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

by Tom Clancy

  —19th SFG—The 19th is one of two National Guard SFGs, which help “backfill” various missions for the active-duty groups. Based at Draper, Utah, the 19th is composed of units from all of the western United States, and tends to focus on missions for PACOM/SOCPAC and CENTCOM/SOCCENT.

  —20th SFG—The other National Guard group is the 20th SFG, which is based in Birmingham, Alabama. The 20th provides missions for SOUTHCOM/SOCSOUTH, with a concentration on the Caribbean Basin.

  —56th and 801st CRDs—Based at Fort Campbell and Fort Bragg respectively, these are the only active-duty units of their kind in the Army.

  —445th CRD—This reserve unit is based at Fort Meade, Maryland, where it provides CRD support for the eastern U.S.

  —900th CRD—The other reserve CRD, the 900th is based at Fort Carson, Colorado.

  SFC has the highest operations tempo (OpTempo) within SOCOM, with the average SF soldiers spending more than six months per year in the field. By comparison, a Navy carrier battle group or MEU(SOC) only spends six months out of every eighteen on cruise. To better understand why, let’s look a bit closer at SFC.

  Special Forces Command: The Green Berets

  Just what are Special Forces, and what do they do? What value do they give the nation? And what roles and missions do they fulfill?

  For starters, though they are indeed fearsome warriors, their primary focus is not necessarily on combat. While they have conducted significant combat missions since the end of the Cold War, and they will continue to operate in a combat role, this is just a tiny fraction of the overseas work that they have done (and will do). In short, this highly flexible combat force has vast utility in peacetime.

  Let us not forget the core truth of the special forces profession: They are special people, given special training, and provided with unique opportunities for service to the Army and the country. SF soldiers are recruited from around the Army to undergo what is perhaps the longest and most rigorous qualification and training program anywhere in the U.S. military. Once these men finish this initial curriculum (called the “Q” Course—for Qualification), they are assigned to the various SFGs around the country. They then undertake further training in the languages and culture of the regions covered by their assigned group. Once they have become proficient in these, they are assigned to a fourteen-man team, the basic building block of the Special Forces, known as an “Operational Detachment Alpha,” or ODA (also known as “A-Teams,” though that term has fallen into disfavor since the airing of the television show of that name).

  It is in peacetime operations, however, that the Special Forces normally earn their pay, and to understand them we need to return back to that basic building block, the ODA.

  Each ODA is a carefully balanced team, which can split into two evenly matched units with duplicate capabilities. These capabilities include civil engineering, medical skills, communications, and various kinds of military training. Additionally, SF soldiers are trained specialists, with a high level of technical, cultural, and combat skills; they are chosen for their ability to work together and solve problems; and they are each natural leaders, with what can only be described as an entrepreneurial spirit.

  So just what good do they do for America?

  SF soldiers like to refer to themselves as “the quiet professionals.” Though they sometimes take their taciturnity just a bit too far (they don’t have to be that reticent about what they do), their quiet discretion nevertheless makes the ODA the unit of choice for a variety of difficult and sensitive jobs.

  For this reason, organizations like the Departments of Defense and State trust sending a single ODA led by an Army captain to another country to run an entire mission: perhaps an FID course of instruction to a national police force or military unit. Another ODA might support the training of personnel involved in the removal and deactivation of mines and other unexploded ordnance. Still another team might help a rebel force develop an insurgency against a government opposed by the U.S. and its allies.

  Though all of these missions have “high adventure” written all over them, they all also require a delicate touch. For this reason, some people have wryly begun to call the Special Forces, “the Peace Corps with guns,” or “the armed branch of the State Department.”

  Looking at this another way: Not only has Special Forces Command cast off its “Snakeater” image, it is hard to find more professional or more flexible warriors in the U.S. military.

  The Road to the Top: An Interview with General Henry H. Shelton

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff commands no units of his own and has no authority to issue orders to troops in the field. He normally serves two two-year terms, but can serve up to six years at the discretion of the President of the United States, and requires the approval of the Senate to even walk into his office on the Pentagon’s E-Ring. To accept the job means an end to personal privacy and endless scrutiny from an inquisitive press and members of Congress. Yet the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking military officer in the United States and has no military equal anywhere in the world.

  The list of men who have served as “Chairman” (as the job is called by Washington and military insiders) is a “who’s who” of recent American military leadership. The first was General of the Army Omar Bradley, the “Soldier’s General,” who led Army units from North Africa to the German heartland during World War II. Others included legendary warriors like General Maxwell Taylor, Admiral Thomas Moorer, and General David Jones.

  These were all great men, but it is the four most recent chairmen who have defined the job as we know it today.

  Following the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols defense reform act (officially known as the Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986) in the 1980s, Admiral William Crowe successfully transformed the position into the powerful advisory post it would become in the post-Cold War world, while his successor, General Colin Powell (the youngest man to hold the chairmanship, as well as the first African-American and ROTC officer), set the standard for the revised position, helping lead America to victories in Panama and the Persian Gulf, and in the endgame of the Cold War. Powell’s replacement, General John Shalikashvili, (the first foreign born chairman), brought his own unique perspective to the chairmanship. Gentle and soft-spoken, General “Shali,” as he was affectionately known, led the U.S. military through a critical period of downsizing and consolidation, while at the same time watching over America’s myriad interests around the globe. When the time for his retirement came in 1997, it was clear that whoever would replace him would have huge responsibilities to shoulder and a vast job to do.

  The man who would take over that job had made his first notable appearance on the public scene in 1994 as the Joint Task Force commander for Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, when (with TV cameras rolling) Lieutenant General Henry Shelton emerged from a helicopter having flown in from three miles off the Haitian coast abroad the U.S.S. Mount Whitney (LCC-20), his command ship for the operation. Shelton’s quiet, professional handling of the Haitian operation quickly demonstrated to the world at large why he had been a rising star in the Army.

  General Henry H. “Hugh” Shelton, USA. General Shelton is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first special operations professional to achieve the position.

  OFFICIAL DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PHOTO

  In the next three years, Hugh Shelton was promoted to general (four stars), given command of the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill AFB, and in 1997 was nominated to replace “General Shali” as chairman. In 1999, at the completion of his first two-year term, he was renominated for a second, which runs through October 2001.

  To meet General Shelton is to be impressed—and not just for his distinguished Army career. While many people who encounter him focus on his physical presence (he’s six feet, five inches tall and built like John Wayne) and quiet authority, a small and elite community takes a special pride in his present position and achievement: sp
ecial operations professionals. General Shelton is the first member of the Special Operations Forces to be appointed to the chairmanship.

  Hugh Shelton started his career as a Special Forces soldier during Vietnam. And his subsequent story is in many ways the story of the SOF community. It was with an eye to learning this story that I went to the Pentagon to meet with this man over lunch in late 1999. It proved to be an enlightening and powerful experience.

  General Henry H. Shelton (USA), came into the world in January 1942, in a North Carolina coast farming family. As you listen to his sometimes thick Carolina drawl and soft-spoken words, you can’t help but wonder how his Carolina background formed his personality:

  The author and General Henry Shelton shake hands during their interview. A tall man, General Shelton combines an impressive physical presence with quiet Southern charm as his leadership style.

  JOHN D. GRESHAM

  Tom Clancy: Can you tell us a little about your early years in North Carolina? What was your hometown like back then?

  General Shelton: I was born in Tarboro, which is a small town, though the little town I was actually raised in is called Speed. Back when I was growing up, Tarboro had about 5,000 people, while Speed had around 250. My girlfriend, who would one day become my wife, lived in Speed with her parents; her sister still lives in their family home, while my family lived several miles out in the country.

  Both communities experienced terrible flooding during Hurricane Floyd [in October 1999]. You may have seen pictures of it on TV. The church in which I was raised was badly flooded, and my brother told me that our eighty-two-year-old mother was down on her hands and knees helping to clean it up. She’s been the organist there for sixty years.

  Tom Clancy: What memories of growing up in that community in the 1950s shaped your desire to join the military?

  General Shelton: Now that I can look back and think, it was a tremendous place to be raised in. The folks there were good, basic, hard-working, God-fearing people. The churches and schools were the centerpieces of their lives, and you had a lot of veterans in the community. These were folks who had taken four years out of their lives to go off and fight World War II. The emphasis was on hard work, honesty, integrity, and your word was your bond. There was a great emphasis on these and all the other attributes that we try to perpetuate in today’s military.

  Tom Clancy: Did your family have a tradition of military service prior to your going in?

  General Shelton: I did not come from a military family, though I had three uncles that served during the Second World War.13 I remember listening to their stories and was very impressed. There were a lot of other people in our community who had also served, so you picked up other stories, too ... though not everyone who went to war talked about it.

  As I think about it [General Shelton added thoughtfully], I’ve never really talked to my own sons about my experiences in Vietnam, and the more I think about it, the more I think that I probably should, so they will have a feeling and better understand what that was like.

  After a childhood on his family’s farm, Hugh Shelton began to think about a career that would both challenge him personally and allow him to exercise the values that had been instilled in him. This led him to seek his college education at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, just as America was entering the 1960s. His observations of those days are a flashback to the days before Vietnam, assassinations, and the bad race relations that defined that revolutionary decade.

  Tom Clancy: You went to North Carolina State [in Raleigh, North Carolina] back in the early 1960s. What was the campus like then, and what led you to your own ROTC experience there?

  General Shelton: Well, first of all, I was raised in a family that included a lot of NC State graduates. As you know, there is a tremendous rivalry in North Carolina between universities. I’d grown up as a Wolfpack fan, and had since early childhood desired to attend NC State in Raleigh. I’d never even thought of the military as a career, or as something I would want to do or be interested in. But as it happened, NC State was a land grant college and ROTC training was mandatory for the first two years at these institutions. That went away around 1966 or 1967, but was mandatory for men of my generation. That got me involved in ROTC for the first two years, and I really liked it—the people that were in it, the organization, and everything about it.

  In those days after the first two years in ROTC, they would pay you about $27.50 a month to stay. Not much by today’s standards, but real money back then! Some people may have called that “beer money,” but to me it was “survival” money. At any rate, that got me interested in staying on, and I did. At that time, signing up meant a two-year obligation on active duty following graduation, and I said, “Fine.” I figured I could serve in the Army for two years and stuck with it.

  Tom Clancy: Give us a little “snapshot” of American life at that time if you will. What was NC State like in the early 1960s?

  General Shelton: It was a conservative era for NC State. We really had not gotten into Vietnam yet, and student activism was not a “big” thing. Of course Communism could get you into some heated discussions, and you had a few students who would say that there was nothing wrong with it, and you would get a heated debate going. It’s what we got for letting Yankees into the school!

  Seriously though, in those days most of our basketball team came from New York or Indiana, and they were quite good! The big thing on campus was to go down and have a big pep rally around the Capitol, and show everybody that we could pull against UNC [University of North Carolina, in nearby Chapel Hill].

  The bottom line was that NC State worked us hard, with a lot of academic discipline required. It was a technical school, with basically an engineering and agricultural curriculum. There was very little of what we now call “liberal arts,” though that has subsequently been added as well.

  Tom Clancy: What did you study while you were there?

  General Shelton: I started out in aeronautical engineering and I ended up in textiles. The academic discipline required taught me a lot and it expanded my horizons.

  Hard as it may be to believe, today’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs at one time thought his vocation would be to manage one of Carolina’s many cloth mills. Let’s let him tell the story:

  Tom Clancy: You graduated in 1963, and then received your reserve commission in the Army. Can you trace for us the early years of your career?

  General Shelton: When I graduated from NC State, I was high enough in my ROTC class that I could have accepted a commission into the regular Army. However, I saw my future in the field I had studied in school: textiles. I had signed a contract with a company called Riegel Textile Corporation. After graduation, my plan was that when my two year Army commitment was up, I would come back [to Greenville, South Carolina] and go to work as a management trainee in one of their mills.

  So I went off to the Army with a reserve commission to serve my commitment, fully intending to return in two years to work in the textile business. I was on orders for Fort Benning, Georgia, to the 2nd Infantry Division, which became the basis for the experimental 11th Air Assault Division. This eventually became the 1st Air Cavalry Division, which deployed to Vietnam in 1965. Along the way I went to the Jump and Ranger schools, and I really liked that a lot. Coming off a farm where I had worked as a youth, I did not find either of those terribly challenging from a physical point of view. I did enjoy the time with the air assault division a lot, and my commanders were pitching hard for me to stay in. But my word is my bond: I had made a commitment to Riegel and my wife and I headed off to civilian life.

  When I got there, though, I found that the challenges of the textile industry did not match those I had encountered in the Army. Furthermore, I discovered that what the military had taught me had made me really effective in private industry. But then after about a month, I started missing the daily challenges of the Army, and I talked it over with my wife, Carolyn. We decided that I should reapp
ly to the Army for a regular commission, which took about a year to obtain. When the telegram arrived from the Army, the Riegel management tried hard to keep me, even offering to double my salary. Eventually, the company president and I had a talk, and after he tried one last time to convince me to stay, he shook my hand and said, “God bless you and the best of luck!” The rest, as they say, is history.

  Having cut his ties to the civilian world, then-1st Lieutenant Shelton embarked upon a truly challenging enterprise: Special Forces and the U.S. Army JFK Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

  Tom Clancy: What was it like in those days to go through the Q Course [Special Forces Qualification Course]?

  General Shelton: It was tough training. In fact, I think Barry Sadler’s song summed it up best. You know, “One hundred men will test today, but only three will win the Green Beret.” While I don’t think the statistics were quite that bad, it was very rigorous physically and mentally. It was twelve weeks long, with a lot of emphasis on getting ready to go into Vietnam in the Unconventional Warfare (UW) role. I count it as some of the very best training I’ve ever received.

  Tom Clancy: What was the actual focus of SF training in those days? Was it strictly UW, or were you doing the kinds of training that we would recognize today in realistic field exercises like Robin Sage?