical barrier” around the perimeter of the Vatican Embassy and turned to full volume.
Noriega was reportedly partial to opera. What he got was “Panama,” from Van Halen, “Danger Zone,” from Kenny Loggins, and “Refugee,” courtesy of Tom Petty.
And remember, this was the ’80s. So the strongman also got an earful of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” though that may have been intended more for Noriega’s hosts at the embassy.
As the standoff dragged on for days, the playlist became part of the story.
Not everyone was happy with the military’s approach, including the White House, and the music was stopped after several days. President George H.W. Bush’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, said afterward that he thought the use of high-volume music was “undignified.”
On Jan. 3, 1990, Noriega surrendered to the U.S. forces, though not until after he’d been treated to a version of “I Fought The Law.”
Noriega was flown to Miami, tried and convicted of drug trafficking, and spent nearly two decades in U.S. prisons.

The entire musical interlude while waiting for the disgraced strongman to surrender placed a surreal, farcical quality on an operation and short war that never needed to happen. Noriega’s blustering caused the deaths of far too many Panamanians, the exact number may never be known as well as 23 Americans.

The entire article and interview from NPR can be found here:

Featured Photo: AP

Preparing the Special Forces Operator for the Unconventional Warfare Environment

The task of the Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) course is identifying the candidates who are suitable for Special Forces training. And two of the primary functions of Special Forces are UW (Unconventional Warfare) and FID (Foreign Internal Defense). It is important the schools don’t lose sight of that fact as SF and SOF (Special Operations Forces) have been heavy into Direct Action (DA)/Counter-Terrorist (CT) missions for some time in the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria among other hot spots.

The basic ten operating activities that Special Operations Forces operate in are spelled out in Section 167 of Title 10 of the US Code. Special Forces were created in 1952 specifically for the role in the UW environment after the OSS were disbanded in 1945 after World War II. The OSS’ Operational Groups and Jedburgh Teams were the forerunners of both Special Forces and the CIA.

But first, to properly prepare prospective SF operators for the UW environment, we have to know what it is. And this has been a frequent complaint from the SF community that the conventional (Big Army) doesn’t understand UW and what it entails. And part of that issue has resided in the SF community itself.

The SF hierarchy has been debating the actual definition of what UW is since 1955 and has had ten different definitions since the original manual was written in that year. There have been tweaks in the definition for 65 years and the current “approved” definition of UW published in 2009 is as follows:

Activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary and guerrilla force in a denied area.

Many of the activities and operations that the US SOF are undertaking today could be characterized as UW. And the distinction between UW and FID are now described as being the opposite of one another.

UW is characterized by the use of irregular forces to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power while FID is the use of a nation’s recognized security forces to protect a government.

So how do the schools prepare the future SF operators for operating in the austere environments of the UW arena? They must identify the core attributes that the Special Forces operator must have to be successful in the realm of SF operations. The school used the “Whole Man” approach and identified six attributes necessary for success.

Intelligence
Trainability
Physical Fitness
Motivation
Influence
Judgement

SF operators must have the physical, emotional, and mental stamina to succeed in the UW environment. They have to be able to prepare to conduct the missions assigned. And that doesn’t just mean physically but mentally as well. The amount of time spent studying all the aspects of the target area (history, politics, religious leaders and beliefs, terrain, infrastructure, and local economy etc). The mental aspect is just as if not more important than the physical.

The school must identify the potential operators who have the creativity and mindset to think outside the box and do it without prompting or leadership from above. The ability to problem solve while under tremendous stress is a key indicator of success or failure for an SF operator. To quote a line from a Clint Eastwood film, “Improvise, adapt, overcome.”

One key area to highlight for success in the UW/FID environment is the ability for the SF operator to not just give orders but to get the host nation to follow their lead. So, language training and cross-cultural communication are very important. The key to UW is to convince the target audience that the relationship between them and the US SF operators is mutually beneficial. That requires a great deal of tact, diplomacy, and empathy.

And the bread and butter for SF operators in the UW environment are being in the role of a teacher and instructor. That’s what SF has prided itself on for 65 years and the school must identify the type of individuals that can not only do their job and do it well but have the knowledge to teach it to others, in their language. Ask any SF operator and they’ll tell you the first time you teach a course in the host nation’s language is a daunting task.

When the JFKSWC (John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center) started the SFAS course back in 1988 they identified the core attributes that we were looking for in successful Special Forces candidates. Many years later the candidates that were passing the Selection and Assessment course were failing the SFQC (Special Forces Qualification Course) in high numbers.

The Training Group targeted an SF officer Brian Decker to revamp the Selection Course as to identify those soldiers that were going to have a better chance at having success in the SFQC and in the operational SF Groups after being assigned.

SpecialOperations.com had the opportunity to sit down with him and discuss the changes made to the Selection and Assessment course and how it impacted the candidates’ performance moving forward. Look for that interview in the next few days.

Featured photo: DOD

SOF Selection PT Preparation 5.31.2017

Wednesday morning is rucking day so get the ruck with a 45-pound minimum weight ready for a 5-miler over varied terrain. Today is a good time to break in that second pair of boots and ensure they’re ready for the course as well. Strive to better the time that is the standard and remember to hydrate throughout the march. Then head over to the gym for some shoulder and back work that will help ease the load in Selection. Be sure to log the progress down in your workout log book.

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, behind the neck (go as heavy as possible)

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, front

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Front Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Arnold Press

3 x 8 Shoulder Shrugs

5-mile Rucksack march (45lb minimum)

Stretch well after completion

Army Standing Up New “Security Force Assistance” Brigade, Shake and Bake SF?

The US Army is moving forward with their new Security Force Assistance Brigades and has published the requirements that will be needed to be selected and are offering a $5000 bonus for any of the soldiers that re-enlist for the new unit.

Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley has stated that he wants to field the newest Brigade by October 2017 to advise and assist partner nations with their security force capabilities.

The 529-man Brigade will field officers and NCOs and while the Army falls short of calling it an “elite unit”, they’ve instead taken to calling this a “premiere assignment.”

“Our EP (Enlisted Personnel) and OP (Officer Personnel) divisions have been busy identifying Soldiers that meet all of the stringent requirements outlined by Gen. Milley, and then making the necessary phone calls to pitch the SFAB to them,” said Lt. Col. Corey Brunkow, HRC Enlisted Personnel Management Division Infantry Branch Chief.
“We’re looking for branch qualified noncommissioned officers. That is, we’re looking for former squad leaders as Staff Sergeants, and former platoon sergeants as a Sgt. 1st Class to fill advisor roles which will broaden their horizons and experiences in the Army,” he said.
Basic qualifications include an 85 or better Defense Language Aptitude Battery for primary advisors, a minimum of 240 or 70 points in each event on the APFT, possess a secret security clearance, and maintain a deployable status.
In addition, a Soldiers Physical Profile Serial System, or PULHES as it is commonly referred to as, must be 111221 with only a minor inability in the hearing and ears, and eyes portion.

The training for the SABs is slated to cover six weeks and then the units will be deployable. The Army says it hopes to have six of the SABs fielded by 2024.

This isn’t anything new, the Big Army has been trying to chip away at the FID mission of Special Forces for the past 30+ years. While there should be some conventional military deployments to support the FID mission and ease some of the burden on SF, this isn’t it. Trying to squeeze over a year’s worth of training into six weeks and make a shake and bake Special Forces group isn’t going to work.

And in the process, they’ll rob the conventional Infantry and Armor units of their experienced NCOs and officers. But again, this isn’t particularly new. It will be interesting to see how long this will last before conventional commanders ask to pull the plug because of the drain on their own leadership.

To read the entire article from the US Army website click here:

Photo courtesy DOD

Final Thoughts, Memorial Day, Thank the Fallen Warriors, Not the Veterans

When one talks about Memorial Day, it is important to know what it means and most importantly who it is honoring. The thing to remember is, this day is reserved for the fallen warriors who died in defense of our country not for the veterans who march in honor of their missing comrades.

Many of our well-meaning and patriotic neighbors in our little bucolic town thanked us for our service as we marched past in our annual parade where we trod thru the center of the town and visited four different cemeteries to pay homage to our veterans.

But this day, Memorial Day isn’t about the men marching. That’s reserved for Veterans’ Day in November. This day is to remember and honor the nearly one million men and women who fell defending our country, our way of life and the very freedoms we enjoy today.

It is often slightly uncomfortable when citizens thank you on Memorial Day because the day should be about our fallen comrades…thank them. But I understand where they’re coming from and there is definitely no malice involved.

But when it comes to the fallen warriors, there is the undercurrent of politics that has no place in Memorial Day.

Too often today, political beliefs and leanings skew perceptions about veterans and whether a war or conflict is a “just war” or not. Military members don’t get to pick and choose which conflict they’ll support. They must put their trust in their own leaders to never put them in harm’s way for a needless cause.

That doesn’t mean that they don’t have distinct feelings about an area of the world or the war that they’re taking part in. They do. They’re not mindless robots who go off to fight wherever the government tells them. But their sense of pride in their unit and the men and women to their left and right will get them thru.

The veterans we honor on Memorial Day were someone’s son, brother, father, daughter, sister, or mother. They answered the call of duty and served their country, in most cases far from home. Their sacrifice will not be in vain as long as we remember and honor them. And live our lives according to the ideals that our country prides itself on.

One of the fascinating things about living in the New England area is the history involved in the area. This was one of the first areas developed after our ancestors came over from Europe and our veterans in our little town stretch back to the Revolutionary War.

That’s why we always visit all the cemeteries, we have soldiers from the American Revolution, right up to the most recent wars our country has been involved in. The town lost quite a few of its soldiers during the Civil War and they have reserved a section of the town’s Central Cemetery. After the war, many of their comrades chose to be buried with them in the Grand Army of the Republic section. Our oldest cemetery, on the western side of town, holds perhaps the most famous Revolutionary War soldier that none of you had ever heard of.

Peter Willard was the first African-American soldier in US history. Willard, a free black man, lived in our town and was part of the militia who fought the British at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The proverbial “shots heard ‘round the world.” He later enlisted in the Continental Army and saw the war thru to the end before settling back in the town until his death.

His portrait hung in our town hall until a fire destroyed the building and nearly all of its contents in 1971. When one speaks of trendsetters in today’s world, we think of sports or entertainment stars whose faces are plastered across social media. But Willard was a true trendsetter and set the stage for thousands of African-Americans that were to follow in our country’s military.

We’ve reached a crisis in our small town as the veterans from recent conflicts have chosen not to get involved in either the local Veteran’s Council, the VFW, or the American Legion. It’s understandable when troops leave the active service, they want a break and don’t want to be tied down to military-type commitments any longer.

However, the downside to our situation and many others is that the veterans that have taken up the slack thru the years are aging. We still have several World War II and Korea era veterans whose minds are still willing but whose bodies won’t allow them to march in the parades anymore. Many of the Vietnam veterans aren’t spring chickens either and health problems preclude many from marching any longer.

Our visits to the local schools during Memorial and Veterans’ Day weeks are always open to all veterans. These visits are important for several reasons. One is that the young students from our schools have great respect for the call of duty, selflessness, and sense of patriotism from our veterans. They always ask great questions as they attempt to learn about the different conflicts and what motivated our troops. It is a great learning experience for them.

But the recent vets are staying away. While a few have been coming to the schools the past two years, it isn’t enough. This year we had only a handful of veterans ABLE to march in the parade. It may be the last parade we hold in our town on Memorial Day. That would be a shame. The parade isn’t for us…it is for the ones who never made it home to celebrate the holidays with their families.

I don’t walk in other people’s shoes so I can’t tell them what they should or shouldn’t be doing in terms of the Memorial Day activities or how they choose to celebrate. I personally believe that we owe it to the deceased veterans to live our lives the best we can and celebrate our lives as they would have, after paying homage to them.

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” George S. Patton

Photo courtesy: US Army, Millbury-Sutton Chronicle

SOF Selection PT Preparation 5.30.2017

Tuesday is Leg Day at the gym, and a perfect way to shake off the long weekend doldrums. Begin with pull-ups and towel pull-ups 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 Pull-ups 10 reps

3 x Towel pull-ups 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