Chosen Soldier

by Dick Couch

  When they return to their classroom in the meadow, three men have their weapons slung and chant in unison, “My weapon is slung because I almost killed my friend; my weapon is slung because I almost killed my friend.” These men were inattentive in just where they pointed their rifles.

  “Fratricide is something we all must work to prevent,” Jan tells 811 and 812. “Muzzle control has to be a religion. You cannot point that weapon at one of your brothers—or yourself. Know where your barrel is at all times, and know the condition of your weapon—loaded or unloaded, bolt forward or to the rear, round in the chamber or not, safety on or off. Keep your finger off the trigger unless you’re going to kill something. This is basic; you have to do the basics right—we won’t move to the next block of training until you get this one right.”

  For five days, the two student ODAs run battle drill after battle drill, patrol after patrol, danger crossing after danger crossing, recon after recon, ambush after ambush—beginning at dawn and continuing until well after dark. Nearly all the training drills deal with security of movement, accountability, and communication. During movement to and from the bivouac area, training continues with cadre ranging out in front of the student patrols to ambush them with automatic-weapons fire and artillery simulators. At the bivouac area, the student ODAs set security, eat, clean and oil their weapons, reload their magazines with blank ammo, and try for a few hours sleep. They set up at a different location each night. It’s usually well after midnight before they’ve settled in, and the bivouac area becomes a scattering of low poncho tents and Gortex-encased human forms that emanate a soft rumble of snoring. While they sleep, two men are always awake and on guard. For most of the nights during this initial field exercise of Phase II, it rains.

  “These guys will work hard for the next four weeks, but we’ll work even harder,” Jan says with no trace of malice. “We get less sleep than the students. After they work a day and into the night, they can go to ground and get a little sleep. We have to spend time documenting the training and grading them. Who’s proficient, and who needs work. Which of them are leading well, and which of them need to be put into more leadership roles. The Rangers and the men who are doing well, we try to let them polish their fieldcraft and try different techniques. A typical Phase II student ODA will have a range of abilities, and while we must train those who need it to an acceptable standard, we have to challenge those who are more accomplished.”

  After five wet days in the field, the student ODAs hump it back to the Rowe Training Facility and are given time to overhaul their gear, refit, and get a hot meal and a hot shower. Then, for the next several days, they train in and around the facility compound. Except for the initial briefing by the phase first sergeant and the phase company commander, there are no speeches or visits by seniors from higher commands—with one exception. On the morning following their return from the field, Class 1-05 crowds into one of the two large classrooms for an address by the 1st Special Warfare Training Group command sergeant major. Command Sergeant Major Van Atkins, a bull of a man with twenty-eight years in the Army, is the senior enlisted man responsible for making Green Berets. He works directly for the group commander, Colonel Manny Diemer—or, as some of his subordinate battalion sergeant majors see it, Diemer works for him.

  “Thanks for being here,” Atkins tells the candidates of Class 1-05. “Thanks for wanting to be a Green Beret. How you guys holding up? They treating you all right out here?” There’s a soft murmur of grumbling and chuckles. Atkins grins at them. “Training’s hard, men; it’s supposed to be hard. Not everyone can be a Green Beret, but you can. You all showed that when you were selected. Suck it up; make it happen. The Special Forces groups need you, and your nation needs you. Hell, I need you. Some of you are hurt, and most of you got a little cold and wet out there the last few days. Guys, this is as good as it gets. In the groups and on deployment, you will get less sleep, be colder, carry more, do more—and you know what? You’ll have a helluva lot of fun doing it. Being a Green Beret is the greatest thing in the world. All my friends are Green Berets. I don’t have any friends who are not Green Berets. I even wonder why I like my mother, because she’s not a Green Beret.”

  “He’s got a mother?” one of the candidates within my earshot whispers.

  “Get through this, men,” the group command sergeant major tells them. “Don’t quit. If you quit, six hours later or six days later, you’ll hate yourself for it. This is the best organization in the Army—in the world. So when it gets cold and you’re hurting, drive on. We have to play with pain in Special Forces. If you’re really hurt, get it fixed and get back into training—don’t let a little owie become a big owie and get you medically dropped. This is serious stuff. Your nation is at war. All of you are going to war—if not with a Special Forces ODA team, then with some conventional unit. So if you’re going to the fight, why not go with the best—where you can make the biggest contribution in fighting your nation’s enemies. Think about it when you’re hurting or it gets a little cold. I’m not gonna say good luck to you men—that’s up to each one of you. Drive on.”

  Eight-one-one and the other student ODAs plow through classes on warning orders, operational orders, and a whole litany of standard tactical procedures. Often they’re out in the field at night—a long patrol, an ambush, and a long walk back to the Rowe Training Facility. The class buses to Fort Bragg for a day of live shooting, a half day with M-9 Beretta pistols and a half day with their M4 rifles. They use the same M4s they’ve been carrying in the field without the blank firing adapters. On the live ranges, the Phase II students zero in their rifles and get a quick combat-rifle class with each man firing about 350 rounds. The pistol range, also a combat shooting range, allows for just over 300 rounds per man. During both combat shooting courses, those who are shooting well are moved quickly off the range, and the Army shooting instructors focus on those who are having problems. The class shoots for score only on the automated combat-rifle range. It is a very sophisticated range with human-sized targets that pop up at ranges from thirty to three hundred yards and records shooting scores electronically. Following training on the live shooting ranges, Class 1-05 is treated to one of the few breaks during a Phase II—a break for Thanksgiving. After completing a round of peer reviews, 811 and the other student ODAs are bused to Fort Bragg late on Wednesday. They’re all back and in training Saturday morning after a two-day hiatus. While Phase II enjoys a break, this time off does not apply to the SFAS class in session at Camp Mackall. They drive on through the holiday. The Rowe Training Facility chow hall does, however, serve up a turkey dinner at the evening meal.

  The Monday after Thanksgiving, the Phase II student ODAs are back out conducting more field training, which means more recons and ambushes. The field training falls into something of a pattern—or, from the candidates’ perspective, a grind: three or four days in the field and two days back at the Rowe Training Facility for classroom work and to refit for the next field outing. In the field, they lay up for a portion of the day, usually in a draw where the vegetation is the heaviest and they can’t be seen. They are damp and uncomfortable, but secure. During the rest of the day and most of the night, they’re out training. Camp Mackall is a perfect venue for this, as there are numerous targets for training purposes: airfields, control towers, old locomotives and train cars, bunkers, buildings, bridges, compounds, and lots of old, disused military hardware—tanks, aircraft, and artillery pieces.

  One full day of training is devoted to close-quarter battle, or CQB—fighting in enclosed spaces and conducting room-clearing drills. None of the 811’s X-Rays have trained in this, nor has Sergeant Dunn, the radar tech. Under the watchful eye of Jan and Gary Courtland, 811 begins training in a sparsely wooded piece of ground not far from their team barracks. In a small clearing, there’s an area marked off on the floor of the pine forest with two-by-fours. The wooden planks are laid out to simulate two rooms and two entryways. In twos, threes, and fours, variously consti
tuted combat teams from 811 run room-clearing drill after room-clearing drill in this wall-less training area. Like mini SWAT teams, they approach the “door,” M4 at the ready in one hand with the other hand on the shoulder of the man in front of them. They then burst through the door in a file, covering their designated areas of responsibility. Communication is essential in close-quarter combat.

  “Clear left!”

  “Clear right!”

  “I’m moving!”

  “Most of us have done this in one form or another,” Captain Santos tells me on a break from the drills. “The Army has some pretty sophisticated CQB training facilities—some of them use paint guns and you get immediate feedback from opposing role players as you go from room to room. This is pretty basic, but it’s still good training, especially for the guys who have never done it before. Even for guys like Dolemont who have done it for real down range, it’s good to go through it again.”

  Eight-one-one moves from the two-by-four floor plan to a nearby bunker for full-on room-clearing drills. Once they have shown proficiency in these drills, the whole ODA attacks the bunker as if it were an enemy installation. The designated squad leader, also the B-team leader, moves his men into position while his A-team and B-team leaders direct their elements. After a quick evaluation of the problem, the squad leader sends his C-team to a fire-support position off to one flank and puts his A-team into an assault line. The action is initiated when the C-team opens up with the M240 followed by a base of sustained, measured automatic-weapons fire. The A-team assaults the bunker, half of them bounding forward while the other half provides supporting fire—just as they have done in so many previous drills. As the assault team closes on the bunker, the C-team shifts fire off the bunker, allowing the assaulters to close on the objective. It’s organized chaos with lots of automatic fire and yelling. Once at the bunker, the squad leader moves up with his B-team and directs two of his men to clear the bunker.

  “OK, cease fire, cease fire!” Jan calls over the din. “Team leaders, bring it in and let’s talk about this.” Soon the student ODA is gathered around its cadre sergeant. “You’re getting better, but I’m still not seeing the communication between the B- and C-team leaders. The order to shift the supporting fire off the objective has to be given and acknowledged before the assault element can move in on the target. I know it’s noisy, but you have to yell out and make yourself understood. The same goes for the two sections of the assault element—one section firing while the other moves. It’s that steady volume of supporting fire that is the key to effective fire and movement during an assault. Now, let’s do it again—same team assignments, only Altman, you’re now the B-team leader. Wagner, you’re the A-team leader; Sergeant Barstow, you have the C-team. Altman, take whatever time you need to brief your squad, and let’s get set up for another assault. I want to see a steady volume of fire, and I want to hear lots of shouting. OK, men, make it happen.”

  They drill all afternoon, pausing only for critiques, to reload, and to change leadership and team assignments. They break for an MRE and continue the drills well after dark. On one iteration, Gary Courtland fires on the team from a position near the bunker, forcing the squad leader to reform his A-team to deal with this new threat. Another time, Jan returns fire from the bunker, then poses as a wounded EPW during the assault phase. The team has to search and secure him after clearing the bunker.

  “Dolemont.”

  “Here, Sergeant Janss.”

  “You conduct the critique. What went well, and what do we need to work on during the next drill?”

  After the CQB training, the student ODAs prepare for another three days in the field. But before the Phase II ODAs go back out, they take a day for a parachute jump. The candidates are bused to the Luzon Drop Zone in Camp Mackall, where they draw parachutes and prepare for the drop. It’s an equipment jump with full rucks and weapons. Military parachuting is time consuming and procedure driven; each “stick,” or group of jumpers, has to be briefed and thoroughly checked by a jumpmaster. The C-130s land on the dirt strip, and the candidates waddle aboard. It takes the better part of a full day to get close to three hundred soldiers geared up, dropped, and recovered. For the X-Rays, it’s the first time they’ve parachuted since jump school at Fort Benning. Class 1-05 is now twenty-two days into Phase II.

  “How’re they doing?” I ask Jan. The previous evening, he had counseled each of them and went over their peer reviews and peer rankings.

  “Overall, they’re doing fine. It’s a strong group. The two officers are solid and Sergeant Hall’s a very stable influence on the younger and less-experienced men. We in the cadre can only do so much through drills and exercises. They need to be talking to each other in the barracks and in their bivouacs out in the field—talking about what they did and how to improve when they go back out. They learn from each other as much as from us. Hall keeps them centered and focused. All of them are performing to standard with the exception of three—two of the X-Rays and one of the others.”

  Each man, Jan explains, has to move properly in a tactical environment and demonstrate individual skills during the drills—patrolling, proper fire discipline, fire and movement, CQB, EPW searches, safety, and the like. They have to show situational awareness in a tactical situation and move quickly and professionally under the direction of the team leaders. But they also have to lead. Each man has to display tactical leadership in the three key roles—squad or B-team leader, A-team leader, and C-team leader. In 811, three men have failed to do that to Sergeant Janss’s satisfaction.

  “During the next three days of fieldwork,” Jan continues, “they’ll all get a turn as team leaders, but I’ll be focusing on the three who need the work. Last time out it was recons and ambushes. This time out it’ll be recons and raids.”

  The skill set is much the same for a raid or an ambush. In an ambush, the target is moving, and the reconnaissance is primarily done to find a site suitable to attack the moving target. A good ambush site is one where the team leader can establish proper security and position his A- and C-teams to good advantage. The C-team needs a good field of fire to engage the enemy, and the A-team needs a concealed position from which it can conduct an assault once the C-team has the enemy under fire. The team leader and his B-team have to be in a position where they can initiate the action and control the ambush. In a raid, the target is stationary.

  “In a raid, the reconnaissance is everything,” Jan explains. “We compress the time frames here for training purposes, but to conduct a good raid, you want to observe the target for at least twenty-four hours before you make the hit. You want to study the activity around the target—sentries, guard posts, barbed wire or land-mine defenses, strong and weak points of the security, and so on. Then you want to plan your attack accordingly. There may be intelligence about an enemy reaction force nearby, which will limit your time on target—force you to make a rapid strike and clear off the target quickly. In a real situation, the patrol leader would lead a recon element to the target, then make his way back to a secure position to brief his team. For this training, we do it differently. There’s no training value in guys sitting around waiting for the squad leader’s return, so we’ll send out two or three recon teams and have them work the target for twelve hours or so. Then we’ll run three separate raid drills on a single target.”

  Eight-one-one has three targets on this field outing: an enemy base camp with a derelict helicopter parked nearby, a makeshift control tower near one of the parachute drop zones (DZs), and a cruise missile installation with an old Air Force Regulus cruise missile blocked up on a wooden cradle.

  “What I’m looking for is tactical surprise and violence of action,” Jan says as we stand off to one side to watch 811 attack the base camp. Dawn has just broken, and four role players with AK-47s sit at a campfire near two tents. The silence is shattered by the bark of the M240, followed by the chatter of the SAWs and the yelling of the assault team. We watch as 811 swarms into the base camp
on a skirmish line, sets security, and begins to search the area and the downed EPWs. The radioman calls out the time every thirty seconds while the squad leader directs traffic. The C-team leader is the last man off target. It’s his responsibility to get a count of every man in the squad. At that point, Jan calls a halt to the exercise play and the team circles up for an after-action critique. Virtually every training exercise is followed by an in-depth critique or after-action review.

  Between targets, 811 rucks up and patrols to the new target location. They move carefully to a location four to five hundred yards from the target and set up a security position in a shallow draw, well hidden from view. The men dump their rucks, break out MREs, reload, and refit for the next raid. Depending on the timeline, they may or may not get a few hours sleep before the recon teams go out.

  “So how’s it going?” I ask Aaron Dunn as I slide my MRE, a beef stew this time, into its heater pouch. He’s preparing a chicken entrée. It’s early December, and evening temperatures head for the mid-thirties.

  “Better, I think,” Sergeant Dunn replies. “There’s so much to learn, and when the raid or the ambush is initiated, you have to move and react. At first, I was very intimidated when I was a team leader, but I’m starting to feel better. I’m scheduled to be the A-team leader for this raid. The A-team leader has a lot of responsibility. The success of the assault is with him—with me.”