Chosen Soldier

by Dick Couch

  “It was noted by the cadre and his peers that Captain Smith transitioned into the unconventional mind-set more quickly than almost anyone in the class.”

  When criticism was warranted, James did not pull his punches. “While I have seen some improvement, Captain Smith still has tendencies to be argumentative and abrupt in his dealings with others. If he can continue to improve his verbal and nonverbal communications and actions, he may be able to overcome this glaring weakness.” For all of these officers, this is by far the most formal and detailed critique they’ve received in their military careers.

  On Thursday of the final week, 912 and the other officer ODAs are turning in their materials and phase-related equipment, and completing their evaluations that rate the 18 Alpha curriculum and the cadre. Everyone gets a critique. The student officers will have a long weekend before they begin Phase IV. I stop by the team room that afternoon to thank Major James and Master Sergeant Rameres, and wish 912 well in Phase IV. I catch Miguel Santos just as he is finishing up.

  “Three down and one to go,” I remark. Captain Santos will get his Special Forces tab and Green Beret sooner than most because he is SERE qualified and a Spanish speaker, which means he could graduate from the Q-Course when he finishes Phase IV.

  “Yes, sir,” he replies. “And I’m glad to have this one behind me. Phase IV won’t be easy, but I hope it won’t be as hard as this. I haven’t studied this much since finals week at West Point.”

  “But you passed Phase III, right?”

  He pauses a moment before replying. “Yes, sir, I passed, but this was a bit of an awakening for me. I’ve always been a hard worker, and I’ve always done well—at West Point, in my year group from West Point, and at my previous commands. Here I was average—maybe below average. Major James had a few good things to say in my final counseling session, and more than a few areas where he feels I came up short—where I need to improve. I’m not questioning him, but it’s been a while since I’ve been hammered on like that.”

  “So what now?”

  Santos gives me a tired grin. “I guess I need to spend a quiet weekend with my wife and think about all this. Then attack Phase IV on Monday and try to do better. You’re going to be with us out at Camp Mackall, aren’t you, sir?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Author’s Note: As mentioned in these notes following previous chapters, the Special Forces Qualification Course is a dynamic, changing process. Nowhere in this evolving process are these changes more dramatic or rapid than in the training of future detachment leaders. Without getting into specifics as to the then and now, let me just say that current changes to the 18 Alpha curriculum include the training and integration of the international student officers, physical training (cadre and student ODAs now conduct team physical training on a daily basis), an expanded Advanced Special Operations training block, and modifications to the adaptive leadership training and Volkmann Exercise. Training venues have also changed, with more of the training conducted away from Fort Bragg at remote sites.

  HERE’S THE PLAN. Colonel Chissom and Sergeant Major Johnson, flanked by two guerrillas, listen as Specialist Antonio Costa briefs them on the ambush of a Pineland Army patrol.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ROBIN SAGE

  At 0500 on a Monday morning in mid-April, 308 18 Series MOS-trained officers and enlisted men, along with their operational gear, muster in the parking lot of Aaron Bank Hall at Fort Bragg. Technically, they’re still Green Beret candidates, but they are trained Special Forces soldiers. Because of the training before them, the Phase IV cadre refer to them as students. They are once more broken down into student ODAs and board an assortment of buses, trucks, and semitrailers that resemble cattle cars. After a stop at the armory to draw weapons, they head for Camp Mackall and the Rowe Training Facility. They are Class 2-05 for this phase of training. Once there, they pretty much know the drill. By 1000, the students have found their assigned team spaces—the all-too-familiar barracks/team-room facilities. For Phase IV, they’re a combination of Quonset-hut-style buildings and temporary mobile-home-type condo bays set on post-and-pier foundations with common sidewalls. Only in Phase IV, these team huts become isolation facilities. Within the training scenario, these are ODAs preparing for war. The student ODAs quickly settle into their quarters and draw additional equipment for the phase—radios, medical equipment, night-vision goggles, military GPSs, and a considerable amount of consumables like Chemlites, flares, MREs, and blank ammunition. After the equipment draws, each man lays out his personal and assigned team equipment on a poncho liner for inspection. By midafternoon, the candidates form up next to the battalion headquarters, the same area where many of them received their SFAS briefings. One of the phase cadre sergeants quickly covers the now-familiar rules for Special Forces training at Camp Mackall—no nonmilitary books, no cell phones, no personal computers, and no personal GPSs. Then the 1st Battalion commander steps in front of the formation.

  “Gentlemen, welcome back to Camp Mackall,” Lieutenant Colonel Jim Jackson says to Class 2-05. “This is it, Phase IV. This is where you take everything you’ve learned and put it all together in an operational environment. We expect you to work with indigenous forces in an unconventional-warfare scenario. That means dealing effectively with military, paramilitary, and civilian personnel. This phase is all about managing the human terrain. The indig forces you will work with will have different motivations and values than you. This is probably the last time many of you will train men for war that speak your language. You’ll have to find common ground and to pursue common interests with these men; you’ll have to win them over. It’s all about people. Your job is to teach them, train them, and bond with them. It’s a by, with, and through business, in this phase and on deployment in the Special Forces groups. Like all phases of training, we have performance review boards. There are three things that will get you to the board. The first is an inability to positively interact with others. The second’s the inability to grasp the material we teach here. Before you head into the field on Robin Sage, we’ll be teaching you some important skills. Show us a poor learning curve and you will find yourself recycled to the next class. And the last thing that’ll get you to the review board is lack of focus or not taking this training seriously. The Robin Sage exercise is one long, continuous stage performance. Get your head in the game and keep it in the game. Treat the training scenario like the real thing—be an actor and stay in character.

  “Finally, I want you to enjoy this training, and get all you can out of it. If you stay in role and work the scenario, it can be very rewarding. The guys coming back from combat deployments say Afghanistan is Robin Sage on steroids. Robin Sage and the Pineland scenario isn’t just some war game. It’s effectively trained several generations of Green Berets in unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense. This is real-time, downrange stuff. Take it seriously, gentlemen. A year from now, all of you will be deployed and in harm’s way. Command Sergeant Major?”

  Sergeant Major Frank Zorn steps before the class. “It won’t get any better than this,” he says with an easy grin. “Nobody’s shooting at you, which, by the way, is the last time you will have it that way. If you are taking real fire, it’s not part of the training. There are some locals out there that like to shoot guns. If the rounds are real, go admin. Otherwise, stay in the game—stay involved. There’s always something that you can do, something that needs doing. If there’s a problem, be a part of the solution. This training is for people who think—people who are aware of what’s going on around them and can anticipate what’s going to happen next. There’ll be a lot of opportunity for you to do something stupid. Don’t. Even when no one else is around, play the game for real. And you 18 Deltas, let me see a show of hands.” There is a smattering of hands from the group. “OK, I want you to repeat after me, ‘I am a warrior first and a medic second.’ Go on, say it.” They do. “Thanks, that’s all I have. Have fun, work hard, train hard,
and train like you fight, because you’ll be taking these skills to the fight.”

  The next man to address the class is Major Mike Kennedy. Major Kennedy is a lanky North Carolinian with a quiet, serious manner. He grew up in Chapel Hill, less than a hundred miles from Camp Mackall. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from the Citadel and a master’s in defense analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School. Kennedy has been in the Army for fifteen years, the Special Forces for ten. He’s spent most of his time with the 3rd Group and is a French speaker. In addition to several tours in Africa and Bosnia, he has made three rotations to Afghanistan. Mike Kennedy is thc commander of Echo Company, 1st Battalion, and the man responsible for Phase IV and Robin Sage. Robin Sage, the most complex and diverse military training exercise in the United States, rests squarely on his shoulders.

  “Welcome to Phase IV,” Kennedy tells Class 2-05. “Congratulations for getting to this phase in training. How many combat veterans do we have here?” About 30 percent of 2-05 raise their hands. “If I asked this question eighteen months ago, it would be half that many. If I ask that question of this group eighteen months from now, it would be 80 percent. Those of you who haven’t seen combat soon will. Phase IV is premission training. This is the last chance to rehearse those skills you’ll take to war. The skills you’ll use in Robin Sage—small-unit tactics, your MOS training, air infiltrations and resupply, and working with indigenous forces—are the things you’ll do when you get to the fight. What you fail to learn here can get you or one of your teammates killed. Here, we’ll hold you to a proficiency standard, or you’ll be recycled or relieved. You have to perform. You’re not a rifle squad; you are an ODA, and we expect you to think, adapt, improvise, and overcome. In short, you have to make it happen.

  “Your reputation is also at stake. These cadre sergeants will know if you are a slacker—trying to do just the minimum. Ninety percent of my cadre sergeants will go back to the groups as team sergeants; you’ll see them again. They all have memories like elephants. Take ownership and leadership within your teams. You captains and team sergeants have to step in and show the way when things get hard, and they will get hard. You guys in ranks have to lead from within the team. Do what needs to be done. Good luck.”

  The class breaks from the formation and heads for their team huts. My student Operational Detachment Alpha is student ODA 915. Nine-one-five has some familiar faces and some new ones. Leading the team is Captain Miguel Santos, the student detachment leader. He’ll be in charge of this twelve-man ODA during Phase IV and Robin Sage. Along with him will be many from his, and my, Phase II student ODA. The team’s 18 Bravos, or weapons “sergeants,” are Specialists Tom Kendall and Antonio Costa and Private First Class Tim Baker. The 18 Charlie engineering sergeants are Sergeants Daniel Barstow and Aaron Dunn. The communicators, or 18 Echos, are Specialists Justin Keller and David Altman—the big guy from Denver and the little guy from Tennessee. Lost from the Phase II team are Stan Hall, Byron O’Kane, and Frank Dolemont, who are all in combat medic training. Also missing is Captain Matt Anderson, who will command another student ODA in Phase IV, and the rugged PFC Roberto Pantella, who, due to the surplus of weapons sergeants on 915, is assigned to another Phase IV ODA.

  Joining my Phase IV ODA is a single 18 Delta medic, Sergeant Andrew Kohl. Sergeant Brian Short, who, like Antonio Costa, is in the National Guard, is also an 18 Echo communicator. Nine-one-five will have a fourth communications sergeant in Staff Sergeant Tom Olin, who, as the senior enlisted soldier, will serve as the team sergeant. Nine-one-five will also have another officer, a foreign-exchange student from Botswana, First Lieutenant Patrick Kwele. Kwele will serve as the assistant student detachment leader. Let’s take a closer look at the new guys.

  Andrew Kohl is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and has been in the Army for four years. He was an all-state high school cross-country runner from Wisconsin. After a year of college, he decided to enlist in the Army. “I’ve an uncle who served in Special Forces, and he’s been urging me to do this. After I saw what the SF were doing in Iraq, I knew this was what I wanted to do.” “Doc” Kohl has been in combat medic training longer than his teammates have been in the Q-Course and longer than the X-Ray candidates have been in the Army. But his combat medical training was as brief as he could make it. He was one of the minority from his 18 Delta class to go straight through training with no recycles.

  Brian Short grew up in Minneapolis and has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in communications. Captain Santos immediately tapped him to serve as 915’s intelligence specialist. Sergeant Short was working as an assistant manager at Wal-Mart when he joined the National Guard to help pay off his college loans. He knows that by volunteering for Special Forces training, he’s guaranteed himself a combat deployment. He’s assigned to the 20th Special Forces Group, and is the only one in 915 that knows the exact day when he will deploy with an operational detachment to Iraq. And that deployment will be only days after he graduates from the Q-Course. I asked him what he’ll do when he returns. “I’ll have to wait and see. I may go back to my old job at Wal-Mart, or I may elect to go into the active Army. Right now I have to focus on Phase IV, the rest of the Q-Course, and my deployment.”

  Staff Sergeant Tom Olin, twenty-five, has been in the Army for six years. He is from Montana, and began his military service with the 1st Cavalry Division as a Bradley Fighting Vehicle driver. This is his second try at the Q-Course. He was dropped from training in 2003 during Phase IV and is now back for the second try, having served a tour with the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan. He declined to talk about his previous attempt at Special Forces training, saying only that “I made some mistakes the last time I was here, and I won’t make those same mistakes again. I’m back here because this is what I want to do; I want to be a professional Special Forces soldier.”

  First Lieutenant Kwele is part of the ongoing international military student program in U.S. Army and Army Special Forces. There are foreign officers as well as enlisted soldiers in Class 2-05. They participate in all aspects of the Q-Course except those classroom evolutions where classified material is discussed, which include some classroom training during Phase IV. Before they enter American military training, the international students are carefully screened and in some cases attend language training in America. They’re also counseled in our customs and cultural norms—issues that range from the treatment of women to automobile insurance. This includes our military standards of conduct, which may differ from their home nation’s service. One such standard is the position and esteem which our Army affords noncommissioned officers and which may or may not be the case in the guest soldier’s army.

  Patrick Kwele is a lean, handsome, ebony-skinned African, with a shy, engaging smile. He is polite, almost formal, and speaks English with the precision of an Oxford don. Every foreign student in the Q-Course has a military sponsor who mentors them and helps them during training and outside of training hours. Kwele’s sponsor for the Q-Course is a former Ranger Regiment captain from Texas. “My girlfriend and I took Patrick home with us for Christmas,” the former Ranger said. “We hit every cowboy bar between New Orleans and Austin. I think we probably corrupted him a little along the way, but boy, did we have fun. And I have a standing invitation for a home-cooked meal the next time I’m in Gaborone. He’s a great ally, and he’s become a good friend.”

  At the team hut, the men continue to settle into their quarters while they await the arrival of their cadre officer and cadre sergeant. The thirty-six-day Phase IV curriculum can be broken down into three parts: classroom training at the Rowe Training Facility, preparation for Robin Sage, and the Robin Sage exercise. A word about Robin Sage. It is one of the most intense and well-choreographed military training exercises I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve seen my share of military training exercises.

  Robin Sage is a storied field exercise that ranges over some fifteen counties and eighty-five hundred square miles of south-central North Carolina, fr
om Camp Mackall north to Greensboro, west to Charlotte, and south to close to the South Carolina border. This wide usage of public and private lands is made possible by a mosaic of land-use agreements. There are a great number of patriotic farmers and landowners, including race-car legend Richard Petty, who allow the use of their property for this exercise. A number of rural communities take part in this exercise and act out the part of the Pineland citizenry. To train these 300 Special Forces candidates, there will be over a thousand support personnel: over 350 contract role players, 400-some volunteer auxiliaries, and 250 or more military and civilian contractor personnel. In addition to the support personnel, there are the soldiers who play the role of the guerrillas—the freedom fighters in this unconventional-warfare mega-exercise. These soldiers also serve in the role of opposition forces—usually enemy soldiers. They come from all over the Army and include National Guard components, marines, and, on occasion, West Point cadets—wherever the Army can find men and women to come and serve in this capacity. These soldiers play the role of Pineland guerrillas that have to be trained and led into battle by the student ODAs. This ad hoc guerrilla army can range from 400 to 600, depending on the availability and the size of the Phase IV class. The optimum mix is two guerrillas—or “Gs,” as they are called—for every Phase IV student. With our forces committed to the global war on terror, finding soldiers in this quantity with the time to support this training has been a challenge.

  Robin Sage is the third name given to this comprehensive Phase IV Special Forces training exercise. The origin of the name is unclear and often disputed among Special Forces veterans. It’s generally thought that it came from the North Carolina town of Robins and Special Forces colonel Jerry Sage. Sage, an OSS veteran, was a former 10th Special Forces Group commander.