SpecOps

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

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

Remembering Charles Q. Williams Medal of Honor Recipient June 9-10, 1965

In a battle for the district capital of Phuc Long Province in the III Corps area about 60 miles northeast of Saigon in the country of Viet Nam, Special Forces 2LT Charles Q. Williams would distinguish himself in the battle of the Dong Xoai CIDG camp and later be awarded the Medal of Honor.

In the same action, CM3 Marvin Shields, Navy Seabee would posthumously be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

Dong Xoai was home to 400 Montagnard CIDG strikers and 24 US troops including Special Forces and Navy Seabees. On the dates of 9-10 June, the Viet Cong, with North Vietnamese Support attacked the base with 1500 guerrillas armed with AK-47s, grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and flamethrowers.

The 14-hour battle would leave 20 of the Americans either killed or wounded along with 200 Vietnamese strikers and civilians. Vietcong dead numbered between 500-700.

Williams was the XO (Executive Officer) of the Special Forces A-Camp when the Vietcong began massing for an attack on the camp late on June 9. The Americans were aware of the buildup outside the camp and placed their troops on full alert.

This caused the Vietcong to begin their attack over an hour early, and at 2330 they began to mortar the camp, hitting both Vietnamese and US positions before an infantry assault by the 272^nd Regiment.

Buildings at the Dong Xoai Special Forces camp at Dong Xoai. (US Navy photo)

It was during the initial artillery fire that the Special Forces commander of the camp was hit and seriously wounded which would place Williams in command of the camp. He wasn’t the typical 2LT. Williams had been an NCO in the 82^nd Airborne Division before going to Special Forces and Officer Candidate School.

Williams organized his defenses in his compound and determined the source of the insurgents’ main effort and led the troops to their defensive positions on the south and west walls. The Vietcong initially took heavy casualties by failing to negotiate and recognizing the barbed wire and minefields that the team had laid out. Williams attempted to establish communications at the District Headquarters, found that there was no operational radio with which to communicate with his commanding officer in another compound.

Attempting to reach the other compound and establish communications, the heavy assault by the Vietcong drove him back and he was wounded by shrapnel in his right leg. He returned to District Headquarters and directed the defense against the Vietcong’s first attempted assault on the camp.

The Vietcong had succeeded in scaling the walls and as some of the strikers began to panic and retreat, Williams ran thru a hail of gunfire, and rallied the Montagnards, and led them back to their positions. He was wounded two more times in the left leg and thigh.

Told that communications were restored, he raced back to the communications bunker, where he sustained two more additional wounds in the stomach and right arm from grenade fragments. Then he was told that the detachment commander was seriously wounded and he was in overall command of the camp’s defenses.

The Vietcong stepped up the pressure and the camp defenses began to crumble. At 0130 two helicopter gunships from the Bien Hoa airbase expended all of their ammunition on the communist troops inside the wire.

With casualties mounting, Williams ordered the consolidation of the American personnel from both compounds to establish a defense in the district building. The Special Forces and Seabees from the SF compound would withdraw to the district headquarters and consolidate with the remaining CIDG troops.

Williams, despite his many wounds, grabbed a radio and was directing airstrikes thru a forward air controller all while directing the defense from the District building. Firing flares as reference points to adjust the air strikes with deadly precision. Williams’ defense force was now besieged and they were throwing grenades out the windows of the district HQs at the charging Vietcong.

By dawn, the Vietcong had the upper hand and were firing a machine gun directly south of the district building, pinning the Americans and strikers down in a murderous fire. The machine gun had to be taken out. Williams didn’t hesitate and led the mission himself.

He grabbed a 3.5-inch rocket launcher and asked for a volunteer to help him go after the gun. CM3 Marvin G. Shields, a member of the camp’s Seabees detachment stepped forward despite already having been wounded three times. Under heavy fire and completely ignoring their own safety, the two attacked, with Shields loading and Williams firing as they assaulted the enemy position. And despite a faulty sight, they destroyed the enemy gun from a distance of 150 meters.

While trying to return to the district HQs, both men were hit again, and Shields was seriously wounded where he would later die of his wounds the next day. Williams was unable to carry Shields back to the district building, he pulled him to a covered position and then made his way back to the HQs where he sought more volunteers who went out and successfully brought Shields back.

Vietcong attempts to take the district HQs building increased and were firing recoilless rifle fire directly into the American positions. Williams continued to direct air strikes on the communists and they were creeping increasingly closer almost on top of their position.

By early afternoon, and the situation deteriorating, he moved the seriously wounded to communications bunker. Informed that helicopters would be landing to exfil the Americans from the area, Williams led the team to the camp’s artillery positions. And finally, after evacuating all other wounded personnel, he boarded a helicopter and took the last Americans out.

The Vietnamese Rangers entered the battle but were ambushed by the Vietcong and broke. This prompted General Westmoreland to send a battalion of the 173^rd Airborne Brigade into action. This was the first major involvement of large numbers of US troops in Vietnam.

Williams would receive his Medal of Honor from President Lyndon Johnson at the White House a year later in June 1966. Shields widow would receive his two months later in the Oval Office. In his remarks Johnson would say of Williams:

1LT Charles Q. Williams, receives the Medal of Honor from President Johnson in the Oval Office.

“We have come here this morning to honor a very brave American soldier.

The acts of extraordinary courage to which we pay tribute were not performed with any hope of reward. They began with a soldier doing his duty–but they went so far beyond the call of duty that they became a patriot’s gift to his country.

Lieutenant Williams and a very small band of Americans and Vietnamese fought for 14 long hours against an enemy that outnumbered them more than five to one.

During those long hours, Lieutenant Williams was wounded five times. Any single one of those wounds might have caused another man to completely abandon the fight. Yet Lieutenant Williams continued to rally his men, to protect his wounded, to hold off the enemy until help could come.

Few men understand what it really means to draw deep from the wellsprings of such bravery. Few have ever made that kind of journey–and far fewer have ever returned.”

“Lieutenant Williams, it is hard for your President to find words to tell you of the deep gratitude and admiration that your fellow Americans have for you.

But I do rejoice that I may present to you, in the name of the Congress of the United States and of the grateful people of America, the Medal of Honor–for the bravery and the gallantry that you displayed at the risk of your life, far above and beyond the call of duty.”

Williams retired as a Major and died in 1982 at the age of 49. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Photos courtesy, US Army, US Navy, YouTube

Special Operations Forces Vehicles Come Front and Center

The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is home to some of the most elite forces in the world, SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers, Air Force Special Operators, and Marine Raiders. And all of them are using a host of new vehicles that were specifically engineered for their use.

SOFREP and Special Operations.com had an opportunity to see these vehicles up close and personal at the recently held SOFIC industry expo in Tampa. These vehicles are versatile and adaptable and most rely on speed rather than armor as a means of protection.

Polaris makes popular all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and side-by-sides driven all across America, tearing it up in the most challenging off-road conditions. But they also make vehicles for the Armed Forces.
These ATVs are also very popular with the Special Operations Forces (SOF) and Polaris has a division called Polaris Government and Defense that specializes in building ATVs like the ones you could drive on the farm, but ramped up and adapted for military purposes.
In just five years, the MRZR platform has grown to 4 vehicles, and is a part of the miltiary in the U.S. and more than 25 allied countries. SOF and the wider military regularly rely on the advanced capabilities MRZR 2, MRZR 4 and DAGOR for their work downrange. The United States Special Operations Command has acquired a whole slew of them for their forces.
These SOF-grade MRZRs feature on-demand, advanced all-wheel drive. When more traction is needed, the vehicle automatically engages all four wheels and can automatically revert back to two-wheel. This advanced tech translates into more power when an operator needs it on a mission plus less general wear and tear on the vehicle.
Both variants also reach a max speed of around 60 miles per hour and sport engines that have 88 HP, designed for extreme performance in the toughest terrains. The vehicles have fantastic throttle response and acceleration.
The MRZR 2 can carry 1,000 pounds while the MRZR 4 can carry an additional 500 pounds.

SOFREP had the chance to interview the Polaris reps and see the vehicles up close. They can be tailored for mission use and present a layer of flexibility that will lend itself well to Special Operations. They are already in use by USSOCOM and they’ll be more in the pipeline in the very near future.

To read the entire article from Fox News click here:

Photo courtesy SOFREP, Polaris

Rangers Storm the Cliffs of Pointe du Hoc on D-Day 75 Years Ago

On this day during World War II in June 1944, Army Rangers would complete a mission, scaling the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc on D-Day that would immediately become the stuff of legend. Later, the survivors would comment that they couldn’t believe that they survived. The Commander of the Rangers, LTC James Rudder would comment, “How did we do this? It was crazy then, and it’s crazy now.”

The Allies had formulated their plan in the fall of 1943 to storm the coast of France the following spring. While the Germans assumed, with much Allied disinformation, that the landings will take place in the Pas de Calais area, Normandy was the actual target.

The two beaches in the American sector code-named Omaha and Utah were separated by a large promontory point called Pointe du Hoc. The Germans recognized the importance of the high ground which rises to over 100 feet over the beaches, where both are clearly visible and spotters or guns from the point can dominate both beaches.

The Germans initially placed a battery of six captured French 155mm artillery pieces in open gun pits in 1943, in a good position to support their defenses on both beaches. The 352^nd Infantry Division (a good hardened unit) was in positions to defend and support the guns. The open pits were vulnerable to air attack and because of Allied bombing, the Germans withdrew the guns 1000 yards to the rear in an apple orchard early in April 1944. An American Army Air Corps A-20 raid dropped 33 tons of bombs and forced the Germans to build casemates, an observation bunker and gun pits for 20mm flak anti-aircraft guns. By the time of the invasion, two casemates would remain unfinished.

The Plan: LTG Omar Bradley, the American ground force commander, tasked LTC James Rudder with taking the high ground, destroying the guns, and denying the Germans the use of the high ground for observation.

The 2^nd and 5^th Ranger Battalions were tasked with the assignment. The 2^nd with an assault force of Companies D, E, and F (Force A) was to land on the beach, scale the cliffs, using a combination of ropes, ladders, and grapples, secure the high ground while the remainder of the 2^nd Bn. and 5^th Bn. were to be signaled by a flare at the top of the cliffs to signify the cliffs had been taken. There they would push through and bolster the three companies at the top of the cliffs, block the Germans from using the road and then attack the Maisy Battery which was located back behind the cliffs. Maisy battery consisted of four 155mm captured French guns, four 105mm artillery pieces and four additional 150mm pieces that were destroyed by Allied naval bombardment.

The Rangers had been rehearsing for this mission at the Isle of Wight under the watchful eyes of the British Commandos.

Bradley later remarked that assigning Rudder that task was the most difficult decision he had to make in the war. Rudder had recruited, trained, and led the Rangers and believed them to be ready for the job. “My men can do it,” Rudder told Bradley.

The Navy with Allied destroyers USS Satterlee and HMS Talybont would provide direct fire support on the German positions to keep the enemy fire from coming down the cliffs. One Navy commander thought the attack was suicidal remarking, “It can’t be done. Three old women with brooms could keep the Rangers from climbing those cliffs.”

Ranger Commander of the Pointe du Hoc assault James Rudder.

Just prior to the invasion Rudder and Major Cleveland Lytle, the commander of Force A, got into an argument over the assigned task. According to some reports, Lytle thought the focus of the attack should be on Battery Maisy rather than Pointe du Hoc and that the Rangers were attacking in the wrong place.

Other reports had Lytle in an alcoholic stupor loudly proclaiming that the mission was suicide. And that the Free French forces reporting that the guns had already been moved from Pointe du Hoc. Either way, Rudder felt that Lytle was unfit for command, relieved him on the spot and took personal charge of the assault on Pointe du Hoc.

Lytle didn’t go quietly, having to be manhandled out of the door by several Rangers, and knocked out the Regimental Surgeon. He later commanded a Regiment in the 90^th Infantry Division and was awarded the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Cross.

The Attack: The attack on Pointe du Hoc in Normandy began at 0405 hrs. on June 6^th when 108 Royal Air Force (RAF) heavy bombers saturated the area with 635 tons of bombs. Just after 0500 the German defenders could see hundreds of ship’s silhouettes appear on the horizon. The naval bombardment began at 0555 hrs.

The assault force was squeezed into ten landing craft. An additional two were used for supplies as well as 10 of the Army’s DUKW amphibious trucks carrying the 100-foot ladders that were to be used to scale the cliffs. Immediately things began to go awry.

One landing craft sank, drowning all but one soldier. A DUKW was hit by artillery fire and sank. A third was swamped. Both landing craft with supplies were swamped, one sank and the other had to jettison all of its equipment to stay afloat.

Worse, the new radar that was to guide the landing craft into shore was inoperable and some of the landing craft were miles off from their intended landing spots at Pointe du Hoc. When they finally realized their error, they had to turn and go an additional two miles to the right beach. Force A’s troops were over 40 minutes late hitting the beach. This error would change the course of history.

Omaha Beach: The follow-on force of the remainder of 2^nd Bn. and the 5^th Bn. of Rangers did not head to Pointe du Hoc instead to Omaha Beach because it had not received the radio signal from Force A that the cliffs were secured.

Their secondary landing point put the Companies at the “Dog Green” sector of Omaha Beach on the shoulder of the Vierville Draw where a murderous fire ripped the Rangers to shreds along with the Infantry. This was made famous by the opening scene of “Saving Private Ryan”. But the rest of the force was diverted to “Dog White” and landed among the 29^th Division. There they met Asst. Division Commander Norman “Dutch” Cota, who gave the famous order, “Rangers, Lead the Way.” Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Rangers, at the wrong beach would save the Omaha beachhead and the 5^th Bn. broke thru and flanked the German defenses.

Pointe du Hoc: The plan was for the naval bombardment to cease at 0630 and the Rangers landing craft to hit the beach shortly after. But the mixup had caused them to hit the beach at 0710 where the Germans had plenty of time to recover and they poured murderous fire on the Rangers still on the landing craft and on the beaches below.

The landing craft were getting swamped with water and the men were all seasick, so they bailed brackish water and vomit over the sides as they approached the beach. The men finally reached the beaches only to find that the 100 foot ladders were too short to reach the top of the cliffs.

But the grappling hooks fired by the landing craft had reached the top and the Rangers began making the deadly climb by ones and twos to the top. Amazingly, it took only 3-4 minutes for the first Rangers to reach the cliff’s edge at the top.

By 0730 the Rangers had reached the top and were clearing the Germans out of the battery positions. There they found the casemates empty. After clearing the remaining Germans out of the immediate area, 35 Rangers set up their secondary mission, building the road block by 0815. They were amazed at the amount of destruction on top of the cliff by the aerial and naval bombardment. Nothing resembled the aerial photographs they studied pre-invasion. Everything was rubble.

A patrol was sent out to find the guns and they disabled them using thermite grenades at 0900. The Germans begin counterattacks that were beaten back. Later that night a patrol of Rangers from Omaha Beach, link up with the survivors on Pointe du Hoc.

By nightfall on June 6, one-third of the 225 men that came ashore were either dead or wounded, but many of the wounded continued to fight on. Food, water, and ammunition were dangerously low. Many of the Rangers took to using captured German weapons as ammunition for those was plentiful.

Rudder’s men held two areas, the HQ near the top of the cliffs and the roadblock. The Germans launched a counterattack against the roadblock at 2330. They then launched a second, stronger attack at 0100 on June 7^th. And again, they were repulsed. The Germans launched a third, even stronger counterattack at 0300. Losses were heavy, and 20 Rangers were captured.

About half of the force at the roadblock about 45 Rangers pulled back to the HQ, erroneously reporting to Rudder that the roadblock was destroyed. Rudder has only 90 men still under arms the morning of the 7^th.

Later that afternoon, an LST arrived with a Ranger platoon and would take wounded Rangers off the beach. The next morning, three battalions of infantry from the 116^th Infantry broke thru from Omaha Beach and relieved the Rangers at Pointe du Hoc.

Of Rudder’s original landing force, only 75 could bear arms on June 8^th. Casualties were high, bordering on 70 percent with 77 killed, 152 wounded and 38 missing. The 5^th Bn. suffered 23 killed, 89 wounded and two missing. One ugly situation that arose during the battle was that a number of French civilians were executed, having been accused by the Rangers of having fought with the Germans during the battle.

Rudder was wounded twice in the battle and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Thirteen other Rangers were awarded the DSC for their roles at Pointe du Hoc. The 2^nd Ranger Bn. was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.

At the 40^th anniversary of the battle, several of the surviving Rangers joined President Reagan at his speech in Normandy, one of his most memorable, “The Boys of Pointe du Hoc” at the top of the cliffs. One of the surviving Rangers joined some Green Berets in reclimbing the cliffs, although this time, not under fire. And was the first one to the top.

The 75^th Ranger Regiment’s proud legacy lists many battles all the way back to Robert Rogers during Colonial times, but arguably none were as difficult a task as the one faced by Rudder and the men on a beach in Normandy. Sua Sponte

Photos courtesy US Army

Jordanian Soldier Charged With Murder of 3 US Special Forces Soldiers

The government of Jordan has announced that they have formally charged one of its soldiers with “Murder with intent to kill” in a shooting incident of three US Green Berets in November.

The US Special Forces soldiers were part of a training mission and were shot as they drove up to enter a military base where they were assigned. There were initial reports that stated the US and Jordanian officials had differed on whether the Americans had followed base protocol on entering, but video surveillance has proved that the US troops did, in fact, follow correct procedures.

Three US Army Special Forces soldiers were shot at the King Faisal Air Base in Jordan during the incident on November 4. There was an intense firefight between a Jordanian guard, who wore body armor and carried an M-16 rifle, and the US soldiers, equipped only with sidearms.
Army Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe was killed instantly and Staff Sgt. Matthew Lewellen was mortally wounded when the guard opened fire on the soldiers’ vehicle while it was stopped at the base’s gate. The third man, Staff Sgt. James Moriarty, suffered a mortal wound after firing his pistol at the Jordanian guard.
In March, the US military determined that the three men followed proper procedures during the incident, despite initial Jordanian media claims to the contrary.
A US Special Operations Command investigation into the shooting found the US forces “demonstrated valorous conduct and extraordinary heroism” after coming under fire from a Jordanian guard, according to a redacted copy of the report.
“There is no evidence that US forces failed to fully comply with Jordanian Base entrance procedures,” the report said.
Jordanian state media initially blamed the incident on the soldiers’ failure to adhere to proper procedures at the base’s entrance, though US officials disputed that at the time.
Investigators said they were able to obtain video surveillance footage of the event, allowing for a very detailed examination.

This development from the Jordanian government may help the families of the slain soldiers find a bit of closure as some have been adamant that the Jordanian soldier in question be charged with murder.

To read the entire article from the CNN click here:

Photo courtesy US Army

Selecting a Better Green Beret, Interview with Brian Decker, Pt. 2

In the first segment of SpecialOperations.com interview with Brian Decker, we talked about the problem with the Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) and the issues that arose from the Special Forces Selection and Assessment Course (SFAS). Brian Decker (‘the smartest guy in Training Group”) was tasked to fix the issues and get the Selection course revamped.

Decker identified that most of the problems that the course was having were social in nature. He realized that the internal drive to succeed is the best indicator for success in SF operators. He learned that each successful candidate responded to stress in their lives with a heightened sense of motivation.

He revamped the third week of SFAS (Team Week) and rather than have a candidate be evaluated as either a patrol leader or as an assistant patrol leader one time during the week, he went to a “leaderless group” exercise, where candidates were given a task as a group and the cadre, would watch and evaluate on how they self-organized around the task and requirement.

He had this to say about the events and assessment of Week 3.

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.

Under Decker’s watch, while the success rate of candidates being selected from SFAS plummeted from around 50 percent to under 30, the candidates that were selected were much more successful in the SFQC with the pass rate rising from 50 percent to closer to 80 percent, which is what the command was looking for.

In the earlier segment of the interview, Decker mentioned the six attributes that the cadre of the SFAS course would look for. Special Forces training in the Special Warfare Center, SWC (referred to as “Swick”) utilized the “Whole Man” Selection Process and the six main attributes that every successful SF Operator should possess include:

Intelligence
Trainability
Physical Fitness
Motivation
Influence
Judgement

So, we’ll pick up where we left off in the interview and talk some more about the changes within the SFAS course. And that was where we had discussed the pass rate for the SFQC had risen to around 80 percent when he left and moved on to his next assignment.

Special Ops: Wow, that is incredibly high, were you surprised?

Decker: It was surprising, and at the time, we thought it might be artificially high by a bit but it reaffirmed to us, that we were doing the right thing in the course. And we felt like, if I had another year to spend at Selection, we’d have taken a lot of the attrition at Selection and put it into a screening method done at home station before they come. So you could greatly reduce it.

But, it ultimately came back to, we had really lost our way. The course had become something where it wasn’t even trying to be a predictor of success. It became just a Rite of Passage, and I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be that, but it must be a validation of the self-worth of the Regiment.

Spec Ops: I think this is a great point going back to the changes in Team Week. Back in the day, like you said a candidate may only get one turn in the barrel as a leader if that event was the second one on the fourth day of Team Week, was he getting a fair shake? I wonder what those percentage of fails were back in our era.

Decker: Right, I think you try to create the course where it is very mentally and physically demanding to want smart, physically capable people. And what makes an excellent Ranger, or CAG operator or SEAL Team Six guy is probably not the same guy who is going to do a great job in an unconventional warfare environment.

It is going to favor different traits, (laughs) Hey, I love shooting too. But that is a much more linear task than setting up the intelligence network or leading an indigenous force to a target in its area of operations.

Spec Ops: The Direct Action (DA) missions will always be big within the Command (SOCOM) because those are more tangible, or are we being too simplistic?

Decker: Yes, look the DA missions are…they’re very easy to measure, they’re very easy to tie results and you know what I’m saying?… It’s very hard in an unconventional warfare environment to capture the quality of the training that you’re doing or measure the impact of the operations.

One of the things I remember when we were in Iraq, we were trying to gauge the impact that the different ODAs (SF A-teams) were having in different areas and people started looking at “who’s doing the most missions? Who’s captured the most weapons?”

And I looked at that and said, you know, the most successful ODA may be where the least amount of stuff is happening. It may just be where that ODA achieved a level of stability in their area and the truth is, we can’t kill our way out of this problem.

Special Ops: How difficult was it to put together a matrix to track all of these guys when they were going thru training and keep track of the pass/fails and why?

Decker: For SFAS? No, it wasn’t difficult at all. We had a software program we called the “Whole Man Program”, that captured all the data and we had the students do their peers in the classroom and that was added. The cadre all had their evaluations that could be done on I-pads, on smartphones and all of that would be captured on a database. And that would spit out a summary.

And how we’d make a decision, in the end, it was interesting, that once you have all that data at the end, it is so much easier to make a decision. It goes back to the 80-20 rule; 80 percent of your success will be attributable to 20 percent of your people. And conversely, 80 percent of your struggles will also be attributable to 20 percent of your people.

And you really saw that. These guys, when you see all four cadre members see that this one guy is the #1, #2, #3 guy on a team, and the peer support are slam dunks. But on the other side, you would also see there was a lot of alignment on who did the poorest.

The question then became, it was a little more difficult to discern on the guys in the middle. And that’s the way most models are. Most models are best at explaining the extremes. And it the way it worked was much easier. We could go thru a Selection Board on about 50 soldiers in a couple of hours. It was very streamlined.

Spec Ops: We tried to write as many assessments for each event and watch not only the leaders but the team members and how well or poorly they supported the leaders.

Decker: One of the interesting things we saw when we changed the Team Week events to the “Leaderless” environment was that the stress level went up significantly. There was no “I got my time in the chute, so all I gotta do is get under this weight.”

We had a couple of guys who had gone thru both systems and they said the leaderless system was exponentially harder because they knew they were always being evaluated. This made it easier on the cadre members.

Spec Ops: How so?

Decker: When we’d finish for the day, you’d have to rank your team, first to last. Then you had to rate their attributes and we rated only four attributes during Team Week, this is a “3”, this is a “1”, this is a “5”.

And if you had a guy in the bottom four of your group, you would have to recommend that he not continue on with the course. And you’d have to write a narrative on that…it was very, very quick.

And instead of looking for everything, we’d break down the events like “Between point A and B you’re looking for this attribute.” We designed those events to specifically bring out those behaviors. And it made it easier to evaluate the events.

We also videotaped events and you’d have to watch that and learn to evaluate what we were looking for to get good quality information.

Spec Ops: These were some significant changes, was there any push-back from the Chain of Command on these changes or were they behind on this. I know Ashton (Col. Naylor) had said that he was totally behind this. What about the rest?

Decker: When General (Ed) Reeder came back on board, to SWC, I went thru it all and explained it to him and he said, “Look I don’t get it.” He said, “I’m going to have to see it because I don’t like the idea of the leaderless group, I think someone has to be in charge.”

But once he came out and watched the training, it was only half-way thru the day, he said, “I got it.” He said, “this is brilliant and we should have been doing this a long time ago. This brings out leadership that we’re looking for in the Regiment.”

And that is what it is all about right? We don’t need people who just tell people what to do. We need people that can coach and pull people together.

Spec Ops: This is why I wanted to talk to you. And the cadre were behind it?

Decker: Not at first, they were against it. But once they got used to the changes, it puts the power back in the cadre’s hands. It is a good, balanced, fair process. We would break down the committees and would reassign the committees from one SFAS class to the next.

And we got extremely creative in how we would design the events to bring out the behaviors that we were looking for. We were throwing curveballs at the candidates all the time… By the long-range movement, the guys who were window shopping and thought they may want to be SF are long gone.

If your motivations weren’t in the right place, if you didn’t understand that being successful was a process, then it was going to be difficult for you to be a select. And the difference was if a guy quit on you in say Log PT, it was because he was hurt. But if a guy quits during Team Week it was because he was overwhelmed.

It was much more mental and the ability to handle and manage the complexity of it under duress. I like the physical aspect of this as much as everybody else but what really defines us as a Regiment is what is above our shoulders.

Spec Ops: And the ideal SF operator, he’s adaptable to other lines?

Decker: Yes, well at that time, we’d get 20-25 VIP visits during the course of a year. And many of them were interested in how we selected our operators, especially the methodology. Of course, they were interested in the mental toughness aspect but the traits and attributes that we’re looking for is what many other industries look for as well.

Look, the physical talent of an individual will only take them so far, but what ultimately makes an operator successful is their character, their makeup, their approach. So, what would stop an SF soldier from reaching his full potential comes down to the way they approach their craft.

Having been in the Regiment and served in combat, I understood what constitutes a good Special Forces operator and that was invaluable because you have to know your own line of work.

The most successful people in any profession all have the same attributes. They all have grit, they all have extremely good work habits. They all have the mental toughness, the confidence which comes from practice and preparation and the optimism and belief that they can achieve. They are extremely intelligent. What makes a good operator…there is a lot of similarities with other professions.

A good SF operator, as with other professions, approaches their craft in the same way. Very much with a growth mindset, they’re more intrinsically motivated by internal factors and view success as a process. They tend to internalize feedback rather than externalize it to their environment. They all tend to be smart specifically to what they do.

SF guys can make decisions in a high-stakes environment so rapidly without having the time to think through every outcome which allows them to make sense of their environment.
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Any questions or comments can be emailed to me [email protected] or at my Twitter account @SteveB7SFG

Photo courtesy of US Army

SOF Selection PT Preparation 6.2.2017

Friday morning gym day and what better way to prepare for graduation weekend than to kick it off with Leg Day. Starting with Squats – front, dumbbell goblet, and barbell, then some lunges and after the weighted sled push. And we’ll finish the workout off with a five-mile run

Training:

Continue to prep for the UBRR.

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

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

3 x 10 Barbell Squats

3 x 10 Dumbbell Lunges

3 x 10 Romanian Lunges

3 x Weighted sled push

5-mile run

Stretch well after completion

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.
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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

Massive Suicide Car Bomb Explosion Rocks Kabul, Scores Killed

Kabul, Afghanistan was rocked by a huge car bomb explosion in the diplomatic security area of the capital on Wednesday morning.

According to Afghani Ministry of Health sources, at least 80 were dead and 350 wounded with the majority of those being women and children. It was the worst terrorist incident in the country since the coalition drawdown of troops in 2014.

“The attack demonstrates a complete disregard for civilians and reveals the barbaric nature of the enemy faced by the Afghan people,” the statement continued. “It also highlights the hypocrisy of the enemy who claim that they only target Afghan Security Forces and Foreign forces, yet continue to cause death and suffering amongst innocent Afghans.”
The German Foreign Ministry said German embassy workers were wounded in the blast, and that an Afghan security official who had been protecting the building was killed.
The Taliban on Wednesday denied involvement in the bombing. Both the Taliban and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have staged large-scale attacks in the Afghan capital in the past.
The explosion occurred at the peak of Kabul’s rush hour when roads are packed with worktime commuters, Patta reports.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul warned American citizens to avoid the area of the blast and cancelled all its appointments for routine American Citizen Services for the day.
Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani’s office condemned the “cowardly attack in the holy Month of Ramadan targeting innocent civilians in their daily life,” while the U.S. Embassy Kabul Special Charge d’Affaires Hugo Llorens said, “This horrific and shameful attack demonstrates these terrorists’ complete disregard for human life and their nihilistic opposition to the dream of a peaceful future for Afghanistan. The terrorists, and those who provide them support in any form, deserve the utter scorn of all civilized people around the world.”
The Green Zone neighborhood is considered Kabul’s safest area, with foreign embassies, press bureaus, and government offices protected by dozens of 10-foot-high blast walls and guarded by police and national security forces.
The BBC said that one of their staff, driver Mohammed Nazir, had been killed in the attack and that four BBC journalists had been injured.

The Taliban denied involvement in the blast that destroyed more than 50 cars and blew out windows in shops and restaurants around a huge area, up to half a mile of the city.

The entire article and interview from CBS News can be found here:

Photo Courtesy of Reuters