Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

  I don’t remember much about that trip, because we slept most of the way. But I do remember that at about noon the buses pulled into a Howard Johnson’s restaurant somewhere in central Georgia (no doubt arrangements had been made in advance), and an announcement was made: “We will be here one hour. This is your last chance to eat before arriving at the front.”

  I will never forget the surprised look of the families there, obviously just out of church services, when we stormed into the place wearing our camouflage paint and fatigues. It did not take them long, though, to recognize who we were, especially when the Ranger lieutenant accompanying us announced, “Rangers, you have fifty minutes until you go back on the buses.”

  I don’t know how it was possible to serve so many in such a short time, but the restaurant staff managed it, and we were all well fed.

  Back on the buses and back to sleep again.

  At about 1600 hours, the buses pulled off the highway where a gravel road ran off into the woods and several empty two-and-a-half-ton trucks were parked. A Ranger captain was standing in the middle of the road. As soon as we’d dismounted and formed up in front of him, he advised that it was not safe to take the buses any farther because of enemy infiltration teams in the area. We would have to take the trucks. He also indicated that the beds of the trucks had been sandbagged and that we should be prepared for ambush. Since we didn’t have any weapons, we were glad to see two armed guards with each truck. Even though we didn’t have our individual weapons, we had rehearsed counteraimbush drills from a truck or convoy many times, so we knew what to do.

  We had probably gone no more than five miles until we were ambushed by a platoon of dug-in “enemy.” Of course, it was all explosives and blank fire, but they really shot us up good. We quickly dismounted and dived in a ditch alongside the road. When the smoke had cleared, we were assembled back on the road and told that our trucks had been destroyed and that we would have to run the rest of the way—about five miles and mostly uphill.

  At the base camp (it was in a beautiful spot, as it happened), we were fed a great evening meal—all we could eat. Then we drew our weapons and individual equipment and squared away our sleeping tents. As in Florida, we wouldn’t see much of them for the next three weeks.

  The next morning started with rappelling instruction, which was conducted under Master Sergeant Stinchcomb, who knew more about rock climbing and rappelling, and about ropes and how to use them, than any man I have ever met.

  First we learned how to tie every knot needed for Hanger-type operations. Then we trained in rappelling until we’d mastered all the rappelling techniques—first on the lower cliffs (thirty to fifty feet) and then on higher ones (sixty to eighty feet). Finally, we were required to rappel with our Ranger buddy hanging on our back.

  After the rock work, there was instruction in the mountain adaptations to already learned skills, such as land navigation, wilderness survival, and operational survival.

  Though the basic land navigation techniques still applied, keeping track of distances traveled in rugged mountainous terrain is more complex and challenging than on level ground. You can never be sure of the length of your pace, for example.

  Then came instruction on wilderness survival. In the mountains, the snakes arc different than the ones in Florida—copperheads and rattlesnakes rather than water moccasins and coral snakes. And in the mountains you don’t find the same edible plants and berries that you do in the swamps.

  We also got instruction on avoiding detection. We were taught to stay away from danger areas, such as roads and built-up areas (towns, houses, etc.), and how to cross danger areas (open fields and roads) without being observed.

  We also patrolled, day and night, just as in Florida. But the rough terrain and heavy loads (like machine guns) some patrol members had to carry made a big difference, requiring more careful planning of patrol routes and more time for reaching the objective.

  As was the case throughout the entire Ranger instruction program, every patrol had to be planned and rehearsed in every detail to ensure that it would go right, and every student had to know every detail of the plan. Although a patrol leader and assistant patrol leader were designated in advance, you never knew when you may be called on to be the patrol leader—most usually in the most demanding situations, such as the middle of a firefight. A member of the Ranger cadre (called a lane grader) accompanied every patrol. This was usually a first lieutenant or a senior NCO, but sometimes both, depending on the size of the patrol. Their job was to evaluate the performance of every member of the patrol, and to be present in case of an emergency or life-threatening situation.

  Meanwhile, the aggressors (the bad guys) were all over the place, knew the terrain better than we did, and had co-opted most of the civilians that lived in the area, which meant we could not trust anyone.

  The weather became a major factor in early December.

  Our last patrol was to be a long-range combat patrol to simulate the “blowup” of the Toccoa Dam, which was about fifty or sixty miles from our base area. Before we left there’d been reports of bad weather coming in—all the more reason to go.

  Our platoon-size patrol (about forty men) was infiltrated late one evening by helicopter to a landing zone about three miles south of the Toccoa River and thirty miles upstream from the dam. As we moved quickly to the river, night was falling and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Because of the cold, the patrol leader decided that we would construct and cross on a three-rope bridge, and that way keep dry.

  Though the water was up to his neck in some places and running pretty fast, the designated swimmer waded to the other side without incident, dragging the main rope as he went. He attached it to a tree and came back for the two smaller ropes that would serve as the handrails. Once he had dragged these over, it did not take us long to make the bridge ready to go, and we began to cross.

  Maybe ten people had made it to the other side when we were ambushed by a squad-sized enemy element from the far side of the river (no doubt the aggressor had been given the location of our crossing site). This was the most vulnerable position we could possibly have been in. We had very little ability to defend ourselves.

  The only safe thing the patrol leader could do was order everybody into the water and have them quickly wade to the other side.

  The firefight didn’t last long, but most of us were wet by then, and it was snowing—really coming down. As the patrol regrouped and we headed out on our route, the wind picked up, the temperature dropped even more, and somewhere around midnight, our clothing began to freeze. At this point, the Ranger lane grader (a staff sergeant) told the patrol leader to start running the patrol in order to minimize the possibility of hypothermia—a wise decision!

  An hour or so later, the snow was maybe four inches deep, and a few of the students began to lose it, my buddy among them. He dropped down in the snow and started begging for someone to knock his brains out with an entrenching tool. He was a strong, determined officer, and I knew he didn’t mean what he was saying. And besides, we weren’t even carrying entrenching tools.

  1 had a notion to try to carry him, but 1 instantly realized that wouldn’t work, because I already had the .30-caliber machine gun to lug. I slapped him to try to bring him back to his senses, and he came out of it enough to raise himself to his knees. But that wasn’t enough. The patrol was running off and leaving us. I knew I had to get him moving somehow before they got too far ahead of us, so I gave him a good kick in the rear. He got up, staggered, mumbled something, started trotting, and then started running again. I kept him in front of me, prodding him, until daybreak, when he snapped out of it. Though he went down two or three more times, the same treatment worked each time. (Later he had no recollection of that night.)

  Other students had similar problems, but the other buddies did what they had to do to keep going.

  At daylight, it was still snowing hard, the ceiling was down to the treetops, and most of our compasses were too fog
ged up to read. Fortunately, enough of them worked to keep us on course.

  All that day we trudged through the mountains, still on course. By midafternoon the snow had drifted so deep that the patrol had to rotate its strongest members to the “point man” position to break the trail.

  At nightfall, we were supposed to rendezvous with a partisan band to get our supply of food. We arrived at the rendezvous point, set up security, and waited for an hour; but no partisans came, and of course there was no food.

  At that point, the lane grader decided that since we were so deep in the enemy’s rear and the weather was so bad, it might be safe enough to begin moving on roads. The road he brought us to was a welcome sight, and it was obvious that no one had traveled it since the snow had begun. So we were able to move more rapidly, to make up for lost time.

  Around midnight 1 began to have problems of my own. I didn’t exactly lose it, because I kept moving ahead—I kept walking and walking. But as I trudged along, I had no idea who I was or where I was going. I just knew I had to keep going, and stay with the other guys. I guess I was in this delirious state for three to four hours.

  Come daylight, we left the road and continued moving about 500 yards into the woods and parallel to the road. But when night fell, we were back on the road again. Though the snow had stopped, what was on the ground was knee deep; and it was cold—I’d guess it was near zero. We hadn’t eaten since we’d launched a couple of days back, and people were getting pretty hungry.

  About 2200 hours, we came upon a farmhouse and heard some hogs. The word came back asking if anyone knew how to kill and dress a pig. “I can,” I said, and went forward. But when I saw that the “pig” weighed about two hundred pounds, 1 knew I would have to have some help—three more men. One guy had to grab him by the snout to keep him from squealing. One guy had to grab him by the ears to steady his head. And one guy had to grab him by the tail and hold on, to keep him from swishing his body around and throwing the rest of us all over the hog lot.

  Though no one else in the patrol had any experience with hogs, everyone was so hungry it didn’t take long to scare up the three volunteers. I appointed each to his duties (snout man, cars man, and tail man), gave them a quick briefing about what to do (we all had to act simultaneously), and we entered the hog lot. This was going to be a challenge, I knew, but we had to accomplish the mission if we wanted to eat.

  Meanwhile, the patrol leader went about establishing a security perimeter around the farmhouse.

  We climbed over the fence into the hog lot, skirted another hog house, which contained a pair of hogs that were bigger than the one we’d picked, and jumped on our hog. At that point, the ears man did his part right and hung on; but the snout and tail men didn’t do so well, and the hog started squealing and thrashing about. The only thing I could do was jump on him myself and stick him in the throat. He and I rolled around in the hog manure (which was not all frozen) for a couple of minutes, but after a time the hog went limp. Then I quickly gutted and quartered him so we could carry our dinner more easily.

  Meanwhile, all this commotion had brought the farmer running out onto his snow-covered porch, but a machine gun opened up (not to hurt him, but to catch his attention), and he dropped flat on his back and did a “crab walk” back inside the house. I felt kind of bad taking his hog, but learned later that the Army had an agreement with the farmers to reimburse them for anything the Ranger students took for food.

  Once I had the hog quartered, we grabbed our food and headed deep into the woods, then built a fire and had roasted pig. A welcome least!

  We continued on the rest of the night and the next day.

  At about 2200 hours that night, we arrived at our attack position, about a mile from the Toccoa Dam. A reconnaissance patrol sent out to scout for enemy positions returned around midnight and reported that an enemy position with a campfire was about 100 meters north of the dam and close to our planned route. For that reason, the patrol leader decided to change our route and send out a six-man patrol to neutralize the enemy position (I was on that team). We would do that when the rest of the patrol was in place to attack the dam.

  II-hour was to be 0500 hours. After the attack, we were supposed to make it to a clearing about a mile away, and at 0600 hours, helicopters would extract us from there.

  The entire patrol set out from the attack position at about 0300 hours—moving very cautiously. An hour later, my team split off and headed for the enemy position north of the dam. As we approached it, we could see the fire and at least two aggressor guards near the ditch line on the far side of the road. They were in a cut, and the bank behind them was about ten feet high. We crossed the road and circled behind them, using the bank as cover, then crawled the last couple hundred yards until we were directly above them.

  At 0555 hours, the message came over the radio that the rest of the patrol was in position to launch the attack. Moments later, four of us jumped off the bank, right on top of the bad guys, and slammed them to the ground. Before they knew what happened, we had them bound and gagged.

  About that time, we heard the rest of the patrol launch the attack on the dam—although there wasn’t much shooting, maybe ten rounds or less. This sounded a little strange (we normally put out a great volume of fire), but we had been using our weapons as pikes in order to climb the steep, ice-frozen slopes, and the end of most of our rifle barrels had been too plugged with ice to fire.

  Meanwhile I took advantage of the fire the bad guys had built and turned my back to it. I stood that way for what couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes—but that was long enough for me to doze off and fall over backwards into the fire, igniting my field jacket. Thank goodness for the snow. Needless to say, I woke up in a hurry, and managed to roll over and put it out—though the entire back of my jacket was burned out.

  I didn’t have much time to reflect on that. It would soon be daylight, and we had to get over to our pickup zone before dawn.

  We began to run.

  By then the weather had begun to clear, and although the weather had delayed the completion of our mission a couple of days, the helicopters were coming for us. And as we approached the clearing, we could hear the roar as they approached. Then snow was blowing everywhere as they set down—the most beautiful sight I had seen in seven weeks.

  WE flew back to the Ranger Base Camp at Dahlonega, where we were met by quite a reception. The Ranger department commander, a colonel, was there, along with a team of doctors and a chaplain. The docs checked us all, but found nothing major (there was a little frostbite—ears, fingers, and toes). Next came a hot meal-all we could cat. Then we were put on the buses and sent back to Fort Benning.

  On the way back, I learned from one of the Ranger instructors that the two men we had pounced on by the fire had actually been civilian members of the waterworks fixing a busted water main. They had not been “bad guys” at all.

  The next morning we had a company formation to find out who had earned the Ranger Tab. No guests were invited. When your name was called, you stepped forward. When the calling was done, approximately twenty men were left behind who’d gone all the way through the training, but for some reason had failed to earn the tab. 1 felt sorry for them, but that’s the way it is. The standard has to be met.

  TRAINING

  Carl Stiner has always been known in the Army as an expert trainer, and many of his Army assignments directly involved training. Here are some of his thoughts on that experience:

  EARLY in my career, I realized that military training offers a unique opportunity—not only for preparing men for combat, but for preparing them for the most important of life’s values: personal attributes, principles, ethics, motivation for the right reasons, love of country, and seff-respect—in other words, the values that should be manifested in every citizen of our great nation. No other institution in our society can possibly provide the same kind of environment, together with the caring and dedicated leadership, for molding and shaping t
he young men and women who elect to serve their country. Not every soldier will turn out as we hope, but the great majority certainly will, and they will always be grateful for the opportunity and the caring that gave them a greater perspective on life.

  In my judgment, training is the essential element for the readiness of any unit in any service. The very best equipment is great to have, and I’ll never turn any down, but well-trained people win wars. No impersonal piece of equipment or technology can ever replace a well-trained soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, or Coast Guardsman.

  In our army, the objective of training must be to maximize the competency and proficiency of every individual and unit.

  To that end, a commander must be personally involved in the development and structuring of his unit’s training program. This must be based on a detailed analysis of the unit’s mission requirements. From this is derived the Mission Essential Task List (METL); and then from this METL, all subordinate units at every level develop a METL of their own.

  Next comes an analysis to determine the specific tasks inherent in the METL for successfully accomplishing their respective mission, and under what “conditions” and to what “standards” each must be performed successfully.

  These critical elements, “METL, tasks, conditions, and standards,” are the “core” element of the training program. This is the Army system, and 1 know of no better system in any army in the world.

  Once the training program has been determined, we must turn to the way training is conducted. That is what makes the ultimate difference between soldiers who will survive and win in combat and those who don’t.

  I, myself, have always enjoyed tough, realistic training, and have made it my number-one priority in all the units I have commanded. Of course, “taking care of your people” ranks equally; the two are inseparable and synonymous. I have never had a soldier complain about too much tough, realistic training. Soldiers understand its value when it comes time to lay their life on the line.