7th Special Forces Group

Sorry, We Are Not All Created Equal – SOF Isn’t For Everybody

Without meaning to, I’m sure we offended quite a few people with the title, but the simple fact of the matter is, it is true. Rest assured it is not using any kind of racist or biased slant in any way, although someone will no doubt take it that way.

When it comes to Special Operations Forces, although anyone is open to volunteering, few will even opt to, very few will even make the cut to try to go to Selection and then the very, very few will survive the entire training scenario that begins with Selection and finally ends with the various qualification courses that each of the services run.

And let there be no doubt, they don’t grade on a curve. There are the standards that have to be met and there are the failures.. The number of candidates in the latter always, always outweigh the numbers of the former. If a class has 140 candidates to try out and just two make it, then there are just two graduates. If another class has 25 graduates, it doesn’t mean the standards are different. It just means the candidates in those particular classes are. That is what the bean counters in the government and the military don’t ever understand. You can’t always graduate a certain percentage of candidates.

And that is just the beginning. Once you are trained and a member of one of the units is when the learning and training really begin. And just like Selection, you are always being evaluated. By your peers, by your commander and the units.

I remember something that one of the best team sergeants I served with told me once. Retired SGM Bob Hand (RIP) said, “getting a fancy Green Beret on your graduation day is kinda like getting your learner’s permit,” he said. “You’re allowed to drive the family car with adult supervision until you finally pass the driving test and we (meaning the rest of the team) will grade you on that.”

Bob took it upon himself to ensure that every NCO on the team was trained to take his job someday. But the unwritten rule is this. Special Forces, or in the broader sense, Special Operations isn’t for everyone. Some people won’t have the physical tools to go thru the physical exertion and grind that is Selection and the Qualification Courses. Others won’t have the mental acuity to pass the tests to even get in to try.

Getting enough people to fully staff the Special Operations community is a major chore. The commands are having a heck of a time, just trying to keep up with troops retiring, getting out of the service, and of course, there are the never-ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that continue to take a toll on the force structure thru troops killed or wounded in action.

Part of the issue is that the pool of available candidates is shrinking. The military as a whole is having a very tough time meeting recruiting standards. Of the young people that are traditionally recruited by the military services, almost a third are not eligible because they are overweight or obese. Almost 25 percent more can’t meet the education requirements of having at least a high school diploma or GED and about 10 percent have a criminal history that will prevent them from serving.

Now although the obesity issue is a national problem and needs to be addressed, the sky isn’t falling, like some simpletons would have you believe. I’ve seen some articles where someone took those numbers and said 71 percent of our youth is unfit for military service. Well, that isn’t quite true. Why? Because many of those young people who are disqualified for one factor are also disqualified in others as well. However, recruiting numbers are down in the services and the biggest issue is our nationally obese problem.

When the services are short people, they naturally try to keep them all close to their vest. They’ll try to discourage or dissuade their best and brightest from volunteering for Special Operations. It isn’t necessarily a bias against SOF, although there was plenty of that in the 1980s and 1990s, even after SOCOM became a command.

The recruiting for SOF is even more selective than for the conventional services, much more so and with good reason. As we mentioned above, even a very solid, good troop in the conventional military isn’t necessarily a good fit in the Special Operations community.

Many don’t have the desire to serve there as well as the physical and mental attributes to make the grade and the desire is the biggest factor. In order to be successful, a candidate has to put everything else in second place. There have been candidates who weren’t the greatest students, but they studied and crammed and put the hours in until they mastered the tasks that they must.

I know several guys who were initially weak ruckers and really struggled with it. To prepare for SF, they’d ruck home a couple of nights a week from the base to their home, one guy lived 10 miles from the base.

Are you willing to put the time in to become one of the best Warriors on the planet? The desire to be in the unit above all else? Most people aren’t willing to make that kind of sacrifice. But that won’t quit, can do attitude is exactly what is required if that is the career path you want to forge. The doors are always open, but they don’t take just anybody.

Are you ready for the challenge?

Photo: DOD

Rucking 22 Miles in a Snap, The Green Beret Way

Here at SpecialOperations.com, we try to give our younger readers who desire to be members of the Special Operations brotherhood the tools to be able to navigate the rigors of the Selection courses and then follow on with their qualification courses.

In our articles, we tell our prospective candidates to do everything the right way and don’t break the rules. Well, today’s story isn’t about breaking the rules per se, but we definitely bent them just a little bit to our advantage. Just one of the little tricks of the trade that you can get away with when you’re in one of the units down the road.

First, a little background. Back in the late 80’s -early 90’s somebody at SOCOM had a wonderful idea (insert sarcasm emoji here). Before Special Forces A-Teams could deploy, they would have to “recertify” that they knew their jobs well enough. There would be days filled with basic tasks, and each night a long-range ruck march. There would be a training mission thrown in followed by one more long range (22 miles) ruck march to finish things off.

This particular time was a difficult one for members of 3/7 SFG. The 3rd Battalion which had been stationed in Panama for a long time was being redeployed back to Ft. Bragg, minus Charlie Co. which would remain. There wasn’t even a home for us there. While the powers that be were trying to scrape together a dilapidated World War II shithole for us to live in, we were sent to the Old Delta Compound, which was the Ft. Bragg Stockade in years past. For us leaving Panama, going to the Stockade seemed apt since no one wanted to go back to Bragg.

Our team had just lost our Team Sergeant, Joe P. who died in a car crash on his way to see his parents in NYC just days after getting back. A good friend of ours had lost his leg and was in the hospital in Womack Army Hospital. Joe had been working his tail off getting everything settled in back at Bragg and was taking a 4-day pass. I saw him the night before at the hospital visiting our friend and he looked exhausted. I asked if he’d be ok to drive early the next morning and he said he’d be fine…RIP brother.

Our Team Leader was already cleared because he was going to a school but he did most of the Recertification with us anyway…that’s just the kind of guy he was. So we’re doing this wonderful Recertification and we’re back at wonderful Ft. Bragg and morale is sky high. Many of the teams were bitching that the Battalion had just finished “Operation Just Cause” and the follow-on “Operation Promote Liberty” in Panama and now we have to certify that we know our jobs?

But we drove on with the program… that is what SF guys do and the Group SGM on the second night’s ruck march was offering his usual encouragement by checking everyone’s belt they were wearing under their BDU shirt to ensure no one was wearing that unauthorized A-7A strap, that now is issued to the troops… That’s leadership. (where the hell is that sarcasm emoji?)

So our Battalion Commander who had come over from Delta is giving us our briefing for how things will go and he mentioned the final long-range ruck…twice in his remarks. It was to be a 22-miler back to Ft. Bragg. In his briefing, he twice mentioned that it was a non-tactical road march along the boundary road (Plank) back to the base.

The second time he said “non-tactical” my senior commo man Luis Z. looked at me and smiled and raised his eyebrows twice so I knew he had a plan in mind. So, as soon as it was done, I asked Luis what was up. He’d obviously already spoken to the rest of the team as they all looked at me like, “Are you going to be a team guy or just another ahole officer?” I laughed and said, “Why not?”

The teams would be sent out 5-10 minutes apart, our team would be the third team out and our plan was this. We were going to go all out right off the bat, setting a murderous pace to try to catch and pass the two teams in front of us. So then we knew our times would be well ahead of the other teams. Our Team Leader who was on leave would have a truck at the halfway point (11 miles) with dry clothes, Gatorade, cool water and fresh fruit.

We’d then take a quick break, change into dry clothes and socks, get a quick refresh and drive on again to the finish. The kicker was the music….Music? On a 22-mile road march? Our commo man Luis had a boombox in his rucksack. Once we got ahead of the first team out, he would pull out the boombox and strap it to the top of his rucksack and start blasting AC-DC, Metallica and the like.

Our team had one of the best ruckers in the Battalion in Ed Y. A full-blooded Navajo, Ed’s normal gait was a trot to the rest of us. We set out and he set a blistering pace. Before long we caught and passed the second team out, who derisively talked crap to us that we’d burn out and they’d see us again soon.

It wasn’t long before we could see the first team in the far distance, Ed picked up the pace on a long downhill slope to almost a jog and we then passed the first team out. So now our time was about 30 minutes faster than theirs. Time for the music… Without stopping, we continued on and two other guys helped Luis get the huge silver boombox out of his ruck and strap it down on the top of it.

They cranked the volume all the way up, the first song was Ozzy with “Crazy Train”. As soon as Ozzy yelled, “All Aboard…hahahaha” the sound was incredibly loud on the otherwise deserted Plank Road, we all cracked up. The team that we had passed was far behind us but could hear it and we heard a few of them yelling.

The miles melted away. Sure enough at the midway point was our support truck. Everyone did a quick change into dry clothes and had a drink. The Gatorade and sliced oranges were awesome. In five minutes or so we were all ready to go. It was then that our team leader told us we weren’t at the halfway point or the 11-mile mark but at 12 so we had just 10 to go. There was still plenty of water, Gatorade and oranges left so he said, he’d remain there for the follow-on teams until it was all gone. Like I said, he is a good man.

The miles flew by and we eased the pace down to a dull roar after that. But the music was a difference maker. Instead of hearing just the squeaking of those damned ALICE packs and the shuffle of boots, we were a motivated bunch. About ½ mile from the finish point, which we could see in the distance, it was time to shut off the music and pack it away again. That was the longest stretch of the night.

We were the first team to finish by about 18-20 minutes and our team had by far the fastest time that night. At the finish point, the Bn Commander came over to tell us “well done and whatever other motivational stuff that LTCs say at that time. I don’t recall. The Adjutant knew what was up and had a big shit-eating grin on his face.

He winked at several of the guys as he followed the colonel back over to where the staff was. The Bn SGM, a very good man, unlike the Group CSM, came over and said, “What’s up Cacique?”, which is Spanish for Chief. He too must have heard what was up, he went over to Luis’ ruck and picked it up, “Carrying a little extra weight in there?” We all laughed. He didn’t say another word and shrugged and walked on.

Of course, somebody complained, especially about our support truck at the halfway point with water, fruit, and Gatorade. But our Company Commander, Mike B. wasn’t having any of it. “No one complained when they stopped for a drink too, just suck it up.” And as Mike pointed out, the Bn Cdr said twice, it was a non-tactical movement.

The music angle didn’t hit the head shed for about a day. I was at the Bn HQs talking to the Adjutant when the Bn Cdr stopped me. “Hey, were you guys playing music during the 22-miler,” he asked? Thinking quick, I said, “I’m a terrible singer, I sing really loudly but off-key,” I said. “I figured if my Sinatra couldn’t get the boys to move fast then nothing could.”

And I added…ever the smartass, “Since we were “non-tactical” I didn’t think it would matter to anyone.”

There were about 5 seconds of stony silence. The old man finally said, “uh-huh.” and that was the end of it. The Adjutant looked like he was going to turn purple trying not to laugh.

So the moral of the story to our prospective Special Operations candidates is to always, always follow the rules, especially while in the course. But also, listen very carefully to instructions. And then follow them to the letter as well.

So, who is up for a quick 20-miler this morning?

Photo: US Army

Remembering Ola Lee Mize, Korean War MOH, Vietnam, Special Forces

Lee Mize as he was known to his friends was awarded the Medal of Honor for incredible valor in the Korean War as an enlisted man, later became an officer and served in Special Forces for three and a half tours in Vietnam before retiring in 1981.

Mize was born August 28, 1931 in Albertville, Alabama as the son of a sharecropper. He was forced to leave school after just the ninth grade to help his family put food on the table as was very common throughout the United States in that era.

Mize tried several times to enlist in the Army but was rejected for being too light at just 120 pounds. He finally got in when his mother signed an affidavit to affirm his age as a tornado had destroyed all of his town’s records while he was young.

But once in the Army, a bigger problem was looming. Mize was virtually blind in one eye, which had been accidentally pierced with an ice pick when he was 5 years old.

The vision exam for the Army at that time involved holding a paddle over one eye and looking at the chart with the other. He passed the test by briskly switching paddles in a way that made it look as if he was switching eyes. He had practiced this bit of subterfuge with spoons beforehand.

Mize became an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division and was about to finish up his tour and go back to finish schooling and attend college when the Korean War broke out. He re-enlisted in the hopes of getting sent to Korea.

Medal of Honor Action at Outpost Harry: He would get his wish and be involved in some horrific combat there. Assigned to Company K, 15th Infantry Regiment, Third Infantry Division, was helping to defend a strategic hill near Surang-ni in mountainous South Korea. The hill, called Outpost Harry by the Americans, sat between American and Communist lines, each several hundred yards away. Coincidentally, the 15th Infantry Regiment was the same unit that Audie Murphy served in during World War II.

During the previous few nights prior to June 10, 1953, Mize had observed numerous trucks behind the enemy’s ridgeline bringing in men and equipment. He called for artillery strikes and air strikes but those were denied.

A sergeant manning a listening post that night reported something amiss. Upon investigating, Mize came up and took a look himself to the unit’s front. “Where did all of those shrubs come from he asked the sergeant? They hadn’t been there before. Mize noticed one move. He crouched up and unloaded a full carbine magazine into them as Chinese soldiers, infiltrating the lines were cut down very close to the LP.

When an American machine-gun nest had been overrun, he fought his way to the position, killing 10 North Korean and Chinese soldiers and dispersing the rest. He had been knocked down and wounded but not seriously three times by artillery and grenade blasts, and his men were astounded that he returned alive.

The legend that was told of Mize was that when he took back the machine gun nest, he dispatched the last of the Chinese soldiers with an entrenching tool when his weapon ran out of ammunition. There was a bronzed “E-Tool” that would hang over his desk later in his career. He did tell the local (Gadsden, AL) newspaper that he went “combat crazy” during the pitched part of the engagement.

“I thought I’d bought the farm,” Col. Mize told VFW Magazine in an interview. “I just knew I was going to die. I knew it. I accepted it. All I wanted to do was take as many of them with me as I could.”

He and the remaining Americans convinced the Chinese that there were many more Americans left on the hill but throwing grenades and shooting from one position and then leaping into other holes and firing from there.

At one point, as an enemy soldier stepped behind an American and prepared to fire, Sergeant Mize killed him. At dawn, he helped regroup for a counterattack that drove the enemy away. He was personally credited with killing 65 of the enemy. In fact, it could have easily been much more. Of the 56 men on Outpost Harry, only eight survived.

He was recommended for the Medal of Honor but initially asked that his name be withdrawn saying the honor should go to the troops that died defending it.

“That terrible night in 1953 in Korea at Outpost Harry was one I would never want to repeat,” he wrote in a foreword to “Uncommon Valor,” a book about Medal of Honor recipients.

“Too many good young men . . . gave their lives to take or hold that miserable piece of high ground.”

Eventually, in 1954 Mize did receive the Medal of Honor from President Eisenhower and recounted that he was so nervous it was obvious to everyone. He credited the President to calm him by joking about himself.

Mize remained in the Army and became an officer. In 1962 he attended the Special Forces Officers Course training and was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group. In late 1963, he was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, where he was deployed to Vietnam on his first tour as an A-Team Leader. In 1965, he was assigned to the Special Forces Training Group, where he was the Advanced Training Committee chief for SCUBA, HALO, and the SKYHOOK schools. Colonel Mize is credited for being the officer responsible for starting the present day Combat Divers Qualification Course in Key West, FL.

He returned to Vietnam in 1966-67 and again in 1969 as the Commander of the 3d Mobile Strike Force Command (Cambodian Troops). The Mike Forces as they were called were the quick reaction force for any of the Special Forces/CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) A-Camps in their Corps area.

In 1975 Colonel Mize was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was initially the Special Forces School Chief for the Field Training Division and Resistance Division and later the Commander of the Special Forces School. At that time, the US Army JFK Institute for Military Assistance, (IMA). Later this was changed to the Special Warfare Center (SWC). Mize retired in 1981.

Colonel Mize’s awards include the Medal of Honor, Silver Star, Legion of Merit
(with Oak Leaf Cluster), Bronze Star (with four Oak Leaf Clusters), Ranger Tab, Master Parachutist Badge, SCUBA Badge, and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge (2nd award).

Colonel Mize passed away on March 12, 2014, from cancer at age 82.

Medal of Honor Citation:

Rank and organization: Master Sergeant (then Sgt.), U.S. Army, Company K, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3d Infantry Division.

Place and date: Near Surang-ni, Korea, 10 to 11 June 1953.

Entered service at: Gadsden, Ala. Born: 28 August 1931, Marshall County, Ala.

G.O. No.: 70, 24 September 1954.

Citation:

M/Sgt. Mize, a member of Company K, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and outstanding courage above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. Company K was committed to the defense of “Outpost Harry”, a strategically valuable position, when the enemy launched a heavy attack. Learning that a comrade on a friendly listening post had been wounded he moved through the intense barrage, accompanied by a medical aid man, and rescued the wounded soldier.
On returning to the main position he established an effective defense system and inflicted heavy casualties against attacks from determined enemy assault forces which had penetrated into trenches within the outpost area. During his fearless actions he was blown down by artillery and grenade blasts 3 times but each time he dauntlessly returned to his position, tenaciously fighting and successfully repelling hostile attacks.
When enemy onslaughts ceased he took his few men and moved from bunker to bunker, firing through apertures and throwing grenades at the foe, neutralizing their positions. When an enemy soldier stepped out behind a comrade, prepared to fire, M/Sgt. Mize killed him, saving the life of his fellow soldier.
After rejoining the platoon, moving from man to man, distributing ammunition, and shouting words of encouragement he observed a friendly machine gun position overrun. He immediately fought his way to the position, killing 10 of the enemy and dispersing the remainder. Fighting back to the command post, and finding several friendly wounded there, he took a position to protect them. Later, securing a radio, he directed friendly artillery fire upon the attacking enemy’s routes of approach. At dawn he helped regroup for a counterattack which successfully drove the enemy from the outpost.
M/Sgt. Mize’s valorous conduct and unflinching courage reflect lasting glory upon himself and uphold the noble traditions of the military service.

Photos: US Army

Pentagon Looking to Cut SOF in Africa to Focus on China, Russia

Special Operations Forces in Africa could be slashed heavily under sweeping Pentagon proposals to retask and reorganize SOF towards more pressing needs facing the rising threats of Russia and China.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had ordered a review of all Special Operations Forces missions as Mattis, along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford are worried about SOF capabilities being spread too thin. That has been an ongoing issue for several years.

The review was also part of the ongoing assessment of Special Operations Forces after the ambush and death of four American servicemen in Niger last year.

Mattis and Dunford have given the Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the Africa Command (AFRICOM) until mid-June on how they plan to meet the existing challenges as well as the new directives concerning China, Russia as well as Iran and North Korea, despite the planned summit meeting.

Mattis has ordered the new priorities and told the commands to focus on the transition period of growing threats from both China and the Russians, as part of the Pentagon’s new strategic defense plan.

“We face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models,” Mattis said earlier this year.

“Our military is still strong, yet our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare — air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace — and is continually eroding,” he added.

The Pentagon’s report on the Niger operation was sharply critical of “risk-taking culture” of Special Operations which is exactly what the nature of the operations are. Were mistakes made in Niger? Of course, but to place the blame only on the soldiers involved in the operation was short-sighted and self-serving.

Lately, in an effort to ease the burden on SOF troops operating in Syria, and Afghanistan, the U.S. has been increasingly utilizing conventional force soldiers and/or Marines to bolster the capability and security of the Special Operations troops. They’ve called this the “Uplift” program.

The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) currently has close to 7300 troops deployed in about 92 countries. That is significantly down from a decade ago when there were almost 13,000 troops deployed. Despite this the command is still dealing with an operational slate (OpTempo) that is unsustainable in the long run and the cracks are already showing themselves in the force. By adding additional requirements on them for the new strategy against China and Russia where some troops will see an added emphasis in countries such as the Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to counter the Russian threat will place a heavier burden on an already stretched razor thin force.

The Army tried to ease the burden on Special Forces troops by creating Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFAB) to take over the conventional training requirements of host nation forces. The first 1000 troops which comprise the brigade are right now in Afghanistan. The Army plans to field six of these SFABs in the coming years.

They are taking NCOs and Officers from conventional units that will quickly be short enough leaders to fill their own ranks. It won’t be long until the “Big Army” raises questions about these SFABs bleeding their conventional units dry.

The SFAB is running into the same issues in Afghanistan the conventional military has always had when trying to train foreign soldiers. They’re re-inventing the wheel that Special Forces has mastered since the days of the OSS in World War II. They don’t have the experience of training foreign troops and their cross-cultural communications and rapport building skills are in the neophyte stage.

AFRICOM was asked how they would conduct their operations with a 25 percent reduction in SOF troops in 18 months and by a whopping 50 percent in the next three years. Advertising this fact wasn’t perhaps the best move on the Pentagon’s part.

Of the troops currently deployed, about 1200-1300 are currently doing operations in Africa. That number, already not enough to handle the workload there, will be slashed down to the 600 range by 2021.

There are other hot spots in the globe with shadow wars being fought in Yemen, Libya, Somalia as well as others that will require attention as well. Of course, unless there is an uptick in conventional deployments to Africa, one can probably expect the insurgents in the continent, the al-Qaeda offshoots, and the Islamic State to increase their efforts to gain traction with the population and carve out a bigger foothold.

Since the ambush in Niger, missions considered “risky” with host-nation troops have been curtailed. Those that are approved must first be approved by senior officers up the chain of command who are required to take a tougher, more cautious approach when weighing the risks involved. Yes, the dreaded “risk assessment” has made its way into SOF planning requirements.

American SOF in Africa are now sent only on missions with local forces that are determined to have a significant strategic effect, much like the operation that the Special Forces troops were on in Niger. However, now, armed drones or other armed aircraft must accompany such missions, which should have been made available to the troops back then, which would have possibly prevented the loss of life then.

The Green Berets who are responsible for conducting the missions told former SOFREP journalist Derek Gannon in the Fusion Cell blog that, “We are put there [in Africa] to ensure the success of our Host Nation counterparts. When we are not able to operate with the local forces we cannot teach and coach them for future contact with the enemy. Can a football coach effectively coach his players without watching them perform under pressure in a real game? Plus how are we supposed to accurately assess how the threat forces operate without seeing them in action? That’s like preparing for a game without ever seeing game film.”

And that is not the “culture of risk-taking”, but the beat goes on.

Photo: DOD

Robin Sage Begins June 9th, Time For the SF Students to Step Up

The Special Forces rite of passage is about to begin for the next class of SF candidates. The final training in Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) for prospective SF soldiers is the Unconventional Warfare (UW) exercise “Robin Sage”, which we went over in detail in an earlier post, that you can read here:

The prospective Green Berets put all their training together and infiltrate into the fictional country of Pineland via an airborne operation. The SF candidates must raise and train a guerrilla force that will fight the enemy government troops and attempt to restore the friendly Pineland government.

The exercise’s notional country of Pineland encompasses Alamance, Anson, Cabarrus, Chatham, Cumberland, Davidson, Davie Guilford, Hoke, Lee, Montgomery, Moore, Randolph, Richmond, Robeson, Rowan, Scotland, Stanly, and Union counties. Throughout the exercise, Special Forces candidates and Robin Sage role-players not only conduct training missions such as controlled assaults and key-leader engagements but also live, eat and sleep in these civilian areas.

Robin Sage, derives its name from the town of Robbins, N.C., a central area of operations for the exercise, and former Army Colonel Jerry Sage, a World War II veteran and an Office of Strategic Services, or OSS officer who taught unconventional warfare tactics. Steve McQueen’s character Hilts in the film “The Great Escape” was based off Sage.

This current version of the UW exercise has been in use with only slight changes since 1974. To succeed, the prospective SF troops need to accomplish a few key tasks.

Build Popular Support with the Civilian Populace
Make Rapport with the target audience (Guerrilla Force)
Be an effective teacher and train the resistance force

Building Popular Support with the Civilian Populace: What makes Robin Sage so realistic? The civilian community in “Pineland” is nearly totally immersed in the operation. Not only have the citizens of the operational area given their support for the exercise, they’ve become deeply involved.

Many of the role players have been involved with the course for several years and they pass along to their children the drive to carry on and to take over the role of underground or auxiliary in the exercise. And they have proven time and again just how important having popular support in the UW area of operations is to mission success.

These role players help to ferry supplies and equipment, move troops in covered trailers around the operational area as well as provide an early warning network for the guerrilla force. As it is with all people who live in the country, nothing happens out there without all of them knowing about it and they invariably warned the good guys.

And make no mistake, the Special Forces students are the “good guys” in this exercise. It strikes home how important having popular support is when either helping or countering a resistance movement. It is a lesson all SF troops need to learn. No one can make a move in the operational area without the civilians knowing about it. And if they are for you, they will prove invaluable. If the team loses popular support, they are likely done.

Make Rapport With the G-Force: Building rapport with the locals that the SF team will train with, by and through is, among the most important tasks they will encounter. The ability to build rapport both with their foreign partners and with their team members is essentially the difference between Special Forces and all of the others. Alone, an SF team is just 12 men, but working with their foreign partners, they become force multipliers.

SF candidates will quickly learn that learning to communicate and respect the ways of the target audience, obeying their social graces as it is imperative. That is just the first step. Learning to make rapport with the local forces isn’t easy to teach and it is even harder to learn. Some guys are naturals at it and should always be out front, especially during the early “feeling out” process.

The ability to build a solid base of trust is one of the key skills learned by Special Forces troops in complex, austere environments. It can’t be massed produced or pushed thru a shake and bake course. Having troops just show up on the doorstep in the middle of a third world country and have them fall at your feet isn’t realistic and doesn’t happen.

Rapport building begins with checking your ego at the door and operating instinctively. Many times there won’t be a right or wrong answer and frequently the SF candidates will be forced to make difficult and complex decisions. The hallmarks of a successful Special Forces soldier is a mature, versatile and flexible operator in any environment. Being able to adapt to cultures other than our own is the true mark of building trust and reliability that our by, with and through the local forces that will mark a successful operation.

The interaction with host nation troops, both soldiers and leaders require a need for tact and diplomacy. Hammering home the message to the lower rank and file of the guerrilla force is quite different than that to a Colonel or politician/tribal elder that you’ll encounter. A career diplomat once told me the art of diplomacy is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in a way that they’ll enjoy the trip.

One of the best team sergeants I ever knew and a man I consider a tremendous mentor said, the best way to make rapport sometimes is to just shut up and listen. For the SF candidates, there is a time for talking and a time for listening. And when it is time to listen, they need to do so as if their collective lives depend on it. Because they do.

Be An Effective Teacher, Training the G-Force: As we’ve said here numerous times, teaching is an art in Special Forces. Unfortunately teaching and training a guerrilla force isn’t as sexy as taking down a target on a DA (Direct Action) mission and no one wants to see that…right? People want to see a video of guys “doing operator shit” with plenty of cool toys complete with heavy metal music overdubbed while the bad guys bite the dust.

While DA missions are linear and much easier to judge the success or failure of, the true art of a Special Forces A-team lies in their ability to teach an allied soldier or guerrilla fighter to do those same Direct Action missions. Setting up intelligence early warning networks or leading a dedicated guerrilla force to succeed in the Unconventional Warfare (UW) environment isn’t as tangible, nor as sexy. But it is the difference between winning and losing in the UW environment.

We all remember our time in Robin Sage as it was the final test before joining the Regiment, where the real learning begins in earnest. And my primary instructor at Robin Sage, Paul W. not only knew his subject matter extremely well, he knew the operational area as well as the locals and we as a team soaked up his lessons like a sponge. He would always answer questions framed around a question of his own and said frequently that “this is a thinking man’s game.” At the time, we didn’t completely get it but he was right.

And everything centered around the three primary tasks listed above. They were all interdependent on one another. Of course, there are several other things that the students will have to accomplish, but these three are keys to getting a successful operation conducted in Robin Sage and walking across the stage and becoming part of the best Regiment in the military.

Photo: US Army

Special Operations Soldiers Honored in Ceremony at Ft. Bragg

Gary Rose was a Green Beret medic in Vietnam and was recently awarded the Medal of Honor from President Trump for actions he performed in a particularly hazardous and dangerous mission there in 1970.

Rose and eight other Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations troops were honored by being named “distinguished members of the Regiment” or “honorary members of the Regiment” in a ceremony at Ft. Bragg, NC.

“They improved the lives of thousands,” he said. “What I did, it pales… It’s just incredible… it’s just an incredible privilege.”

Others inducted as distinguished members of the regiment were retired Maj. Clyde J. Sincere Jr., retired Maj. Steven E. Cook and retired Sgt. Maj. Gilbert R. Turcotte. A fifth Special Forces soldier, retired Sgt. 1st Class Eric C. Moriarty, was inducted as an honorary member of the regiment.
Retired Lt. Col. James P. Kelliher was inducted as a distinguished member of the Psychological Operations Regiment. Air Force Maj. Gen. Gregory J. Lengyel was inducted as an honorary member of the regiment.
Two Civil Affairs veterans, Brig. Gen. Crawford E. Sams and Col. Charles R. Munske, were posthumously honored as distinguished members of their regiment.
Maj. Gen. Kurt L. Sonntag, commanding general of the Special Warfare Center and School, said each of the honorees shared a commitment to service that goes well beyond their time in uniform.
To be selected, a veteran must have made overwhelmingly significant contributions to the welfare of their respective regiments. The honors, he said, pay tribute to past special operators and those currently in the fight.
“This is a day to recognize and applaud the contributions and the members of our special operations regiments,” Sonntag said. “What they do every day is real and important. It might not get all the news that we used to do in the past — we are working in the shadows again — but it is equally important.”
Rose said he was honored by the recognition.
As part of a joint force of Americans, Vietnamese and Montagnards, Rose’s team was inserted deep within Vietnam enemy territory in 1970. When the group came under attack, the Special Forces medic repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire while treating the wounded, using his own body to protect the seriously injured.
Rose continued treating the wounded for four days before a helicopter evacuation. When Rose’s helicopter crashed, he again treated the injured until another rescue could be made.

These Special Operations veterans served in a variety of posts, missions and conflicts stretching from World War I up to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To read the entire article from the Fayetteville Observer, click here:

Photo courtesy US Army

Protests Turn Ugly as Ortega Kills 25 or More in Nicaragua

Ever since the Sandinistas first came to power, they’ve been trying to assert total control over their population. And now as President Daniel Ortega’s newest Social Security policies are blowing up in his face, the government is violently cracking down on any dissent, real or perceived.

The riots that have taken place across Nicaragua have claimed at least 25 lives and the protests against the government show no signs of slowing down. Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government tried to hammer home a reform to the national Social Security system, due to financial issues that continue to plague the system.

The reforms, which took effect on Wednesday, added a 5 percent tax on old age and disability payouts and also include higher employer and employee contributions set off a wave of protests across the country. Many Nicaraguans feel that their Social Security system would be fine if the Sandinista government would stop taking money out of it. That sounds a lot like many Americans feel about their own system, but we digress.

Of course, Ortega’s leftist government was defending the reforms with his spokeswoman, and Vice President Rosario Murillo, who also happens to be his wife saying the reforms were needed and added that the retirement age had not been raised from 60, the number of weekly contributions required for a state pension would remain the same and retirees would still receive their one-month Christmas bonus.

But that didn’t dissuade citizens to protest immediately in Managua, and in Leon. Ortega played the typical leftist playbook when he had his own supporters stage pro-government rallies at several key intersections in Managua. Members of the Sandinista Youth organization, physically attacked peaceful protesters in Managua while the Police watched on and did nothing.

Both Ortega and Murillo put the blame of the violence on the protesters rather than on themselves where it belongs. Murillo, on the state-owned radio station, called the protesters “vampires, needing blood to feed their political agendas.” Ortega blamed the United States, which has been a familiar foe since the Reagan administration.

Ortega was forced out of office in 1989 after the Sandinistas took on the U.S. backed Contras in a civil war until he was forced to hold free elections. Ortega learned his lesson with free elections and now leaves nothing to chance. After getting back in power, he’s been steadily eliminating opposition groups and re-writing the constitution.

When Ortega was running for “re-election” in 2016, he used his power over the Supreme Electoral Council and had it oust the head of the main opposition party, the Independent Liberation party (PLI), Eduardo Montealegre and then suspending nearly all of its members. Other parties that were in allegiance with the PLI were stripped of their legal status by judges and electoral officials controlled by Ortega’s government.

With many of the head government officials and courts headed by close friends or family members, Ortega rewrote the Constitution and abolished term limits. He then put together a sham of an election where government sources state that the turnout was nearly 66 percent of registered voters. But opposition leaders stated that nearly 70 percent of the registered voters abstained from voting in the election because they felt that the entire process was rigged.

Election monitors were few and selectively chosen and in the end, Ortega “won” with 72 percent of the vote. The Obama administration was not thrilled with this type of farce and worded their statement very politically correct while still making their point.

“The United States is deeply concerned by the flawed presidential and legislative electoral process in Nicaragua, which precluded the possibility of a free and fair election,” spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

Ortega cemented his power of all branches of the government including the armed forces and national police so they’ll follow along with whatever he says, they’ll not oppose him, his cronies pull the strings.

But these protests this week are sticky situations for the leftist President who President Reagan called a “dictator in designer glasses,” back in the 1980s. On one hand, the government, which brutally put down protests in 2013, has been firing bullets, some live and some rubber on protesters rallying at government locations while standing by and allowing several protests to burn and loot businesses in downtown Managua. Why?

It is an effort to put pressure on the same business sector personnel. Ortega has agreed to sit down and discuss the issues that have now become open rioting. But only with business leaders. This move is designed to soften them up when they sit down for talks that the outcome is already predestined.

One journalist was killed over the weekend. Angel Gahona was reporting live video via Facebook Live on protests in the city of Bluefields along the coast when he was killed by a gunshot to the head, that some protesters were calling an assassination. At least 25 other people have been killed since the latest protest began on Wednesday according to the independent Nicaraguan Human Rights Center. The Ortega government has acknowledged only nine dead, but both of those totals will no doubt rise.

Ortega is backed up to the wall and just on Monday said that he’d scrap the planned changes for Social Security. And he renewed his call to the business leaders of the country to sit and negotiate. But also on Monday, the business leaders pushed back and refused to sit down until the government stops the repression against the protests.

Ortega is concerned because the protests swelled from just Managua and Leon to dozens of other cities. Younger people, many of them college students, who flocked to the Sandinista cause in the ‘80s are the ones leading the charge against them now.

Now the Social Security issue is just a sideshow to the unrest as many of the young people want complete freedom of speech restored. That is a dangerous slope that Ortega will try to avoid at all costs. The scrapping of term limits and having Ortega, and his wife virtually in office for life is a threat to democracy and Nicaraguans are fed up.

Photo: AP

Why Doing the Rucksack Flop Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

We post a lot here on SpecialOperations.com that is geared toward the younger troops heading to the Selection courses and later the Qualification courses. I was having a conversation online with a former Delta Force operator, George Hand. If any of you know Geo on social media, he’s a great dude and a talented one. He’s always posting stuff that will make you think, laugh or both. But he said something that jogged my memory. And while I made a joke of it in responding to him, it was a teaching point. Especially for me, so thanks Geo.

So, this little story is one of the oldest and time-honored mantras in the military, “Never do the Rucksack Flop.” Breaking that rule in a combat situation will get you dead in a hurry. Doing it during a training activity especially in a school environment will get your ass chewed out and/or written up.

Never in a million years in a non-tactical situation would you think it could cost yourself a serious and possibly a fatal injury. And it nearly did. The last thing you’d think about was being attacked by an animal. And yet it happened. But I digress, first a little background.

After several years as an NCO in the 7th SFG, I had applied for the SF Warrant Program. So several of us from the different groups went to Ft. Rucker for the wonderful fun and games that passed for the Warrant Officer Candidate Course. I wrote about our adventures in a two-part piece both above and here. After leaving Rucker, we caught up to our Officer Class in SERE Training.

Back then in the late 1980s, we didn’t have a true SF Warrant Course. We were thrown in with the SF Captains in the Detachment Officer’s Course. Some of the instructors and instruction were outstanding, others not so much. We had an eclectic group of American officers and Allies including Arabs and Israelis. It doesn’t get any better than that. One of the Israeli dudes was a Special Ops guy who was a physical animal. We did a timed 12-miler and he took running like it was a two-mile PT Test. He was finished long before any of us pulled in.

At the end of the Officer’s Course before Robin Sage was a final test called Officer’s Stakes. I don’t know if they do it any longer but it was a challenge. It was a long distance land navigation cross country smoker. The points were ridiculously easy to find as they were at major road intersections or churches in the Uwharrie National Forest. But they were all a minimum of 12 km apart. Each officer was issued several map sheets.

Special Forces NCOs manned the points and the instructors manned the exercise HQs and patrolled the roads in vehicles looking for officers either traveling on the roads or too closely. If they saw a student, even if a couple of hundred meters off the road, they’d lay on the horn and the student would be taken back to their last point. It was MFer to get within a click of a point and have an instructor scoop them up and taken back 10-12 clicks. The guys detailed to man the points were guys from the SF groups and other SWC (Special Warfare Center) instructors who were off-cycle for classes.

I had worked the stakes twice manning a point once detailed from 7th SFG and the other while a cadre member at SWC. So I was very familiar with how the operation ran which was an advantage I would use for my benefit. Once, manning a point at a beautiful small place called Calicut’s Church. The old farmer who lived down the road would come up every morning with coffee and his dog and we’d talk for about an hour. He turned on and hooked up a garden hose for me at the side of the church.

When students would come in, we’d call them in to exercise HQs and give them their next point off of a master sheet. When they’d leave we’d call that in as well as the roadrunners would immediately know where he was and where he was going next.

One thing that I learned from my time out there was that the instructors in the vehicles (the road runners) all knocked off between 2-5 a.m. Exercise control would have a vehicle that could respond to any point or spot on the course during that time, but it stayed onsite at the HQs.

So when we got out there, it was late fall-early winter time frame and the noted thick vegetation that we’d encountered out there was gone, but it also gave the cadre a much clearer look into the woodline. During daylight hours I stayed as far off the roads as I could, running the ridge lines. I had the advantage of traveling thru an area that some of the locals who supported us in the past lived. We did a big UW exercise in 7th SFG up there and the local guys went everywhere on their ATVs on trails that weren’t on the map.

I saved about 4-5 hours one day by blasting across two large ridgelines on what was essentially an ATV highway. I got to a point in no time. Thankfully my next point took me nearly back the same way, I raced down those trails and crossed over one of the major roads well ahead of what would be a normal time. I’d walk until 5-6 a.m. before knocking off for an hour or two nap inside my sleeping bag, eat something quick and head back out. Those extra few hours at night were well used. At about 2 a.m. I had about 15 clicks to go to the next point. You guessed, I railed along the side of the road and booked that distance easily getting there by 5 a.m.

Exhausted I pulled in and found a tent set up calling the sergeant out, to find a very good friend of mine, Art Ebbinger from 7th SFG. He was just getting up and had a big bowl of beef stew on his stove. As soon as he recognized me, he gave me the bowl and said that I needed it more than he did. It was the best bowl of stew I think I’ve ever had.

That was the formula I used for days and had just a final point which was my exfil point. I had to check in at my exfil point at 1300 hrs on a certain day. I was about 300 meters away from there and could see it from my vantage point in the woods a full 26 hours ahead of schedule. I was quite friggin’ pleased with myself. I was beat, tired as hell and hungry but in 26 hours I would hit my exfil window and get a ride back to the farmhouse that was the exercise HQs. Checking in early or later than my window entailed walking another 16 clicks back…I’d take the ride.

I planned on sleeping for about 12 of those right off the bat. Picking out a spot, I did the old rucksack flop behind a small ridge, my rucksack going into a tiny depression. Big sigh of relief, this would be home for about the next day or so and I took a big pull out of my rapidly dwindling supply of water. I pulled off my gloves and leaned my head back and caught some of the bright sun that was nice and warm out of the wind. All was right in the world right…wrong.

After a few seconds, I heard a twig snap to my front and just coming into view was a big red chow-chow dog. His big tuffs of fur on his face, which gave them the name “lion dog” in Asia, was covered with mud like he’d been digging around in something. He crested the small ridge and was only about 8-10 feet away. Right away, I sensed all the wrong body language. He dropped his head in a classic aggressive move. “Oh shit!”, I thought. He was far too close to roll over and get up with a ruck on. The comfortable little depression that flopped in now made that rucksack weigh a ton.

The dog launched himself right for my face. I grabbed two fistfuls of that ruff to keep his teeth off me, while I was kicking him with my feet. He didn’t stop and was thrashing about. Using his own feet, he clawed at my hands with his front paws and things weren’t going well at all. We tussled for what seemed like an hour but was in actuality no more than a few seconds. Finally, I got a hard kick under his ribs that made him yelp in pain.

He toppled over and it gave me just enough time to get out of those damned rucksack straps and get to my feet. My rifle which was still by my side was now used in a bayonet thrust, he scampered backward and a butt stroke missed, but in a continuation, I brought the barrel down square on his big ass head as hard as I could. The dog screamed in pain and staggered away and took off in the direction he had come.

Staying was no longer an option, my hands were ripped to shreds from that fat fucker’s front paws, I didn’t have enough water to clean them properly, I hoped that the SF guy at my exfil point was an SF Medic. Picking up my gear, I quickly hoofed the 300 meters over to the point.

As I walked up the SF NCO was digging something out of his ruck by his small campsite as walked up. “You don’t happen to be a medic, do you?” I asked. “Nope, Engineer, why,” he asked without turning yet. As he did, he looked at me and asked what had happened. I relayed the story and he reached into his rucksack and pulled out a Glock. “We aren’t supposed to have these here but I won’t tell if you don’t,” he said. “But if that fucker comes back, we won’t dick around.”

He gave me his five-gallon jug of water to clean up my hands. He had a basic first aid kit and he helped me clean up the gashes on my hands which were now painful as all creation after the adrenaline rush wore off. I told him my timetable for exfil. He said, “Just go behind the tent and flop down, we’ll worry about that tomorrow.” I did and pulled out my sleeping bag and in about 30 seconds was out like a light.

The sergeant thought about it and was worried that the dog might have been rabid and called it in. The two nearest road runners were there in about 20 minutes. Having talked with the medic at the farmhouse, they decided I should get back asap. Since I was already at my exfil point, I’d get a ride anyway. As I got in the back of the truck, one of the sergeants looked at my rifle and laughed. It was bent a great deal over that dog’s head. How he ran away is beyond me.

After an even more painful debriding by the medics at the farmhouse, they asked if I wanted rabies shots, I was fairly certain that his teeth never touched me. So I declined. I had a barn with a big hay pile as my bed for the next day. One by one the other officers were pulling in and we shared experiences and shot the breeze until the last ones staggered in. A couple of guys, hit the time limit to finish the course with just minutes to spare. We had all made it. For the Captains, it was on to Robin Sage, for the Warrants, we were back to Bragg to get pinned and move on to Panama.

A couple of valuable lessons were learned that day. Never again would I do the rucksack flop without automatically thinking of that damned dog and never ever relax. Because that is when karma can bite you on the ass.

Photo: US Army

Special Forces Communications Site, Batman and BOHICA

Life in Special Forces can be many things to many different people but one thing it never is/was/will be is boring. You are guaranteed to meet some fascinating, great people along the way. Some become lifelong friends who you’ll talk to all the time. For others, their time with you may be brief, like just a whisper in the wind, but experiences will last a lifetime. This is one of those.

As many who have read these pages can attest, I love to remember the humorous side of things in Group. It seemed like every day was a new hilarious experience as we Special Forces guys are if nothing else, an eclectic bunch.

Not long ago, I got an email from a ghost. A good friend from long, long ago, Tim Hodge from 7th SFG, was a guy that I, as well as many other comrades believed, had passed away. Tim was hurt down in El Salvador. He survived but many of us heard that he passed away in VA hospital in Cleveland. So, I get an email from a Tim Hodge, the first thing I asked was he a relative of a Tim from 7th SFG. Needless to say, I was amazed when he wrote back that he wasn’t a relative, that he was in fact, Tim.

Naturally, I was shocked and wrote back, like an idiot, “I thought you were dead!” He immediately responded that “Yes, the report of my untimely demise has been greatly exaggerated.” Tim has been confined to a wheelchair ever since being hurt, those many years ago but is alive and well and living on the Carolina shore.

Not long before he went down to El Sal, was a very busy time in 7th SFG. President Reagan was supporting the Contras in Nicaragua. We had at least a company at a time in Honduras. And other SF A-teams all over Central America. All of the deployed teams had commo requirements that required that they make at least two HF shots back to Ft. Bragg daily with the old DMDG and by manual Morse Code.

The 7th SFG Signal Company with their support radio operators was swamped. Traffic was going out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All of the battalions not deployed sent SF radio operators, detailed to Signal Company to send code and receive messages when teams were making their HF shots back. To a man, no one wanted to be there, but everyone made the best of the situation.

Tim Hodge and I were out there during that time. We made a deployment during that time, to put the base station as the Group Commander put it, on the Nicaraguan’s doorstep near the border of Honduras at Ojo de Agua. Or as we called it Ojo de Nada (eye of nothing). Back at Bragg, 7th SFG Signal Company had a BOP (Base Operation Platoon) Site on Chicken Road.

The SF guys ran in 12-hour shifts, (12-on, 24 off) and we ran like that for a couple of months. That routine got old in a hurry. All of the code had to go out manual, Signal Company had a machine that was supposed to send out Morse Code but it was broken so all of the code had to be sent manually. A radio operator would send out the burst transmission twice and then the 120 group message BTB (Blind Transmission Broadcast) and then do it all over again. Most traffic was dummy but intermingled were the actual commo with the teams.

We could only shut down in case of lightning in the area, which we’ll get to later. Naturally, the guys got tired of the crappy routine out there. One of the guys drew a perfect logo for the Batman comics and spread under the wings was a beautifully blended saying BOHICA. For those non-military types, BOHICA stands for Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.

Timmy Hodge loved it and made a stencil out of it. He put it over the front door of the trailer, over the doors of the radio vans and over the shed in the back. Back then the 7th SFG Sergeant Major was the “Mad Russian”, Ivan Ivanov. Some of you have probably heard stories of Ivanov. They’re all true. He was a true character. And his answer for everything or anyone who said something or did anything that he didn’t like was, “I’ll make you take a piss test!”

For some reason, the Group SGM was paranoid that the SF guys were drinking on duty at the BOP Site and would frequently pop in at the weirdest times to poke in the trash. No kidding, the 7th SFG SGM would open all the trash cans to look for empty Bud cans.

So, early on a hot afternoon, Hodge and I were running the day shift for the BOP Site and Ivanov comes peeling in with his driver. We were out there to greet him, and Ivanov knew and liked Tim so he naturally he directed all of his questions to him. “So, Timatee, are these guys drinking beeahs out here?” he asked. Ivanov made mention of my mustache which was never in regulation…ever.

“Hey Sergeant, you think you’re Pancho Villa?” He laughed at his own joke, then said, “Trim that fucker up or I’ll make you take a piss test.” After poking around the site and opening all the trash cans and finding no empty beer cans, he was happily getting ready to get out of our hair and on his way.

As he was walking to his vehicle, he stopped. “Hey Timatee, What the Fuck is Batman BOHICA mean?” Hodge never missed a beat. “Hey SGM,” Tim said. “Steve here is Sicilian, and BOHICA is an old Sicilian term for always ready.” My eyes got huge, but I said, happily for once…nothing.

Ivanov’s eyes narrowed and he paused for a second or two. He then nodded knowingly and laughed. “Fuckin’ A. I like that. BOHICA to you too.” As he was walking past one of the vans, he stuck his head inside. Two SF radio operators, Jerry S. and Ray G. were sending out traffic. Ivanov leaned in and said “BOHICA to you guys.” Ray was sending traffic on Morse but both he and Jerry’s eyebrows shot up and they both leaned around Ivanov to peer at us outside as if to say…”you two are in for it now.”

After the Sergeant Major left, we had a good, long laugh to include the guys in the van and promptly forgot about it. Some weeks later a mutual guy we knew at Group HQs told us that Ivanov would occasionally pop off with BOHICA, but no one dared question the Group SGM. Apparently, a while later in a meeting with several of the Group staff to include the Commander, “the Wag”, he repeated it.

The Group Commander, took out his trademark cigar, looked at him incredulously, and said, “What was that SGM?” Apparently Ivanov repeated the story about it being a Sicilian word but repeated that he couldn’t remember where he heard it from. When he was told what it truly meant, the Mad Russian was steamed. “When I find the fuckers that told me that, I’m gonna make them take a piss test!”

It was about a month later, I was going up to headquarters for something, my memory there escapes me. The parking lot was a dirt, potholed dump that was a quagmire of mud after it rained. As I was crossing the street, Hodge was coming out, and he said to me, “Turn around and keep walking.” I wheeled around and we went to my truck.

He told me the Mad Russian was on a rampage about something and it wasn’t a good time for the two of us to be seen by him together as it may trigger his memory. As we were pulling out of the lot and onto Ardennes St., Ivanov came out of the building and stared at us driving down the road. He gave us the squinty look and I knew he was trying to place the two of us but to no avail.

About six months later, I had re-enlisted and got a free semester of college. I was going full-time and hadn’t had a haircut or trimmed my mustache since entering school. My company Sergeant Major called me and told me that I needed to make a jump to stay current. The company was doing helicopter blasts out at Camp Mackall at about 4 a.m. the next day. He told me, they’d get me on the first few lifts so as not to miss school.

I weighed my options, said the hell with it, I wasn’t cutting my hair or trimming my mustache for a 4 a.m. manifest call in the dark. I showed up wearing a watch cap and a gore tex jacket as it was pretty chilly for a December morning. My company SGM saw me and shook his head, “Ivanov is out here, go stand over there.”

There were some Delta guys who were going to jump with our HALO teams, a few used to be in 7th SFG and it wasn’t an uncommon sight to see them straphang on a jump back then. I knew one of them and we nodded and he looked at me for a second like “what’s up with you?” A few seconds later, the Mad Russian sauntered over, he knew some of the Delta guys and said hello. And he turned to me in the dark, and said, “I told you a long time ago to trim that damned mustache, now I can’t! Laughing he walked off. Jimmy, the Delta guy I knew, asked me what was up with that, and I just laughed and said, “you don’t wanna know.”

But back above I mentioned the radio vans could only be shut down in a thunderstorm. Well, not long after Ivanov visited us, we had a boomer that was a big one. The sky got dark and we could see lightning in the distance and it was moving straight toward us. I walked outside and stuck my head in the vans and told the guys to shut down the vans.

The SF radio operator Ray G. was a wildman from 3/7 in Panama. He was sending actual traffic to a team and not a dummy message. “I’ll be done in just a few minutes Homes.” Okay, I said and walked inside. I called the Group Signal Officer and told him we were shutting down as per SOP. All of the guys were inside the trailer except Ray. The other SF guy said he was still sending the message.

I ran outside into the now raining compound and yelled, “Hurry up and shut it down, the storm is right on us.” With that, I ran back inside the trailer. I was talking with Tim Hodge when a tremendous bolt of lightning lit up the sky followed by an immediate boom that deafened us. Jimmy B. one of the other SF radio operators yelled out that van got hit.

We all piled outside expecting the worst. There was a huge hole in the side of the van. Pulling open the door, smoke poured out. Ray was still sitting in his chair, completely untouched by some miracle while the van looked like it had taken a 106mm round. One of the radios that were on the left wall had taken the full brunt of the lightning blast and flew across the van, about a foot in front of Ray’s nose and flew right thru the wall and into the compound. Everything in the van was fried. Ray’s leg key was fused.

The only damage to him, again by some miracle was his hair was completely standing on end, like you see in one of those cartoons. None of us could believe he survived let alone was untouched. We then shut all of the fried radios down, We called it into Group HQs and they sent out the Fire Department, and later an accident investigator. He kept telling the Group Signal Officer that the van had to be on and operating to have been fried that bad. Captain Winchester, (Somehow I remember him) told the investigator, “Look at the inside of that van. If anyone was in there, we’d be peeling his carcass off the walls.”

Somebody smartly spray painted over the Batman BOHICA stencils before the investigators came out. Ivanov didn’t come out there but many of the Group Staff officers did. The S-3 pulled Hodge and me aside and asked if the van was operational when it got zapped by lightning. “Of course it was,” we said. He laughed and said, “everyone keeps saying there is no way, but I knew it…but your secret is safe with me… He then looked at the fresh spray paint over the door… he smiled. “BOHICA,” he said.

Photo: Wikipedia

The Special Forces Branch is Created April 9, 1987

Today’s USSOCOM (United States Special Operations Command) operates in nearly 100 countries a day as Special Operations troops from all of the combined services do their part in defending U.S. interests abroad.

Special Operations troops are taking on the lion’s share of the fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan as they are an integral part of the United States strategy for defeating our enemies there. But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, the command (SOCOM) is a relative newcomer to the U.S. military. The creation of the Special Forces branch for Army officers on April 9, 1987, was a big moment for SF and changed everything.

Special Forces was created in 1952 as former members of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) were assigned with paratroopers and Rangers from the Army to fill out the ranks of the 10th Special Forces Group headed by Colonel Aaron Bank.

OSS and SF were tasked with training, equipping and leading indigenous forces in the art of guerrilla warfare. The mission of the 10th according to Bank was to “to infiltrate by land, sea or air, deep into enemy-occupied territory and organize the resistance/guerrilla potential to conduct Special Forces operations, with emphasis on guerrilla warfare.”

Special Forces grew steadily and the new unit was heavily involved in Vietnam with Special Forces A-Teams spread all over the country and found themselves a tremendously loyal ally in the Montagnard people of the mountains in Southeast Asia. By the time the war was over, SF soldiers had earned (from SF Assn) 20 Medals of Honor, one Distinguished Service Medal, 90 Distinguished Service Crosses, 814 Silver Star Medals, 13,234 Bronze Star Medals, 235 Legions of Merit, 46 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 232 Soldier’s Medals, 4,891 Air Medals, 6,908 Army Commendation Medals and 2,658 Purple Hearts.

After the Vietnam war wound down, the military cut back on special operations forces and tried to build a large conventional force for a large European land battle with the Soviet Union. As a result, the Army lost numerous Special Forces groups, the 1st, 3rd, 6th and 8th Special Forces groups were deactivated. The 7th SFG narrowly escaped the ax as the Pentagon, never a fan of “specialized” or “elite” units tried to wipe the slate clean of them.

The Special Forces side of the house in the military was left with just three active duty groups. The 5th, 7th and the 10th. Ronald Reagan’s election and the debacle at Desert One in Iran would change all of that. During the attempted rescue of American hostages in Iran, an ad-hoc force of Delta Force commandos, Army Rangers and Air Force and Marine pilots failed because the pilots weren’t specifically trained for that type of mission.

The planning, training, and execution were set back because the services weren’t accustomed to working together and no unified command existed. The government finally learned that the U.S. military needed a dedicated Special Operations force that was capable of handling any issues that arose, complete with air assets dedicated to Special Operations missions.

The Pentagon and Congress learned what Special Operations troops had long known and later became one of the Command’s “truths” that they live by.

Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur.

The Army created a Career Management Branch for their enlisted soldiers (CMF 18) in 1984. Now Green Berets in Special Forces groups would no longer have to serve “command time” as senior NCOs in conventional assignments. The Special Forces tab, recognizing being a graduate of SF training was adopted in 1983.

But the officers who served in Special Forces were still in No-Man’s Land. Serving more than one tour in Special Forces for officers was considered career suicide. Staying in SF would result in achieving no more than a Colonel’s rank. And those were few and far between. Something had to be done.

One of the weak parts of a Special Forces A-Team was the XO or 2LT position. Too many of the LTs didn’t have enough of a conventional background or experience to be effective enough. Many of the LTs were former NCOs who had gone thru OCS but there weren’t enough.

So the Army created the Warrant Officer Program for Special Forces troops not long after the CMF 18 was created. The LT’s slot was cut from the A-Teams and the slots would be filled by senior Special Forces NCOs who went thru the Warrant Officer course, held at Ft. Rucker and Ft. Bragg.

Finally, on April 9, 1987, the Army created the Special Forces Branch for Commissioned Officers (18A). Once a Captain or 1LT promotable applied he could attend the Special Forces Qualification Course and upon successful completion would become part of the SF Branch.

The results were a much better, more capable and more experienced core of officers and enlisted men. Troops dedicated solely to Special Forces operations. No longer would officers stick around only long enough to “get their ticket punched” and be forced to move on to other assignments and career fields. During this time frame, both the 1st and the 3rd Special Forces Groups were reactivated and have served with distinction. The Special Forces Command has a group area oriented to every specific part of the world complete with language capability and culturally experienced troops that know their area of operations, the people, and many of the personalities involved.

The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have put such a burden on the operational tempo (optempo) of the units that the Army authorized the 4th battalion for each of the Special Forces groups.

Today is a far cry from the lean years of the early-to-mid-1970s where Special Forces were on the brink of being eliminated by backward thinking officers. The troops today are overtasked as they’ve become a panacea by Washington to fix every problem that the country faces as they try to limit the amount of “boots on the ground” in the world’s hotspots.

But all of the SF troops come from the humble and austere beginnings of Aaron Bank and the original Special Forces troops formed on Smoke Bomb Hill in 1952.

Photo: US Army