Third, the academic center, schools, and training facilities were upgraded, and the selection, assessment, and training made more professional and tough.
And, fourth, an equipment-acquisition plan was instituted to upgrade all of the SF communications, weapons, aircraft, and training facilities in order to meet mission requirements.
The modern Special Operations force was now ready to go.
MAKING PROFESSIONALS
Or almost ready to go. As previously noted, one of SF’s problems was that many of the generation that emerged from Vietnam, or who came into the force after Vietnam, failed to attain the high levels of professionalism expected of men who make up a force that calls itself elite. In Vietnam, they’d operated out on the end of a string without much supervision. Others—recruited after the Army drawdown in the ’70s—were not the best group of men to begin with. Some of them had simply been looking for greater freedom and intrigue than they could get in conventional units, and had found their way into SF. Meanwhile, back then SF did not give a strong enough professional orientation to its younger officers. As a consequence, some of them picked up “outsider” attitudes, simply because that was what was in the air.
On the other side of the coin, it was hard for them to get promoted, and that also didn’t help their attitude any. Normally, if you were good, you moved through key positions in a variety of conventional units. Your performance and potential were recognized by people who counted, and in due course you were selected for promotion and for attendance at Leavenworth and later the War College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, or one of the other high-level service schools. Promotion and selection boards were composed exclusively of officers with conventional backgrounds.
Back in the ‘70s and the early ’80s, however, most officers were dead-ended in Special Forces. The personnel assignment people in Washington were content to drop them there and “forget” about them. In many ways, assignment to SF was career suicide, and so it was small wonder that some officers just figured: To hell with it. Such people simply reinforced the perception that special operators were not “real” Army.
ALL of this came to a head soon after the passage of Nunn-Cohen, during Jim Guest’s tenure as head of the Special Warfare Center and School. The four-star TRADOC commander sent Guest the following message: “I’m tired of having to apologize for Special Forces,” he announced in no uncertain terms. “I am tired of their reputation. I am tired of having to deal with their lack of professionalism. Are they in the Army or not?
“If you don’t do something about this, I am going to relieve you. I will run you out of the Army.”
Jim Guest says:
So that caught my attention. That’s when I realized that we couldn’t let things go on the old way, and that’s when we started saying, “Hey, we can’t mess around any longer outside the Army system; we’ve got to do things inside it. We’ve got to make ourselves more knowledgeable of it. That means, first of all, that we’ve got to convince the senior generals that we are professionals, that we are capable of doing special missions, and that we’re not just a camp of thugs.”
At the same time, we started retiring the soldiers who did not or could not meet the new standards, or who refused to meet them. Some looked at the future and decided that they did not want to be in a more structured force.
After that, we raised the standards. We wanted smarter people, so we established an IQ level—a high one. If you wanted to come into Special Forces, you had to have an IQ of at least 120.
Then we had to do something about training.
In those days, when someone volunteered for Special Forces and was chosen to take the Q Course, he received a permanent change of station to Fort Bragg. In other words, he was ours. If he dropped out, something had to be found for him at Fort Bragg. This caused problems: We had more washouts than people who made the grade, and we had to find places for all those people at Bragg. Second, we had a lot of money invested in these folks. We needed to find a way to reduce the initial investment while making sure we let the good ones come through. Finally, we were being used by a lot of people who simply wanted a ticket into the 82nd Airborne Division or somewhere else at Bragg, so they would volunteer for Special Forces and then immediately drop out of the training, some by voluntarily terminating themselves, some by just flunking it somewhere along the line. That had to stop.
What we did was persuade General Vuono, the Army Chief of Staff, to institute a new selection and assessment program that would come in before the Q Course. We’d recruit the new people, then they’d sign up and come to Bragg TDY (temporarily, not permanently) and go through a two-meek selection drill that would pinpoint those men who could operate on their own but could also subject themselves to a team for a mission. “Our idea,” as we explained to the Chief of Staff, “is to give them zero training—absolutely none. We want to get them out there and make them as uncomfortable as we can, put them through situations that are as ambivalent as we can make them, and stress them as much as they can bear. Then we want them to make a choice. Do I really want to be Special Forces or not?”
The course we came up with was designed by one of the men who had put together the selection course for our top special missions units. The volunteers were always in unbalanced situations. They never knew what to expect. They never knew what was going to happen to them. They’d think they were stopping for a meal break, and would get a mission two minutes before they were going to eat. “Move. Report here,”which might mean five miles of hard marching with heavy rucksacks.
We never told them where or why or how far they were going. We never said, “You’re going from here, and you’ll end up over here. ”Only, “You start here and go in that direction.” Then they’d march until they met somebody else, who’d send them on another leg of the journey.
People who can’t deal with ambiguous situations will fall out when they’re out there alone and confused in the country, particularly when we’ve got them under physical stress.
We didn’t harass them, the way they do at places like Jump School. We didn’t have to. Sure, one morning we gave them push-ups and things like that, just to show them, “yes, we can do that to you if we want to. But that’s not how we’re going to do it. We’re going to tell you what we want you to do and then see if you attempt to do it.”
At the end of the course, we had a thirty-mile forced march, and that pretty well tested them out. We had people who quit just doing that—both officers and NCOs.
Some men we flunked. Some of them could do everything we asked for physically, but we took them, out for psychological reasons. Some men were loners and could not handle the stress of operating in a team.
We were looking for solid men of character and integrity, motivated for all the right reasons—men of maturity and sound judgment, with the inner strength to do whatever was required under all conditions and circumstances, and who did not have to be “stroked” to do their best.
It worked. We truly began to get the very best men. On top of that, we’d begun indoctrinating them into Special Forces right up front. They were paying a price to be in Special Forces. They’d made a real investment, and it was going to mean something to them. The result was that we were able to fill our slots with quality replacements, who were soon recognized by the Army by receiving promotions faster than their peers in the conventional Army did.
Next, we rebuilt and upgraded our training facilities at Camp MacKall (adjacent to Fort Bragg), where we did the Q Course and some of the other courses. During World War II, the Army had trained nearly all of their airborne units there, but everything was left over from then—Navy Quonset huts, an old mess hall, and a latrine. We needed a new sewage and water system, new buildings, and new training facilities; and General Thurman made sure we got all this when he was TRADOC commander.
As for integrating an awareness of special operations into the service schools, such as the infantry school at Benning or the armor school at Knox, and at the advanced
courses at Leavenworth or the War College, not as much has been done there. I don’t see in their curriculum any focus on Special Forces, Civil Affairs, PSYOPs, and Special Operations Aviation and how they can be integrated on the battlefield. That was a major failure we set about to correct, and which still needs work.
We’ve got to put an advanced training and education slice into all those schools. We’ve got to make sure those folks are being taught an appreciation of SF, because sitting in those audiences are future CINCs, senior staff officers, senior planners, and senior subordinate commanders for the CINC—and they need to know what we can do.
We’ve done a lot to make Special Forces even more professional. Now the Army has to learn how to use then? most effectively.
CARL STINER-BETWEEN THE WARS
Meanwhile, Carl Stiner was progressing through several key assignments: a tour with Army headquarters in Washington; a battalion command with the 82nd Airborne Division, where he was also division operations officer; study at the Army War College, and a Masters degree in public administration; a tour in Saudi Arabia, as the assistant project manager for training and modernizing the Saudi National Guard-a Special Forces—type assignment; brigade command at Fort Benning, Georgia; and in 1979, he and twenty-two other handpicked officers were sent to Saudi Arabia and Yemen to help the Saudis put out the civil war between North and South Yemen—another SF-type assignment.
After returning from Yemen, he was again assigned to the Pentagon to work for General Edward G. “Shy” Meyer, the Army Chief of Staff.
On a Thursday afternoon toward the end of February 1980, General Meyer called Stiner into his office. “When you come in tomorrow, Carl,” he said, “I think you better wear your Class A uniform. And, oh, by the way, you better bring Sue in that afternoon. There’s going to be a special ceremony.”
“What kind of ceremony?” Stiner asked.
“I am going to promote you to Brigadier General,” the General answered, “and you are going to be assigned as the Chief of Staff of the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, MacDill AFB, Florida.”
The RDJTF was created by President Jimmy Carter in response to a perceived slight against the Saudis and other friendly Arabs. All major nations except the Arabs had a standing U.S. unified command to look out for their security interests. “Why not us?” the Arabs had told Carter. Two years later, the RDJTF became the United States Central Command, and assumed responsibility for U.S. security interests in Southwest Asia.
The next day, Stiner, wearing his Greens, brought Sue in for the 3:00 P.M. ceremony.
When it was over, Meyer told Stiner to report the next day—Saturday—to Lieutenant General P. X. Kelley, who was to be the commander of the not-yet-activated RDJTF.
At that meeting, Kelley told Stiner to leave for MacDill on Monday, write the activation order on the way down, and publish it when he got there. This would activate the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, effective March 1, 1980.
When Stiner showed up at MacDill, he was met by a total staff of four enlisted personnel, but over the next couple of months, these were augmented by 244 handpicked men—mainly officers from all the services. Stiner remained there until May 1982, during which time he and the staff formed and trained the most effective joint command in existence, and wrote and exercised three major war plans for Southwest Asia (one variant became the foundation for Operation DESERT STORM seventeen years later).
In June 1982, he was reassigned to the 82nd Airborne Division as the Assistant Division Commander for Operations, now working for Major General James J. Lindsay In August 1983, a call came for him to report the following day to General Jack Vessey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had another deployment.
This time, Lebanon.
VIII
THE LEBANON TRAGEDY
In September 1983, Lebanon began a rapid and uncontrollable descent into hell.
Carl Stiner was present during the worst days of it. “What came to pass in Lebanon defies logic and morality,” he says, “but it clearly exemplifies what can happen when ethnic biases, religious differences, and security interests are used as a catalyst by outside powers for achieving political gain.”
In August of that year, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Jack Vessey, sent Brigadier General Carl Stiner to Lebanon as his man on the scene and to help implement the U.S. military assistance program (Stiner’s experience as a military adviser in Saudi Arabia and Yemen surely was a big factor in generating this assignment). In that capacity, Stiner worked with Lebanese authorities to try to stop the nation’s descent. They did not succeed, but not for want of skill, intelligence, and goodwill. The forces of chaos simply overwhelmed everyone else.
Though Stiner’s assignment to Lebanon was not specifically a Special Forces mission, it shared many characteristics of such missions—including military advice at the tactical level, political management (both military and diplomatic) at the strategic levels, and the need for cultural sensitivity.
ROOTS
The tragedy of Lebanon was the result of forces long at work:
Following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey’s defeat in World War 1, the League of Nations put Lebanon under temporary French control. France promised Lebanon complete independence in 1941, but was not able to grant it until 1943, and French troops did not leave the country until 1946.
Lebanon has a complex ethnic mix. At the time of its independence, the country was more or less evenly divided between Muslims and Maronite Christians, and the Muslims were divided between Sunnis and Shiites—the Sunnis were more moderate and prosperous, while the Shiites tended to be more radical and politically volatile. There was also a large, similarly volatile sect called the Druze, whose beliefs combine Christian and Muslim teachings; about 400,000 Druze now inhabit the mountainous area of Lebanon and Syria. Add these all together, with long-simmering feuds of every kind, and it was a recipe for trouble.
In establishing the Lebanese government in 1943, the French tried to stave off ethnic conflict by setting up a power-sharing arrangement that favored the Sunnis and the Maronite Christians—the most conservative and “stable” of the Lebanese factions. The National Pact of 1943 used a 1932 census (probably the last census to reflect a near-even mix between Christians and Muslims) to determine the ethnic and religious makeup of the government. Key positions were filled by applying a formula derived from that census. The presidency was reserved for Maronite Christians, the prime minister position for the Sunni Muslims, and so on. The Shiite Muslims and Druze were left out of any position of meaningful responsibility.
By the time the government was established, the changing demographics—the sharp rise in Shiites, for instance—had already rendered the formula obsolete.
Despite the potentially unstable ethnic situation, Lebanon quickly flourished as a nation. With its two major seaports and its strategic location at the eastern end of the Mediterranean astride traditional trade routes, it soon became known as the gateway to the orient—and Beirut as “the Paris of the Middle East.” Trading was the main engine of its economy. Major companies established offices, and Beirut soon became the banking center of the Middle East, with approximately eighty-five commercial banks.
1 1970, however, another chaotic element was added—the Palestinians.
In 1947, the United Nations divided Palestine in two: Part would become the home for the Jews displaced as a result of World War II; the other part would continue as the Palestinian homeland. The Jews accepted the UN decision; the Arabs rejected it.
On May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent state of Israel, and the next day neighboring Arab nations invaded it. The invasion failed, and when the fighting ended, Israel held territory beyond the original UN boundaries, while Egypt and Jordan held the rest of Palestine. More than 600,000 Palestinians who had lived within Israel’s new borders fled the Jewish state and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries, mainly Syria and Jordan.
The Pal
estinians, now a people without a homeland, continued their armed resistance from bases in those countries, but their presence and their military activities against Israel became a major political problem, particularly for Jordan. By 1970, the problem had gotten out of control, and the Jordanian government dealt with it violently, by forcibly expelling the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
The approximately 10,000 PLO fighters, the fedayeen, initially settled in the southern part of Lebanon, bringing thousands of Palestinian refugees with them, exacerbating a situation which had already been particularly volatile for over a decade. In 1958, Arab nationalists (mostly Shiites, though some Druze also participated) had rebelled against the pro-Western government of Christian President Camille Chamoun. Chamoun asked the United States for help, and about 10,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers landed on Lebanon’s beaches. This show of force helped the government restore order, and the troops were withdrawn.
After the 1958 crisis, the next Lebanese president, Fouad Chehab, made a serious effort to mend fences with the Arabs: He gave Muslims more jobs in the government, established friendly relations with Egypt, and worked to raise living standards.
Although the Lebanese government had always sympathized with the Palestinian cause, their sympathy never translated into strong support; nor did they welcome the new Palestinian presence—they were simply too weak to keep them out. Soon the PLO began launching attacks against the settlements of northern Israel from their base in southern Lebanon. As the Israelis retaliated against PLO strikes, the Shiites in southern Lebanon suffered greatly, aggravating the hatred that already existed.