Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces

  In years to come, a single SF soldier may be able to task an earth-orbiting photo-reconnaissance satellite to photograph a target, which will then be transmitted in real time to a strike aircraft or artillery unit for immediate action.

  Computers

  Computers have become as necessary to Special Forces units as they are to all other trained professionals. Laptop machines are found in abundance on training missions and at forward bases, while palmtop units often go on missions with ODAs. The most popular are the small and rugged Hewlett-Packard 300- and 600-series machines, which can be hooked up directly to SATCOM transmitters to send files and reports. But these will surely give way to newer palmtop computers and personal data assistants as they become smaller, more powerful, and more rugged.

  Digital Cameras

  Digital photography, which can send nearly real-time reconnaissance data back to command authorities, is a fairly recent (but very exciting) development. Digital cameras take photos with a photo-sensitive computer chip, which converts the image into a computer file (normally into JPEG format). This can then be loaded onto a computer and uploaded by a SATCOM system to virtually anywhere in the world. Right now, Special Forces teams use a mix of commercial digital camera gear—both high-end Kodak/Nikon units and cheaper Casio devices.

  During a recent exercise at Fort Polk, I saw a photo of an Opposing Force aircraft being displayed just minutes after it was taken over two hundred miles away in Mississippi. This is exactly the kind of timely and high-quality data that customers of Special Forces services want.

  Plan on seeing digital cameras in every SF soldier’s kit bag soon.

  Transportation

  Once a Special Forces soldier is properly clothed, armed, equipped, and packed, a way has to be found to get him to where he is needed—one of the most expensive elements, it turns out, of Special Forces operations, and an enormous and complex planning issue for the SFC leadership. As long as missions continue to be sent to every part of the world except Antarctica, transportation will remain a difficult challenge for SFC.

  Transportation can be looked at in three phases: First, you have to get forces out of the U.S. and into the general vicinity of their target. Then you have to get to the actual operating area and onto the ground. And finally, you have to be able to move around on the ground.

  Airlift from the U.S. Transportation Command generally handles transport to the general vicinity of the target, while the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) or Air Force Special Operations can get you into the operating area. Getting onto the ground and to the targets is more complicated, though.

  Parachutes

  Unlike the troopers of the 82nd Airborne Division and 75th Ranger Regiment (who enter a target area in relatively large numbers), Special Forces soldiers need to have a high degree of precision and control when they jump from aircraft. To accomplish this goal, they use the MC-4 steerable parachute system, which can be “jumped” up to altitudes of over 30,000 ft./9,150 m. These High Altitude, High Opening (HAHO) jumps can take place up to 25 miles/40 km. from a target area, providing covert entry into high-threat areas.

  All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs)

  Though SF soldiers are used to walking, and prefer it for most occasions that call for a stealthy approach to a target, there are times when they need help moving their gear and supplies to hide sites or cache sites. To provide this muscle, SFC has procured a number of lightweight, compact, and powerful four-wheeled All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs). These can be carried on aircraft, including helicopters. (A number of them can be carried on a C-130 Hercules transport or MH-47 Chinook helicopter.) They can also be dropped by cargo parachute. Small trailers towed by ATVs can then tote heavy loads of water, ammunition, and other critical material quietly and quickly to where these are needed.

  Ground Mobility Vehicle

  Long-range mounted patrol and reconnaissance operations have long been the specialty of the British Special Air Service (SAS), which began such rides in North Africa during World War II. Later, during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, SAS teams mounted aboard specially configured Land Rovers ranged across the Iraqi desert, hunting SCUD missile launchers, blowing up critical targets, and generally raising merry hell wherever they went.

  Though the Special Forces have lacked a tradition of these operations, they have in recent times taken notice of this valuable capability and have decided to procure their own long-range patrol vehicle.

  The Ground Mobility Vehicle (GMV), a heavily modified variant of the M1097 “Heavy Hummer” version of the HMMWV, is well suited to operations in all kinds of environments around the globe. Each GMV, which is modified at an Army depot, is equipped with a modified suspension system, which can be compressed to allow stowage aboard the MC-47 Chinook helicopters of the 160th SOAR. They can also be carried by C-130s, and even parachuted into an area, if that is required. Best of all, they are no larger than a normal HMMWV, meaning they pose no special problems for handling and carriage during deployments.

  A Ground Mobility Vehicle assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group in Kuwait. This vehicle is rigged on a pallet to be dropped from a cargo aircraft, and is used to support Kuwaiti Army operations.

  JOHN D GRFSHAM

  Once on the ground, the GMV can carry enough fuel, food, and water to support three SF soldiers for up to a week of mounted operations. Though GMVs are each the size of a large sports utility vehicle, they are surprisingly difficult to spot when properly painted or camouflaged; and since most GMV movement would be at night, they are very stealthy vehicles. Equipment includes a mount for heavy weapons (M249, M240G, Mk. 19, etc.), a full radio suite, and a GPS receiver (allowing it to move quietly with pinpoint precision even at night, while hiding under built-in camouflage netting during the day).

  The first units were delivered to forward-deployed elements of the 5th Special Forces Group in Kuwait, who used them to provide close air support to Kuwaiti Army units. The 3rd Special Forces Group will get theirs over the next few years, and other groups may obtain GMVs down the road, depending upon their future needs and responsibilities.

  Rental Vehicles

  Very often, SFC will authorize the rental of commercial vehicles and cars to support training missions and transportation requirements in permissive environments. This is normally done through rental companies like Hertz and Avis, much as you would on any normal business trip. The vehicles most in demand by Special Forces personnel are, of course, sports utility vehicles and trucks, which give them the off-road capabilities they treasure without requiring the movement of a HMMWV from the U.S.

  When it was first issued back in 1952, the SF soldier’s rucksack was a pretty basic piece of gear. Since then, it has gotten a great deal larger, it carries vastly more, and has even become “techier.” Despite all these changes, the rucksack remains the symbol of Special Forces mobility, and it will continue to be that into the new century—a link back to SF roots to a time when computers were only found in laboratories and “digital” referred to your fingers. What the next generation of rucksack will look like I cannot say. What I do know is that whatever form it takes, SF soldiers will still be carefully packing it before going downrange on missions.

  U.S. Army Special Forces Command

  De Oppresso Liber

  “To Free the Oppressed”

  Official Motto of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command

  El Salvador is a nation named for “The Savior” ... where, until scarcely a decade ago, the Savior seemed far, far away. For its citizens, the tragic little Central American country was hell. Year after year during the 1960s and ‘70s, its doom was to tear itself apart in an ugly, vicious, and seemingly endless civil war. Thousands of lives were lost, many in combat, but many also in massacres and acts of vengeance.

  On one side was the right-wing (thus anticommunist, thus U.S-backed) government, derived from the ranks of the old land-owning families who had formed the ruling elite for generations, and supported by the National Police
and the Army (derived from the ranks of the small middle classes), who backed the government in the hope of themselves climbing into the power elite. On the other side was an irregular army of Marxist guerrillas, operating in the countryside and supported by Fidel Castro’s Cuba and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. In between was the (more or less) 80% of the population who simply wanted a good, secure life, with jobs and health and education for their children—and including moderate politicians, members of the clergy, peasants, and Indians.

  The government forces—every bit as vicious and repressive as the Serbs in Kosovo—were intent on crushing the rebellion, no matter who stood in their way (or were perceived to stand in their way), or how many lifeless bodies were scattered across the countryside. Army and National Police “Death Squads” roamed the country, killing even clergy members and relief workers trying to spread the word of peace across the troubled land.

  The rebels were no less vicious and violent.

  Following the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, the new administration (under an initiative headed by Secretary of State Haig and Director of Central Intelligence Casey) decided to do something about the mess in El Salvador ... specifically, to send Special Forces personnel there to provide training and advice to the Army and National Police Forces.

  Sending military assistance missions to El Salvador and other Central American countries was one of the few actions available to the administration that did not require congressional approval ... unlikely to come from the then Democrat-controlled Congress. (Military deployments of less than 180 days require no congressional oversight or approval, an administrative loophole that still continues.)

  The official goal of these ODAs was to help the military forces of El Salvador become more professional and better able to defend themselves against the leftist threats. Their mission, in other words, was not to defeat the rebels. Thus, the Green Berets in El Salvador had no authority or rules of engagement that allowed them to take offensive action (though of course they could defend themselves). Neither were the ODAs there to prop up the Salvadoran government against the legitimate political opposition of that country.

  At this point, things began to get interesting.

  Though the Reagan people were of course hardly friendly to the left-wing insurgents, the government in place could hardly be called a benevolent, representative democracy, either. What was needed was a potentially positive third force. And to this end, the Reagan administration made an inspired choice. It seems that they viewed the Army and National Police as “centers of gravity,” which, if reformed, could change the course of the national leadership.

  Therefore, the job of the SF ODAs was to teach Salvadoran government forces both the military skills needed to better prosecute the war, and the ethical and moral lessons that would inspire them to operate according to civilized standards. Members of the 7th Special Forces Group—(Airborne) (7th SFG [A]) carried on this work for almost a dozen years ... and paid a high price for it, in lives and in blood.

  Their blood and their labors bore fruit.

  Sometime during the late 1980s, the Salvadoran Army tried acting in other than brutal and repressive ways toward their fellow countrymen; they began to halt activities of their death squads48 and to actually show respect for basic human rights. These actions resulted in pleasant side effects.

  First, support for the rebels eroded, and the Army started having a real effect against the rebels in the countryside. (The cities and towns, it seems, were never especially vulnerable to them, since the Army and National Police always had “home court advantage” there.)

  Then, when the tide turned against them, the rebels asked for—and were promptly granted—peace talks ... to good result. By the end of the Cold War, the peace treaty was a done deal, the civil war had ended, and today there is a coalition government, with elements of the entire political spectrum (including a moderate middle) sharing power.

  Though it would be on the far side of realistic to claim that the ODAs on their own changed the course of a nation (the greater part of the credit must go to the Salvadoran people themselves), the Special Forces detachments in El Salvador surely had a major effect. These special men did their jobs ... even when they had to somehow teach the right path to thugs and just this side of genocidal madmen; even at the cost of the lives of companions and friends, and even after clergy massacres in El Salvador had turned U.S public opinion against our involvement in that country, and Congress was within an inch of pulling the funding and authorization plug on SF missions there. (Congress has only one control over such missions, which is funding.)

  In the face of all that—and worse—they trained an Army ... and redirected the moral path of a nation. (This, by the way, is standard policy for SF soldiers. They try to teach good lessons, even to bad people!)

  There’s an interesting corollary to all this:

  In the light of the above, you’d think American Special Forces troops would be far from welcome to the Salvadoran guerrillas. In fact, that’s not quite the case.

  Starting with the initial peace talks, and continuing with the follow-up negotiations that are still going on, the rebel opposition forces have insisted that each meeting include U.S. Special Forces soldiers as part of the mediation team. The reason? The rebels only trust the government representatives to negotiate in good faith when SF soldiers are present.

  It’s hard to imagine a greater compliment for the Special Forces soldiers who went to fight in that dirty little war.

  El Salvador is not the only Special Forces success story. America’s “quiet professionals” continue to take on seemingly impossible missions and bring them off ... not by overwhelming the “ignorant, good-for-nothing natives” with the mindless, violent, macho, “Ramboid” trash you see in movies or television. Instead, they do the job more often with concrete acts of kindness, aid, conciliation, cooperation, and compassion than with guns.

  That most of us know little of their exploits is primarily due to the desire of Special Forces personnel to practice their trade discreetly. Let’s lift the veils of discretion and take a look at some of the vital tasks that Special Forces Command and their supporting units do around the world.

  But first, it’s worth examining how the guys in Special Forces came into that very special spirit—that esprit—that distinguishes them from every other military force in the world.

  Touchstones: Traditions and Heritage

  All elite military units are clannish ... tribal. But few are more clannish and tribal than the U.S Special Forces (their reticence is a function of this).

  They will, however, talk to one another.

  Special Forces revere their achievements. They live and breathe their history and their traditions. These provide the “glue” that holds them together in the field. But they revere especially those extraordinary individuals who’ve given everything they have in behalf of their fellow SF soldiers, their mission, and their personal honor.

  Of course, it would be hard for SF personnel to avoid the inspiration of those who came before them, who sacrificed their lives to save a hopeless situation, another SF soldier, or sometimes an innocent bystander who just got in the way. But the physical presence of equally heroic Special Forces personnel who lived to tell the story is what truly gives life and spirit to the organization. These people have become almost mystical touchstones to SF soldiers in the teams; and their stories provide the common language for experienced SF hands.

  Thus, the many-times decorated warrior heroes from earlier years are often invited to spend time with the new SF recruits at Camp MacKall in North Carolina, and to observe their training. To meet and touch a living legend or Medal of Honor winner has a powerful effect on “Q” Course students.

  Knowledge of the heritage of the Special Forces allows you to measure current soldiers against the great troopers of the past. Similarly, knowledge of the achievements of past units allows you to more accurately judge the actions of today. For that reason, l
et’s take a quick excursion down the path that brought the Special Forces Community to its present eminence.

  Roots

  The crucible of World War II made America see the wisdom of creating Special Operations units, and it is from the units that first saw the light of day in that conflict that the SOF communities draw their historic lineage.

  Thus the 75th Ranger Regiment traces its roots back to “Darby’s Rangers,” who scaled the Norman cliffs of Pointe du Hoc on D-Day, and later fought across Western Europe. The SEALs look back to the exploits of the early Underwater Demolition Teams that led the way for amphibious operations in every theater of war. The roots of the Special Forces spring from the rich ground of the Devil’s Brigade and the OSS.

  The 1st Special Service Force, better known as the “Devil’s Brigade,” was a joint U.S.-Canadian unit whose specialty was deep reconnaissance and close-quarters fighting. The brigade was formed at Fort William Henry Harnson in Montana in 1942, and it was originally tasked to take part in an airborne raid into Norway (which was cancelled). Later, they were assigned to combat operations in Italy (such as the famous assault on Mount La Difensa) and southern France, where they discharged their deep reconnaissance and close-quarters fighting specialties with unparalleled violence. Their training and raw combat power allowed them to defeat enemy units much larger than their own ... though frequently at a high cost. They suffered 2,314 casualties, representing 134% of their original strength, in five separate campaigns. By the time of their last battle in France in late 1944, the Brigade was a shadow of its original strength. Their casualties had been so high and their OpTempo so vigorous that rebuilding the units with replacements was no longer practical. The unit was “played out,” as they used to say in the Civil War.