by Don Bendell
U.S. Army Special Forces students attend the 46-week Special Forces Medical Sergeants (SFMS) course. Students in this course must successfully complete the 24-week SOCM curriculum before continuing on for an additional 22 weeks of specialized training in medical, surgical, dental, veterinary, laboratory, pharmaceutical and preventive medicine subjects. Upon completion of this course students are trained to function as independent health care providers. In addition to the four weeks of clinical training provided during the SOCM portion of their training, SFMS students receive another four weeks of clinical experience at selected health care facilities throughout the United States. The focus of this training is on honing student skills as independent, general practice, health care providers.
Before Bobby knew it, Trinity had treated him with cleansing wipes and asked, “You want a local anesthetic, sir? I have to suture you.”
Bobby said, “No, thanks, Trinity,” looking at the now clean, deep, wide gash. “Go for it.”
Trinity had on rubber gloves and pulled a completely sterile hermetically sealed suture kit from one of his cargo pockets. He put on a new pair of gloves. The Montagnards gathered around totally fascinated and watched as he first used his little curved needle and sutured Bobby’s torn muscle tissue together with eight stitches. Then he changed needles and sutured the skin together. He finished by covering the straight, clean line with a brown-tinted antiseptic, and covered the wound with a clean dressing.
Bobby thanked him, got off the log he had been sitting on, and turned around. Big Mose stood there chuckling and pointed at the terrorist, almost naked except for the suicide belt he wore around his midsection.
Big Mose said, “Sir, the next time you want to go toe to toe with one of these al Qaeda pukes, you might want to make sure he’s not a walking bomb.”
Bobby laughed and said, “So much for his seventy-two virgins.”
Big Mose removed the belt, having already defused it.
He tossed it on the ground next to Y-Ting and yelled, “Boom!” when it landed, and Y-Ting jumped out of his skin, even giving a little yell. All the indigenous patrol members started laughing and teasing him, as he held his heart, laughing. Big Mose came over and grabbed him in a big bear hug, and they laughed together.
In the meantime, Trinity was now performing first aid on the now-coming-around terrorist leader.
While he was working, Bobby stood by and asked, “So how did you get the nickname Trinity?”
The medical sergeant looked at him, smiling, “Because of the Holy Trinity. I am a very devout born-again Christian, Colonel. Are you saved, sir?”
Bobby replied, “Yes, I am, Trinity. How soon can we move him? We need to saddle up.”
“Five minutes, sir,” he replied. “We’re gonna have to carry him on a litter or something.”
Big Mose said, “I got him, sir. We’ll toss him over my shoulder and hope you don’t see me accidentally dropping him over any cliffs.”
Bobby laughed.
The group on the ridgeline came down to them, immediately set up a perimeter, and set the laptop up again. Bo was torn between being a wife and a partner, as she saw the sleeves missing and bandage on Bobby’s sutured arm. The split team had been communicating back and forth, so she was prepared.
Waiting several minutes until they were alone, she quietly said, “Bobby, how bad is it?”
He did not lie. “It went through the muscle, but I don’t think it cut the tendons or ligaments. Trinity is an 18Delta, and he stitched me, inside and out, and I could tell he did a good job of it. I can still use my arm, honey.”
During the ambush, Trinity took a crease right along his left rib cage and it barely bled. He was not going to mention it, but Big Mose told Bobby about it.
Bobby looked at the wound area, but Trinity had already cleaned, dressed, and bandaged it.
Bobby said, “Looks like you got yourself a Purple Heart, Trinity.”
“You, too, Colonel,” he replied.
Bobby replied, “I should get busted endangering my patrol fighting him.”
Trinity said, “With all due respect, sir. The guy is a jihadist, America-hating jerk, and killed Boom. You are a human, and nobody on this patrol saw you do anything unprofessional.”
From behind Bobby, he heard Big Mose’s deep voice saying, “Amen to that, my brother.”
Bo said, “Colonel, we have good guys on the way for pickup in two Pave Lows. We are to move west two clicks to a trail and road junction. We have the coordinates. They want us to take these guys, too.”
“Thanks, Major,” Bobby replied.
Dave started chuckling as they walked along.
Bobby said, “Okay, Dave, I give up. What’s so funny?”
The big, bearded sergeant said, “I bet you two call each other Colonel and Major at home, sir.”
This really struck Bo as funny, and she chuckled heartily. The other Delta Team members would not allow Big Mose to carry the prisoner the whole way, taking turns carrying him over their shoulders, too. They patrol made good time arriving at the rendezvous in two hours. They took a rest break and were just getting rested and rehydrated when they heard the sounds of big tactical helicopters coming from Thailand, but they were shocked to see two Apache attack helicopters accompanying the two big choppers. Trinity went out and gave hand signals for the two to set down, as smoke from a green smoke grenade was swirled up by the rotor wash. The Apaches circled around and remained airborne.
Several Special Forces personnel and a civilian, presumably CIA, were on board each helicopter and the patrol was treated warmly. The civilian started speaking to Y-Ting in very fluent Rade, and Y-Ting translated.
The man came over to Bobby and Bo and explained, “We are taking them for some well-deserved R and R, Colonel. Then we are reoutfitting them and sending them back home with lots of money and groceries, and seeds, and such for their families and villages.”
“Cool!” Bobby said.
When Y-Ting turned his head toward their direction, Bobby and Bo both saw tears of happiness.
The man said, “They do not want to relocate to America. They want to stay and fight.”
Bobby asked why they had two Apaches flying escort.
The Special Forces major on board said, “Because, sir, it came down from DA. I heard from the Charley Oscar Sierra that we were to fly you back directly over Vientiane and engage anybody that wanted to bitch about us invading airspace.”
He chuckled and said, “I believe, Colonel. Somebody at higher really wants to send a strong message to all our commie buddies over here.”
They flew right over downtown Vientiane, the capital of Laos, without incident. It was never reported in the press either.
Bobby was soon being checked out by an air force flight surgeon at the fifty-bed modular hospital at Udorn Air Force Base in Thailand. The surgeon complimented Trinity on his fine work and pronounced Bobby good to go. They were headed back to Washington and the Delta Force members to Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Good-byes and thank-yous were passed out all around, and Bobby and the other soldiers flooded the Montagnard fighters with gifts.
They boarded jets to head home.
9
BACK TO THE OFFICE
Bobby and Bo reported to the Pentagon after returning home and were immediately called in to the chief of staff’s office. He asked about Bobby’s arm and laughed about how many Purple Hearts the two of them were collecting and suggested postage stamps was an easier thing to collect. He told Bobby and Bo they were both getting another Silver Star when Bobby put his hand up.
He said, “Sir, by your leave.” The general nodded and Bobby went on, “General, thank you very much, sir. Based on my observations on the ground, I felt the men on my patrol each deserved a Bronze Star with V device, and I was planning on submitting them for that today, as well as a Purple Heart for one of them, called Trinity, who was slightly wounded. Sir, I did not feel our mission merited a Silver Star fo
r anybody, but if anybody gets a Silver Star, I would prefer it would be them.”
Bo added, “I concur totally, General Perry, and not because he is my husband.”
“Very well,” Perry said. “All, including you two, will get the Bronze Star with V device. I’ll send someone up from awards and decorations, with a clearance, and let them write it up for you. You two are too busy. After debriefing, we are going to have a briefing from the First Group command sergeant major and some of my staff. We have got some heavy-duty things to discuss. Great job on the prisoner snatch. This guy is already at Gitmo with orders to light his ass up. He was the camp commander, and we know he had just met with Muhammad Yahyaa, Weatherford’s buddy and the al Qaeda honcho for the Far East.”
Bobby and Bo went for debriefing with J-2, the CIA, the DIA, and others. The digital video was like a front-row seat to the complete destruction of an enemy target and a BDA (bomb damage assessment) patrol all rolled into one. The DVD of the target acquisition was replayed over and over in slow motion, and much of the debriefing was Bobby, and even Bo, answering questions.
After lunch, all assembled in the COS’s conference room, and placards were placed outside the door stating the briefing classification, with two white-gloved, armed MPs standing at guard on each side of the double doors. Several VIPs came up to shake hands and congratulate Bobby and Bo on their success in Laos. Some in the room had no clue what went on, but could tell they had just had some kind of success, and everybody knew what they had done previously in New York City and Miami.
A number of Special Forces personnel were in the briefing room and all of them flooded around Bobby. Bo was proud seeing the level of respect her husband received from these very special men.
Everybody got coffee, water, and soft drinks and sat down.
The assembled were given the obligatory classification lecture and then General Perry was introduced.
He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a unique situation here that we are going to address today. A lot of our focus is having to be shifted from our theater of operations, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the Pacific Rim area in the Far East. As most of you know, but the American public does not know, the very largest al Qaeda training camps in the world are not in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Iran, or some of the places you may think, but the southern Philippines.
“The operation is classified top secret, but Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Samuels just led a patrol along with his wife, Major Samuels, and four men from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where they executed a nighttime HALO-SCUBA infiltration deep in the country of Laos. They rendezvoused with a small indigenous force on the ground and completely destroyed a newly constructed al Qaeda training complex, as well as captured the camp commander who is a senior al Qaeda official and now being interrogated by our personnel. During the course of the operation, Lieutenant Colonel Samuels got involved in a hand-to-hand situation and suffered a deep knife cut on his upper arm, requiring numerous internal and external stitches. Additionally, one of the operators from Fort Bragg suffered a minor bullet wound to his chest. The enemy forces, with the exception of the one POW were wiped out to a man.”
Everybody in the room applauded and the general pointed at Bobby and Bo, and they all stood and applauded. Bobby and Bo acted “army” and simply sat there with blank expressions on their faces.
General Perry continued, “Our First Special Forces Group headquartered at Fort Lewis, Washington, with one battalion permanently deployed to Okinawa, has primary responsibility for the Far East theater of operations. They have been working for years in the Philippines, not only with a counterinsurgency training mission but with a great deal of effective civil affairs and psychological operations as well. To that end, and to our delight, the First Special Forces Group has excelled beyond reasonable expectations in recent years. The Philippines still has kidnappings, beheadings, ambushes, and skirmishes, but it is a far cry from what it was just a few years ago, thanks to the diligent efforts of our First Group operators. We are going to put up on the screen for you a recent article by the First Group command sergeant major and it will brief you on what has occurred specifically, but first I want to tell you all this. My daddy taught me a saying and that was ‘Never go backward, ’ meaning we have accomplished a lot in the Philippines, and I do not want it to become an al Qaeda stronghold again. We are now working on Indonesia, but they are making inroads in Thailand. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Special Warfare magazine is an official bimonthly publication of the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In the October/November 2006 issue, the cover story was written by Command Sgt. Maj. William Eckert of the First Group. He really hit the nail on the head, and I feel it important that you all read this article, so we are putting it up on the screen up here and the fine young Major John Trudel is going to come up here and read aloud, while you all read along. Afterward, we will talk. Major Trudel.”
A balding, stocky major came to the podium and had a PowerPoint presentation to accompany his words, which gave hope on the global War on Terrorism to everyone in the room, and he began reading the text:
“Is the U.S. winning a war?” The headline wasn’t referring to Iraq or Afghanistan but rather to another front in the Global War on Terrorism—the Philippines. Unlike the other two conflicts, where American soldiers are daily engaged in armed conflict, the war in the Philippines is one for peace and prosperity. The battle in the Philippines is a battle against an idea, and it is being waged by the Joint Special Operations Task Force— Philippines, or JSOTF-P.
The work by JSOTF-P has gained the attention of senior military leaders who believe its work may change the way the United States operates around the world. During the Pacific Area Special Operations Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, in May, Maj. Gen. David Fridovich, commander of U.S. Special Operations Forces-Pacific, noted, “We think there is a model here that’s worth showcasing. There’s another way of doing business. We’ve been doing it for four years with some decent results—not grand results, not flashy results, but some decent results. We think it’s worthwhile.”
The most telling result is the decline in terrorist activity in and around the islands where JSOTF-P is operating. In 2001, Basilan Island, a remote island in the southern Philippines, was home to hundreds of members of the violent Abu Sayyaf Group, or ASG, and Jemaah Islamiyah, or JI, two terrorist elements with links to al Qaeda. Prior to 9/11, terrorist training camps operated unchecked in the region, with up to 40 percent of the 9/11 operatives having links to the region. As is the case in the Middle East, kidnappings for ransom and beheadings were commonplace.
For example, in May 2001, the ASG assaulted the Dos Palmas Resort and took guests there hostage. The hostages included Americans Martin and Gracia Burnham, U.S. missionaries in the Philippines, and U.S. businessman Guillermo Sobero. The kidnapping ordeal lasted more than a year, during which Sobero was beheaded, Martin was killed during the rescue, and Gracia was injured.
The predominantly Muslim population in the area had, over time, become disenfranchised, disgruntled and dissatisfied with the government and the abject poverty of the region. Together, these conditions created an environment in which extremists could operate freely. The Armed Forces of the Philippines, or AFP, and Philippine police elements were unable to control the violence or address the conditions that gave rise to the lawlessness.
Though the challenges in Basilan called for military action, the response did not warrant the deployment and use of U.S. conventional military forces. Because of the political climate in the Philippines, U.S. troops cannot involve themselves in combat operations there.
This battlefield in the southern Philippines necessitated the use of many different unconventional capabilities—increasing the capacity of our allies through foreign internal defense, or FID; civil-military operations, or CMO; and information operations, or IO. These three mission areas, for which SOF are well-suited and well-trained, have become the c
ornerstone of JSOTF-P’s operations.
The mission in the Philippines required two things to happen concurrently. The AFP had to increase its ability to establish a secure environment for the people, and the economic and political environment that allowed extremists to recruit, seek sanctuary and prosper on the islands had to be changed.
To be effective, JSOTF-P needed to devise a plan for meeting both requirements simultaneously. During the ongoing capacity-building and humanitarian missions, the JSOTF also engaged in an information-operations campaign—using all aspects of the information mission, including public affairs, information operations and psychological operations, to inform and positively influence the islanders.
The battle in the Philippines is a battle against an idea: the idea of intolerance and subjugation to totalitarian rule. In the southern Philippines, that idea is endorsed by the ASG and JI, whose goal it is to eliminate a way of life for freedom-loving people. For 15 years, SOF leadership has implemented a vision and capability for this unconventional warfare battlefield through a steady buildup of capabilities. These capabilities have enabled Special Operations Forces of the JSOTF-P to reach out to the populace while providing positive influences across the military, demographic, government and economic spectrums. SOF leadership also made the investment of resources for the development of professional military training and doctrine specific to the Philippines. As a result of the foresight of the U.S. Special Operations Command in establishing these disciplines in the special operations community, the men and women of Joint Task Force 510, and its follow-on, JSOTF-P, have accomplished what few others could.
Throughout the year, U.S. SOF personnel from JSOTF-P work jointly with the AFP to assist and support the AFP’s ability to sustain its counterterrorism capability in the region, while addressing, at their root, the conditions that foment the enemy “idea.” Success in Basilan is measured by prosperity; by reduced AFP presence—from 15 battalions in 2002 to only two today; by new development, and by a nonviolent method of problem resolution. That success, known as the Basilan Model, has resonated throughout the region and is being duplicated with great success on nearby Jolo Island.
