Chosen Soldier

by Dick Couch

  It is a half-hour ride to the infiltration point. The team piles from the bed of the big four-by-four Army truck called an LMTV—light medium tactical vehicle. These are the beefy trucks like the ones on convoy duty in Iraq. The team expands into a security perimeter, just as they would if they were being inserted by helo. Then Kendall signals them to move out, and the team files into the bush. It’s 0300. For most of the night and through dawn, the team moves through ravines and wooded areas in a section of Fort Bragg known simply as Area K—one of the many training areas on the huge Army post. Shortly after dawn, Kendall has his team 250 meters from its ambush site. Specialist Kendall and his subordinate team leaders move cautiously to the roadside ambush site and position each man and weapon. Primary considerations are security, firepower, and command and control. Then they wait.

  Walking along the road, I can see nothing of the men in hiding. “Not bad, but they were pretty sloppy patrolling in, and it took too long for them to get set up. But each time out, they do it a little better.” My companion is a staff sergeant named Carlos.

  Carlos had been selected for Special Forces training well over a year ago, but was requested by his company in the 82nd Airborne to make a deployment with them. After close to a year in Iraq, he is back and waiting for the next Phase II class to begin. He’s also spent time in the 75th Ranger Regiment. Detached from the 82nd and waiting for Phase II, he’s assigned as an assistant SFPC instructor. Carlos usually shadows the student ODA when it’s in the field. I’ve watched him work with the X-Rays over the past two weeks, and he’s been a wealth of knowledge in fieldcraft. Carlos has been in the Army for seven years and has two combat deployments behind him.

  “You think they’re ready for Phase II?”

  Carlos gives me shrug and a grin. “They’re smart and they learn quickly, but we won’t know until we get to Phase II. I won’t know myself until I get to Phase II. These soldiers will be my classmates there. We’ll all find out together.”

  Shortly before 0930, four men file up the road toward the ambush site. They carry AK-47 rifles and their heads are swathed in Arab headgear. When they are in the kill zone, Kendall keys the initiator of the claymore mine, which produces the bang from a large M-80-type firecracker. The automatic weapons hidden along the ambush line begin to chatter. Loudest of all is the POP-POP-POP of the M240 machine gun. The enemy tries to return fire but is overwhelmed by the concentrated firepower of the student ODA. Kendall shouts above the din, calling for a cease-fire. He then directs the team’s actions as they sweep through the target, checking the downed enemy soldiers and disarming them. Moments later, Sergeant Tell calls the proceedings to a halt and conducts a field critique. He tells his students what he saw and asks for comments from Carlos and the Arab role players who have risen from the dead. The student ODA is back in the team bay by midafternoon for a final critique and course review. A few days later, the new Special Forces Preparation Course graduates are on their way back out to Camp Mackall. They have one more stop before Phase II.

  The leadership course conducted at Camp Mackall fulfills the Army’s noncommissioned-officer leadership requirement with a Special Forces bias. The X-Ray soldiers, now selected and prepared for Special Forces training, are housed in clean, new, but still temporary billeting modules at the rear of the Rowe Training Facility. Again, the students are cut into ODA-sized squads for billeting and training. The interior living arrangements are not unlike those they just left at the preparation course at Fort Bragg. The barracks area is a little more generous with wall lockers beside each double rack, and the operations-planning bay is arranged in a classroom setting with the familiar U-shaped student-table arrangement. Since their arrival from Fort Benning, this is the first time the 18 X-Ray soldiers have been in some semblance of an academic environment, albeit a Special Forces academic environment.

  Each day begins at 0600 with an hour and a half of physical training—stretching, group calisthenics, and then a run. These are led initially by the cadre sergeants, but those leadership duties are quickly turned over to the students and rotated among the student teams. On the first day after formation and inspection, they are briefed by the course first sergeant, a laconic Georgian and a twenty-four-year Special Forces veteran. The men stand in ranks by team, at parade rest: left hands resting at the small of their backs, right hands holding the barrels of their rifles—rubber M4s for this training. The first sergeant quickly goes over the rules and restrictions. They are to be on time, in the right place and in the right uniform. There’s to be no talking with those in other phases of training, no cell phones, no use of the PX, and so on, and so on. Then he cuts to the heart of the training.

  “This course is a standing requirement to become a sergeant in this man’s Army. It will also equip you for the leadership challenges you will face in Special Forces training and Special Forces duty. In every Phase II, we lose a few of you guys because you lack the ability to lead in a tactical situation. There’s information in this course you’re going to need to get you through Phase II and the other phases of the Q-Course. Now, this course is not as intense as what you’ve been through in previous courses. It’s not intended to be. Nor is it as intense as what awaits you in Phase II. Nonetheless, it’s important. It’s a time to listen, learn, and practice the techniques and disciplines you are going to need if you want to earn that Green Beret and deploy as a member of a Special Forces detachment. It’s a time to regroup and prepare yourself mentally and physically for the challenges ahead. Use this time well. Ask questions. Get to know your classmates and your cadre sergeants. Leadership’s a key skill of a Special Forces soldier. Leadership extends to all aspects of military life. Now, some of you might think the accountability and the uniform inspections and the close-order drill we do here is chicken-shit. But let me ask you this. How are you going to ask a subordinate, a fellow American or an allied soldier, to fight and die for you if you can’t get them to wear a proper uniform or properly maintain their equipment? Special Forces soldiers are leaders; don’t you ever forget that.

  “This course is designed to be an academic experience in a learning environment. Now, that means you have to be ready and willing to learn—to give it 100 percent. We hope you will. But if you don’t, my cadre sergeants have my blessing to take you out to one of those swampy draws here at beautiful Camp Mackall and conduct a little attitude-adjustment training. I hope that won’t be necessary, but we want your full attention while you’re here. Y’all clear on that?”

  “YES, FIRST SERGEANT!”

  “Good, good. That’s what I like to hear. We don’t want any failures of communication while you’re here. Good luck to y’all. Class First Sergeant?”

  “Right here, First Sergeant.” The class chain of command has a student first sergeant in charge of the class and student team sergeants in charge of each student ODA. These leadership positions are changed and rotated often during the course.

  “Take charge of the formation and carry on.”

  “Yes, First Sergeant.” The assigned class first sergeant salutes and does a crisp about-face. “Team sergeants, take charge of your squads and fall into your classrooms.”

  When they hit the classroom at 1000 on the first day, there’s an impressive stack of reading and reference material at each student’s place in the classroom. I counted twelve manuals, plus that many or more pamphlets and handouts. The sheer volume seemed more suited to a semester of law school than a sixteen-day leadership course. They ranged from The Army Noncommissioned Officer Guide, on the leadership side, to the Ranger Handbook, on the tactical side, but the course is all about leadership. These reference materials will leave with the students on the completion of the training. Each day the students are assigned mandatory reading to prepare them for the next day’s classes. In addition to a host of leadership topics, the subject matter includes the Army writing style, subordinate supervision, close-order drill, tactical supply procedures, environmental awareness, NBC (nuclear, chemical, biological
) precautions, joint operations, and how to give a military briefing. The evenings are taken with study and cadre presentations on the Special Forces history and Special Forces current operations. I was pressed into service for my SOF presentation on warriorship and moral conduct on the battlefield.

  “These are skills and information they will need,” Sergeant First Class Don Langston tells me, “in SF training and later when they’re assigned to an operational ODA. Our job is to see that they get this information and that they have a personal library of leadership and tactical material to refer to in the future. We also try to put them in as many leadership and supervisory roles as we can, consistent with the teaching that has to take place to get through this material.”

  Langston’s a handsome, blond six-footer from upstate New York. He has his associate’s degree and is currently studying for a BA in history; he wants to teach high school history when he retires from the Army. Langston has been in the Army fourteen years and in Special Forces for eight. He is from 3rd Group and has made deployments to Uganda, Mali, Zimbabwe, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Langston gathered two Bronze Stars and a single Purple Heart for his combat tours. His goals in the military are to become a master sergeant and a detachment team sergeant. He has fourteen men in his training squad; I’m assigned to Langston’s group.

  “The course work here is driven by a set curriculum, but we’ve a lot of latitude to spend more time on one topic at the expense of another, or to probe more deeply into a subject after hours. We spend a lot of time with these soldiers in the evenings.” We walk to the whiteboard at the front of his group’s classroom bay. “For example, these are their goals as we developed them in general group discussion.” He points to a list on the whiteboard.

  1. Have the highest team average on the Army Physical Fitness Test.

  2. Win all course team events.

  3. Get to know everyone in your team.

  4. Don’t lose anyone in the team from training.

  5. Exceed all standards.

  “These are our team goals, and every few days we go over them to see how we’re doing. Chances are we may not achieve them all, but they’re realistic goals and each man in the team is committed to them.”

  I notice that the members of the team all call each other by their first names. They address him as Sergeant Langston, and he calls them by their first names. Several afternoons are taken up with class presentations. Each man must submit an outline of a military presentation, and after it is approved by Langston, the student has to give an eight-to ten-minute talk on the subject, complete with visual aids. Probably one of the best and clearest presentations I’ve ever attended on sighting in an M4 rifle was given by one of Sergeant Langston’s soldiers.

  In addition to the classroom work, there is close-order drill, usually a single student marching four or five of his classmates about the compound—column left, column right, to the rear, harch! There are also uniform inspections with sections of students turned out in dress greens, complete with red berets, bloused trousers, and spit-shined jump boots. The only concession to SF protocol is that the inspectees fall in with their rifles. Both the drill and the uniform inspections are unusual activity for the Rowe Training Facility, where most soldiers are dressed and outfitted for combat-related training, often with their face and hands camouflaged. The most welcome nonclassroom activities are the team competitions. Again, a squad leader or student team sergeant is chosen to lead each evolution. He has to organize his team, make assignments, and direct his men in the competition. These contests range from a barnyard version of soccer in a nearby meadow to a four-mile run, during which one or more members of the squad have to be carried by the others. The one I liked was the Nasty Nick relay. Each team is scattered around the obstacle course. The first man takes two or three obstacles, then hands off his helmet—the baton in this race—to the next man, and he negotiates the next few obstacles. As the event progresses, the squad members who have completed their leg of the race run alongside to cheer on their teammates as they take on their obstacles. At the last obstacle, there is a single, helmeted competitor and a dozen or more cheerleaders. They have to finish together, as a team. These are spirited contests on the Nasty Nick course, and the race is run more than once. Winning squad leaders take their men for a break, losing squad leaders lead their men in push-ups.

  “This is a relatively easy two weeks for them,” Sergeant Langston tells me, “and it’s supposed to be. We have to give them the leadership training in keeping with Army requirements, but since we have them 24/7 for fifteen days, we can also expose them to Special Forces team-centric leadership training. They’ve been worked hard for the last six months or so. We want them to rest up and, in some cases, heal up for Phase II, but we also want them to stay mentally focused. We also want them to understand the key role leadership plays in Special Forces.”

  Most are 18 X-Ray soldiers, but not all. A few are soldiers who have been selected for Special Forces training from conventional units. They are there for the Army NCO leadership requirement. In one of these courses, I met a former Navy SEAL. He had been released from the SEAL teams before 9/11 and had decided get back in the fight—this time as a Green Beret. Though he had been a second class petty officer in the Navy, he still needed this course to become a sergeant in the Army.

  “This has been a good few weeks for us,” Specialist Justin Keller, one of the X-Rays, tells me. “It’s been challenging but not too challenging, and you can feel the guys’ confidence growing as we get ready for Phase II.” Justin Keller is a big man, some 250 pounds, down from the 270 he was carrying when he reported to boot camp. He’s the largest man in Sergeant Langston’s squad. He grew up in Denver and attended a small college in Iowa, where he was a heavyweight wrestler. He has a degree in physical education and secondary education. Keller has a brother serving in the Army, and his father and uncle are both retired from the Army National Guard. He has soft, rounded features, and while his hair is closely cropped, it’s clear that he is balding. He’s twenty-six. Prior to enlisting in the Army for the X-Ray Program, he was working as a bouncer and as a laborer in the warehouse of a flooring company. Keller has a soft intensity offset by an easy smile and intelligent eyes.

  “So you’re ready for Phase II?”

  “I suppose so, at least as ready as I’ll ever be.” There’s a flash of an easy smile. “I guess I’m like Grasshopper in the Kung Fu TV series. It’s time for me to go.”

  On an overcast Monday morning in early November, 341 souls in starched BDUs file into the large auditorium at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School building at Fort Bragg. The only color on their uniforms are the small American-flag shoulder patches. Collectively, they’re a sober group, each man pulling off his cap as he enters to reveal a military haircut—high and tight. These soldiers—veteran officers and enlisted men, along with a hundred-plus X-Ray candidates—are at the auditorium to begin Phase II. Collectively, they make up Phase II Class 1-05. It’s still calendar year 2004, but fiscal 2005 began on 1 October. They speak quietly among themselves, but it is hushed, careful murmuring. All talking stops when the company first sergeant steps to the front of the room.

  “Good morning, men, and welcome to Phase II of Special Forces training. For the next thirty-five days you belong to me and my cadre—every waking hour, and those waking hours will take up most of the day.” First Sergeant Stewart Donnally is a measured, even-tempered master sergeant from 3rd Group. He doesn’t raise his voice, but it easily carries across the quiet auditorium to the back rows of soldiers. “Most of you know what to expect here; Phase II is all about patrolling and small-unit tactics. The phase has standards, and you must meet them. Within the boundaries of those standards, we will keep the guys we want to keep. We make subjective evaluations all the time. The cadre’s here to evaluate you and to help you learn, or to help you out. It’s your choice.” He pauses a long moment before continuing. “Be clear on one thing, people. We are here to train warriors, and
we are deadly serious about this. The reputation you established during selection will continue after you leave here. We are still a small force, and reputation is everything.”

  First Sergeant Donnally goes through a litany of rules and restrictions that will govern training and their life at Camp Mackall and the Rowe Training Facility during his phase. Then he yields to his company commander, a square-shouldered, solidly built captain with a shock of dark hair across his forehead.

  “Good morning, men.”

  “GOOD MORNING, SIR!”

  “I’m Captain John Block, Charlie Company commander, 1st Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group. Let me echo the first sergeant’s welcome. Let me also emphasize what he said about training warriors. If you don’t want to be a warrior, this is the wrong place for you and you’re wasting our time. If you want to be a warrior, then show us you want to be a warrior—a Special Forces warrior. Like the first sergeant, I’ve been at this a while. I earned my tab back in 1988 as a young staff sergeant. Back then and through most of the nineties, we worked mostly in a foreign-internal-defense environment. Our country is now at war, and you will be asked to do it all—foreign internal defense, direct action, special reconnaissance, and unconventional warfare. Phase II is about patrolling and tactics, the foundation of your warrior skill set. You’ll use and teach these skills for the rest of your Special Forces career. This is not a mini Ranger course; this is small-unit tactics adapted for the Special Forces mission. We expect you to do your best, show us some heart, and take care of your teammates. Fail to show us you can lead, follow, and perform in a small-unit tactical environment and you’ll be soldiering in another outfit.”