Chosen Soldier

by Dick Couch

  “Don’t lose sight of my objective,” he tells his team leaders. “Your primary task is to disrupt the Pineland army and the Pineland security forces, and to condition the battlefield in advance of conventional forces. Training your Gs is only part of what you have to do. Once you infil into your areas of responsibility, you are ground truth. You’re to continue with your area assessment and report intelligence back up the chain of command. Secure, reliable, accurate communications are an important part of your job. I’m not too concerned about format, but I am concerned about your painting a clear picture of the battlefield. Real world, what you report can go straight up to the White House.

  “Read carefully the motivations and problems of the locals you’re training. Always be studying your guerrilla counterparts with an eye to how they can be most effective against our common enemy. And while you and your Gs are working toward a common goal, be thinking about what their future agenda might be after the hostilities are over. Think downstream. Understand the second- and third-order consequences of what you do. And while you’ll be immersed in the details of training your Gs and conducting missions, think about demobilization and the role of Psyops and Civil Affairs in the aftermath of the fighting.

  “You’ll be challenged, and you’ll be confronted with dilemmas. You will have to think your way and negotiate your way out of these dilemmas. And through all this, never forget that you are an American Special Forces ODA with the full backing of the U.S. government. Your skills and presence are needed. Invite, even demand, respect. Don’t allow yourself to be marginalized; retain your weapon and your rights as a leader and an American. You will have to think and conduct yourself as a Special Forces soldier at all times.”

  Following Major Kennedy’s remarks, the team leaders and their assistants receive a series of briefings from cadre serving as the forward operating base intelligence, supply, and communications officers. Then it’s back to the team huts for more planning and preparation.

  Late afternoon on day twelve of Phase IV, 915 and the other teams leave the Rowe Training Facility on a three-day mission-readiness exercise. This is a short field exercise designed to develop and rehearse their standard operating procedures and to brush up on their tactical movement as a team. They’ll also conduct mission-specific rehearsals for Robin Sage. The exercise begins with an equipment jump. The heavily laden teams are trucked to the Camp Mackall Army Airfield, where they board C-130s and are dropped into nearby Luzon Drop Zone. Once on the DZ, 915 gathers at the rally point and patrols off the DZ to their assigned linkup point. There they’re met by their cadre truck, one of the large four-by-four trucks that support the training. Nine-one-five piles into the back of the truck and the canvas flaps are pulled tight. They are then driven all over the back roads of Camp Mackall. The drill is for them to estimate their speed and direction of travel without visual reference. In the back of the big truck, the members of 915 huddle around their maps and try to track their movements with penlight and compass. Shortly after midnight, the men are dropped at their training area, surprisingly not too far from where their back-of-the-truck navigation said that they would be.

  They are up well before dawn conducting preplanned cross-training, beginning with combat first aid. Most student ODAs in Class 2-05, like 915, have only one medic. Sergeant Andrew “Doc” Kohl drills his teammates in combat casualty care, including assessment of the victim, controlling bleeding with tourniquets and bandages, splinting, CPR, and giving IVs. The training is much like the trauma lanes in the combat medic training, but without the makeup and fake blood.

  “Get a system of assessment and treatment in your mind and follow it each time you work with a casualty,” Doc Kohl tells his teammates. “Do it the same way each time.”

  After medical training, the 18 Echos run the team through some comm drills. They train on the PRC-119, the PSC-5, and the PRC-148 MBITR radios, all radios they will take with them into Pineland, and on the KL-43, a small keypad used to send a text message when a toughbook computer is not available. Specialists David Altman and Justin Keller serve as primary trainers and drill their teammates on each radio—how to set in the frequency, adjust the power setting, and transmit. After the commo training, Sergeants Aaron Dunn and Daniel Barstow, the team engineers, hold a class on demolitions using dummy charges, det cord, and blasting caps, but with real time fuse and real time-fuse calculations. They cover circular and linear charges, charge placement, knot tying with det cord, the dual priming of charges, and the safety considerations associated with nonelectric firing assemblies. They set up demo training lanes, so each man can set up a charge and dual prime it. Then the weapons sergeants, Baker, Costa, and Kendall, hold a quick familiarization on the M240 and SAW machine guns, and the optimum placement of these weapons systems. They also inspect their teammates’ personal M4 cleaning kits. Where they’re deficient, they provide their teammates with spares.

  Sergeant Blackman stops by late morning to see how they’re doing. He gives them a short, informal class on linkup procedures for Robin Sage, along with some ideas to get them thinking about near and far recognition signals in a rural setting. He watches his team’s training for a short while, then leaves without comment. These cross-training drills serve two purposes. The first is that they get the whole team up to speed on what they need to know in the way of first aid, communications, weapons, and demolitions for the Robin Sage exercise. The second is that it is practice teaching for the teachers. The new 18 Series specialists will be teaching these same skills to their guerrillas—the Pineland freedom fighters.

  After the MOS cross-training, the team begins a long patrol to their new training area. Along the way, they conduct a mini Phase II course to review basic patrolling, raid, and ambush procedures, reaction to fire, countersniper procedures, hand and arm signals, danger crossings, security halts, and the whole range of small-unit tactical skills. Afternoon becomes night, and they continue to patrol and drill until they reach their second layup position and go to ground for the night. Ten of them bed down, while two remain awake on watch. Sergeant Blackman and Captain Childers had carefully reviewed their team’s training schedule prior to the exercise, but pretty much leave 915 to train on their own. I move around to see a few other Phase IV ODAs conduct cross-training and small-unit-tactics drills, and their cadre sergeants were often right there with them. I ask Miguel Santos about this.

  “It’s on us,” Captain Santos says after their first full day in the mission-readiness exercise. “We know what we have to do, and the guys are committed to getting it done and getting it right. Sergeant Blackman told us what he expects out here, and we don’t want to disappoint him. We all think pretty highly of him—Captain Childers as well.”

  The second day of exercise is interview day. Nine-one-five patrols about a mile to the training site and dumps their rucks in a wooded area near one of the lakes on Camp Mackall. This is where the eight student ODAs assigned to their forward operating base gather for this day’s training. There are eight training stations. Each station or venue is a tarp rigged among the trees with a table and four or more chairs. At each station, there are two contract role players who support this exercise and Robin Sage. Almost all are former Green Berets who now work for Northrop Grumman. The student ODA is briefed/read into each scenario by their cadre team sergeant. Then two members of the ODA are designated as the team leader and team sergeant. They approach and make contact with the two role players waiting at the station. The rest of the ODA members gather nearby so they can observe and listen.

  For 915, the first scenario is a Belgian medical nongovernmental organization, Doctors Without Borders, working in Afghanistan. The ODA is new to the area and wants to make contact with the NGO—get to know them, see what they can do for the NGO, and see what they can learn. Specifically, the ODA wants to know about insurgents in the area. The men know the doctors move freely about and treat both sides. The NGO reps distrust the military. It’s not a personal thing, but they want to keep their
distance and maintain their neutrality. They do want military help if things get out of hand, and perhaps some supplies that the NGOs find scarce. Staff Sergeant Olin and PFC Tim Baker are the team leader and team sergeant for this encounter. Olin asks how things are going and if there’s anything they can do to help. The NGO rep allows that he has a broken sterilizer and needs a new one. Tom Olin tells him he’ll see what he can do to find one, and asks about the insurgent activity in the area. After a semicordial back-and-forth conversation while the other members of the team observe, Olin and Baker say good-bye to the two NGO workers. Time is called in the exercise play, and 915 gathers for an immediate critique of the session.

  The other venues pose different and challenging dilemmas, but issues commonly encountered by deployed ODAs. One is with a Pineland guerrilla chief. This is a first meeting between the G chief and the Americans who have just arrived in area. A guerrilla on security checks them out, and the chief welcomes them to his fire under a patch of canvas suspended between trees. The G chief has problems—wounded men, low supplies of food and ammo, lack of weapons. Sergeant Dan Barstow and Specialist Tom Kendall meet with him to work out the G chief’s problems and the relationship/status of the newly arrived Special Forces team. The third scenario deals with a black marketeer. He has food, ammunition, grenades, weapons, medical supplies, and women—all for sale. Sergeant Aaron Dunn and Specialist Antonio Costa try to find out what he has, how much, and whom he’s selling it to. ODAs prefer not to work with the black market, but sometimes there’s no alternative. Dunn and Costa’s job is also to find out where he’s getting his wares. After a bit of bargaining, they buy a sack of potatoes as a show of faith and to maintain contact. In the critique, the cadre sergeant observing this venue puts black-market activity into perspective for 915.

  “You’re always going to have needs, and you’ll always be buying and contracting with the locals for those needs. In Special Forces, you just can’t run down to the battalion supply sergeant. You’ll try not to deal with the black market, but you may have to. In some countries, and in regions of just about every country, you’ll find the black market. A black marketeer knows you can probably put him out of business. You may use this leverage to get some useful intelligence. Regarding dealing with the locals in general, expect to pay a fair price and perhaps a premium, but no more. Be gracious, and even tip them. Local knowledge and setting limits can keep you in the best place to negotiate. Every team has a guy who’s good at this—loves buying used cars, making deals, likes haggling. Let him deal with the locals when you need something.”

  The next venue or dilemma is a rogue U.S. contractor in Afghanistan. This is a fellow American who’s in Afghanistan for the money, and Sergeant Brian Short and Specialist Justin Keller have to engage him. In the scenario, they need intelligence that the rogue contractor may have, but the contractor’s clearly in Afghanistan for different reasons than the Special Forces team. “There are many legitimate contractors who’ll be able to help you with your mission,” the role players tell them during the critique, “and some will try to screw you. You have to look carefully at their motives and establish the basis for your relationship. If they’re in it for themselves, to the detriment of you, your mission, and your nation, let them know that you and your posse may just come back and put them out of business. And immediately report this up the chain of command.”

  At the fifth encounter, Sergeant Andrew Kohl and Specialist David Altman link up with a Pinelander who is part of the auxiliary that is to transport the team through a dangerous area. Kohl, the team leader, has 1,000 don (the currency of Pineland is the don) for making arrangements. This member of the auxiliary’s a good old boy and friendly, and asks them for money for a local orphanage he says he is running. The student Green Berets have to make their own assessment. They also have to refocus him on the job at hand—getting the team moved safely. They have to not only negotiate his fee, but talk about what to do if they get stopped by the Pineland security forces and what to do if there’s any shooting—how they’re going to keep him safe. They have to get a quick read on him—what are his real motivations and interests? How reliable is he?

  The final three problems or dilemmas involve the whole team with each acting in their team assignment. All three relate to the Robin Sage scenario, but could be any unconventional-warfare or foreign-internal-defense assignment anywhere in the world. Captain Miguel Santos leads his team into the first of these, which is a meeting with a G chief and several of his guerrillas. The meeting runs along predictable lines as they talk about money, food, weapons, and medical needs. Then a Pinelander reporter wants to take a picture of the Americans with the guerrillas. Both Captain Santos and Sergeant Olin protest; they cannot allow this. The G chief insists, and there’s a spirited debate about the photo. They reach a compromise and sit back down to drink a toast to Pineland. Two members of 915 have secretly been told by one of the cadre sergeants to refuse to drink for religious reasons, and an argument breaks out over this refusal.

  “This is something you’ll have to deal with,” the cadre sergeant at the venue tells 915. “You may cite mutual respect for your customs or ask them to honor your religious belief, but you’re going to have to resolve it on terms acceptable to them. That means you may have to drink some god-awful brew when you’d really rather not.”

  The second dilemma arises in a discussion with a G chief who’s baiting caches with food and killing unarmed enemy soldiers when they come for the food. Captain Santos tries to dissuade the guerrillas from this, saying this isn’t honorable and will cost them face with the local population. He also gently threatens the withdrawal of his support if they continue to shoot unarmed combatants. The third dilemma comes to them in the form of an armed intruder who approaches the group and tries to disrupt the meeting. There’s a question of whether to talk to challenge the intruder or just shoot him.

  “Two lessons here, guys,” the cadre sergeant at this station tells them. “The first is that you can never forget that you’re American fighting men, and you’ll be bound by certain standards and your ROEs. You may not always be able to enforce those on the people you work with, but, consistent with your mission, you have to try. The second is that security is a twenty-four-hour a day job. When you’re out there on the tip of the spear, things can change in a heartbeat. You may have to quickly reorientate yourself and take action. It’s on you, and you can never let your guard down. If the team leader and the team sergeant are locked up in negotiations, the rest of you have to set security and watch their backs.”

  Day three of the mission-readiness exercise is a tactical Olympics of a sort. Nine-one-five is matched against student ODA 912. The two teams begin with a five-mile, four-point land-navigation course over which they have to move in tactical order. The final point brings them to a sparsely wooded training area on the western edge of the Camp Mackall Army Airfield. There the student ODAs prepare for the head-to-head competition, but first they change into dry clothes. The nav course took them through some streams and draws. Nine-one-five was penalized for not finding one of its nav points, so it starts the remaining events with a time penalty.

  The competition takes the two teams several hundred meters up the wooded area and back. It’s a race against each other and the clock. Along the way are stations where the men must perform individually and as a team. The starting positions are about fifty meters apart, so each team can see how the other is faring in the competition. Sergeant Blackman walks with 912 and Sergeant First Class Bill Viafore, 912’s cadre sergeant, walks with 915. Both cadre sergeants want their own team to win, but they’re more concerned that the teams perform to standard and display the proper skills. This is their final tactical tune-up before Robin Sage.

  The route laid out by the cadre teams for the student ODAs challenges them on a range of tactical disciplines. Initially, each man in turn must fire a magazine of blank ammo through their M4 rifles. Each magazine has a bad round, which means the shooter has to fire
, clear the jammed weapon, and continue to fire. Another event has them set up and fire a short belt of ammo through the M240. Again, there’s a bad round. Clearing a jammed round from a 240 often requires muscling the big gun, sometimes with a boot. Time is added for procedural mistakes. At another station, the team has to rig two demolition charges with dual-initiated, nonelectric firing assemblies. Both charges are to be timed with a two-minute delay. Time is added for nonoptimum charge placement and for fuse burn times inside or outside the two-minute window. In the weapons drills, the 18 Bravo weapons sergeants cannot participate, and in the demolition drill, the 18 Charlie engineers can’t play; it’s all on how well they cross-trained their teammates.

  The final event is a medical-commo drill. A man on each team is “shot” and has to be stabilized, cared for, and evacuated. The care is in the form of treatment for bleeding and shock. He needs resuscitation, CPR, and an IV. The 18 Delta medical sergeants can only observe. Then the casualty has to be carried on a litter to the edge of the airfield clearing and readied for casualty evacuation. The teams have to put out marking panels and prepare the helicopter landing zone to move their casualty. Each team has to rig a field-expedient antenna and hoist it at least thirty feet into the air. Then each of the non–18 Echo communicators has to set up and transmit a message on the PRC-119. The last man on the radio drill calls in the helo, a four-by-four truck. The team puts out smoke on the LZ for the pilot/truck driver, and the casualty is loaded onto the evacuation helo. All the drills are executed in simulated tactical, under-fire conditions. That means the teams have to be thinking security and teamwork start to finish.