Chosen Soldier

by Dick Couch

  It’s another tough night for 915. Half of them sleep while the other half man the three security outposts that guard the camp. Captain Santos and Sergeant Olin are constantly on the move, checking on sleepy soldiers in their security positions. As they go about their duties, they talk about the importance of building rapport and understanding these foreign fighters they are there to train.

  The following morning, things are better as 915 and Gs take up camp chores. The guerrillas have been briefed to be a little standoffish and make the Special Forces candidates draw them out. Captain Santos does a quick inventory of the limited food stocks in the G base and proposes to Colonel Chissom that the Americans and his Gs pool their chow resources, and share-and-share alike. Colonel Chissom warms to this. On the advice of the ODA weapons sergeants, the camp security positions are repositioned to better protect the camp. Doc Kohl moves about, checking on the health of each of the guerrillas. He asks Sergeant Major Johnson if he can hold sick call for the Gs and, if there are any of his men who serve as medics, he would like to meet them. Andrew Kohl is proving to be a quick study in the by, with, and through art. Soon he has two Gs assigned to him. He doesn’t talk medicine, but asks them a lot of questions about Pineland and themselves. Later that morning, two Pineland fighters arrive at the G base and ask to see Colonel Chissom. Colonel Chissom greets them warmly, but later expresses his displeasure with Captain Santos. “Your security should have told me they were here before I had to meet with them.”

  The two visitors, who will turn up periodically throughout the Robin Sage exercise, are a Colonel Merced and one of his lieutenants. They are, for want of a better term, a roving band of patriots—kind of a special operations force working for the liberation of Pineland. Merced has some intelligence on the movement of the Pineland security forces and the dreaded Pineland Condor Squadron, a particularly capable counterinsurgency element of the Pineland Army. He also has information for a potential target for that evening—the regular movement of a squad of Pineland soldiers between two Pineland security installations. Merced and Chissom are clearly on the same side, but Santos notes a change in his colonel’s comportment in Merced’s presence. He senses almost equal measures of trust and distrust between the two, and that they may be political rivals. Later that day, he will report this in his daily radio situation report.

  That afternoon, during what should have been the Ra-haa period, Sergeant Brian Short, coming off security duty, finds Captain Santos.

  “Hey, sir, something’s up. I went to get one of the Gs for security relief at 1500 and he wasn’t in his tent. I checked around, and they are all gone. Their gear and their hooches are still here, but the Gs have all bugged out.”

  Santos and Olin begin to look around and quickly find that Short is right. They can find neither Colonel Chissom nor Sergeant Major Johnson. Santos considers this, then turns to Olin.

  “OK, I want half the guys on security while the other half pack their gear and get ready to move out quickly. Then trade out; I want the team ready to move on a moment’s notice. This may be some kind of test, or it may be that there’s some kind of a threat in the area. At any rate, we have to be ready to fight or get the hell out of Dodge.”

  Nine-one-five quickly gets ready to move. Then late that afternoon, the Gs begin to straggle back into camp in twos and threes. Finally, Colonel Chissom and Sergeant Major Johnson return to the G base. It seems that Colonel Merced told Chissom in private that the location of the camp may have been compromised and that there was the threat of a raid by a Condor strike element. The fact that the Gs quietly left without telling the Americans clearly says that they still don’t fully trust them. Santos tells Chissom of his disappointment, but the colonel passes it off as an internal security issue.

  That evening, Chissom tells Santos that they are going to act on Merced’s intelligence and ambush a Pineland security squad that will be in the area. He asks Santos and two of his men to go along as observers. Santos accepts and offers the assistance of one of his SAW machine gunners to help with the ambush. They leave the G base on foot a few hours after dark—three Americans, Colonel Chissom, and five of his Gs with the two OCEs and myself trailing along behind. Halfway to the target area, Chissom stops to brief his men on how they’re going to arrange the ambush. The intelligence has the enemy moving along a disused railroad track. Chissom wants his men arranged on either side of the track to take the enemy soldiers in a crossfire.

  “Uh, if I may, Colonel, may I offer a suggestion?”

  “What is it, Captain?” Chissom says irritably.

  “You may want to stagger your men on either side of the track, or better yet, put them in an ‘L’ formation so you won’t be shooting at each other.”

  “This is the way we do it—the way we’ve always done it. Why do you want us to change our tactics now?” The colonel is clearly upset.

  After a heated discussion, Santos is able to show them the potential for fratricide in an opposing cross fire. Chissom grudgingly concedes the issue, but he’s clearly resentful. The small force continues the mission. They patrol for another hour to the target location. Shortly after midnight, a five-man squad of the Pineland Army comes up the tracks and is cut down by the guerrilla band. On Santos’s recommendation, Chissom put the SAW at the foot of the L with an excellent field of fire. It’s a textbook ambush and the enemy solders have no chance, and go down in a hail of blank automatic-weapons fire. In spite of the tactical success, things go sideways. As the Gs strip the dead enemy of their weapons and ammunition, Chissom offers Santos the honor of firing into the body of one of the fallen soldiers. Santos refuses, and another argument breaks out. Chissom accuses him of cowardice, and Santos tries to explain that this is against his rules of engagement. The Gs form up behind Chissom in a show of support. Then Santos suggests they talk later; guerrilla strikes are suppose to be hit-and-run operations.

  They’re no more than a half hour into their trek back to the G base, retracing their steps, when Santos politely suggests that it might be dangerous to return the exact same way they came. Chissom explodes.

  “How dare you again question my authority! This is my turf, my country, my fight, and this is my band of freedom fighters. You Americans are foreigners. You are arrogant! You are rude! And you know nothing of our struggle here! Maybe it would be better if you go back to where you came from and let us fight on alone.”

  We are on a back road along the edge of a cotton field. I can see the dim lights of a farmhouse a few hundred yards away and hear a dog barking in the distance. A half moon peeks from behind a cloud to illuminate this confrontation that’s taking place, literally, in the middle of nowhere. You can cut the tension between Santos and Chissom with a knife. It’s my sense that Colonel Chissom is really upset and that Captain Santos is really struggling to hold his temper and work within the scenario. The others—the Gs, the other two 915 soldiers, and the writer—watch in apprehension as the two men square off. Only the two OCEs, standing well off to the side along with me, seem to take it in stride.

  “You dress me down in front of my men,” Chissom continues, “you tell me how to do what we’ve done many times, and then you rush me away from the ambush site and we have no ears to show for it!”

  “Ears?” Santos questions.

  “The ears of the Pineland Army swine,” Chissom says with a show of great exasperation. “How do we celebrate the death of our enemies if we do not take their ears?” Then he stalks off in the direction of the G base. The guerrillas follow him, and the Americans follow them.

  “Is it always like this?” I ask one of the OCEs as we drop back from earshot of the others.

  “In one form or another,” he says. The OCE I spoke with retired after twenty years in the Army with close to sixteen years in 5th Group. While on active duty, he deployed to Kuwait, Somalia, Iraq, Bosnia, and Saudi Arabia. He was an 18 Echo communications sergeant, and for two years he served as an 18 Fox intelligence sergeant. “Bill [Chissom] is a good one. He
seems to know when to challenge the students and when to back away from them. But make no mistake about it; this is real. When you work with other cultures, being right or tactically sound doesn’t always make them like or trust you. This captain’s pretty sharp, but he’s letting his tactical competence become an obstacle to doing his job. It’s easy for us to see it, standing back and watching.” The former Special Forces sergeant chuckles. “Now, Captain Santos, there, he’s sweating bullets and wondering what the hell he did wrong.”

  When we get back to the G base, Colonel Chissom goes straight to his tent. Santos huddles with Sergeant Olin to compare notes. Olin has something of a victory to report. He and Sergeant Major Johnson talked for a few hours around the fire, and Johnson will allow the 18 Bravo sergeants to begin holding classes on weapons maintenance and the use of the M240 machine gun tomorrow. Santos retrieves his toughbook computer from his ruck and types up a brief report on their first mission with his G force. These situation reports are sent by PSC-5 via satellite or PRC-137 high-frequency transmission and retrieved at the 18 Echo/Eureka Springs communications center at Fort Bragg. These transmissions are then forwarded to the Rowe Training Facility at Camp Mackall. The cadre serving as the forward operating base communicators receive these messages, reply as necessary within the exercise scenario, and file a copy of the message traffic in Captain Childers’s in-box, where he or Sergeant Blackman retrieve them on a daily basis.

  The next morning, Captain Santos, after three restless hours sleep, finds Colonel Chissom by the fire pit.

  “Mind if I join you, sir?” Chissom says nothing, but motions for him to take a seat. Santos desperately wants to have it out with Chissom—confront him, air it out, and move on. This direct approach is how most American military officers—and American business executives, for that matter—handle these issues. But last night, Santos, Patrick Kwele, and Tom Olin talked about it, and now Santos is prepared to deal with it differently.

  “I need to apologize for last night, Colonel,” Santos says. “Our customs and military traditions are very different from yours. There are some things my country forbids me to do and will hold me strictly accountable for. Yet I failed to appreciate just how hard it is for you and your men in your struggle for freedom. Perhaps I need to work harder to understand your ways and the gallant efforts of your freedom fighters. I hope we can still work together for the liberation of Pineland.”

  Chissom nods slowly. “I think I understand, Captain, and we do need to work together if we are to free our country. Let us try to be allies.”

  That morning, Doc Kohl holds sick call for the Gs—there are real-world issues with poison oak, a few cuts, and a brown recluse spider bite. The latter is a serious matter; Kohl dresses the bite and starts the soldier on antibiotics. Later that morning, a cadre medic, in the guise of a Red Cross worker, stops by to check Kohl’s diagnosis and treatment. The ODA weapons sergeants begin to hold classes in weapons and tactics, and the communicators work with the Gs on the PRC-119 and PRC-148 MBITR radios. The training is supervised by First Lieutenant Kwele and is going so well that the Gs are an hour into Ra-haa before they realize it and head for their hooches to rest. Captain Santos stays close to Colonel Chissom, engaging him on issues that range from future joint operations to his vision for Pineland after the peace is won. That afternoon, Sergeant Olin and Sergeant Johnson agree that the three security positions that guard the camp will be jointly manned by one American and one Pinelander.

  The relationship between Captain Miguel Santos and Colonel Bill Chissom will continue to blossom and then become strained, as relationships will between the Gs and 915. Some of this is scenario driven to generate teaching points, and sometimes it’s the reaction or response to the conduct of 915. I find it surprising how the soldiers in the role of Pineland guerrillas take so well to their persona of insurgents. On occasion, I find them being overly cooperative, as I know they’re secretly rooting for the 915 Special Forces students, but for the most part they live and act the part of Gs. The time and attention that go into this one scenario, or lane, to train twelve Special Forces candidates is simply phenomenal. Twenty-eight soldiers work in shifts around the clock to train the twelve, plus the part-timers in the form of Colonel Merced, the auxiliary personnel, and other role players. And this is one lane. There are twenty-four other scenarios being played out across the state of North Carolina. A total of twenty-five student ODAs working under three forward operating bases are embedded with their guerrilla contingents, all working to liberate this small nation called Pineland.

  I was able to get out to see some team leader/G-chief interaction at other G bases during the previous Robin Sage class, Class 1-05, and they struggled, just like Captain Miguel Santos is with Colonel Chissom. Each student ODA scenario or lane is a scripted, well-tested, well-thought-out series of events designed to challenge and teach these Green Beret students. These scenarios are also flexible and can be advanced, or delayed, or modified, within limits, depending on the decisions and actions of the student ODAs. In some lanes, certain businesses and sometimes whole communities are in on the game. There are stores that will sell goods and food for don, with the store owners later exchanging the don for greenbacks. There are meetings at night with members of the underground in basements under bowling alleys. Intelligence on critical targets is passed over the counter by coffee shop owners to SF candidates dressed in civilian clothes. To the credit of these patriotic citizens, I’m not sure this civilian-supported military training could take place anywhere but central North Carolina.

  By the third day, the operational tempo picks up. The Gs are short on weapons, so First Lieutenant Kwele, Sergeant Dunn, and Specialist Costa are sent to make a weapons buy on the black market. The auxiliary who is to take them to the rendezvous with the arms dealer manages to drive off (on instructions from Sergeant Blackman) without Patrick Kwele, leaving Dunn and Costa to negotiate the buy.

  “That taught me a lesson,” Costa said of the evolution. “I was the junior guy and thought I’d just be along for security. Then the lieutenant gets left and suddenly I have to inspect, test, and make the buy. From now on, I’m going to pay better attention to the mission brief. You never know when you’ll have to step up and take charge.”

  The first major target is a railroad bridge. This is one of the preplanned targets that 915 worked on before they inserted into Pineland. They knew they would have to blow the bridge, but didn’t know exactly when. Their forward operating base commander radios them with instructions to take out the bridge close to midnight the following night. Sergeant Dan Barstow is to be in charge of this operation. He elects to send in Specialist David Altman and PFC Tim Baker, along with two Gs, the night before for the mission reconnaissance. For this mission, Baker is to be in charge and Altman the recon-team communicator.

  “David and I work well together,” Baker tells me. “We were in the same boot camp company and the same jump-school stick. With the exception of Phase III, we’ve been together since we joined the Army. We’re battle buddies, and we’ll handle this recon.”

  They are to put “eyes-on” the target for twenty-four hours, then bring Barstow and his men in, link up with them, and do the job. The bridge is eight klicks (eight thousand meters—about five miles) from the G base. Barstow wants commo with his recon element, but there is some question of using an MBITR radio since it is at the limit of the small radio’s range. Altman is made to take along the more powerful, and bigger, PRC-137 to talk to the PRC-119 serving as the G-base radio.

  “I didn’t spend all that time in Phase III learning about radios,” Altman says with some irritation, “not to make that commo shot with an MBITR. I know I can do it.”

  The recon team goes in and finds a good perch above the railroad trestle. They observe the guard force, which turns out to be a maritime unit that has regular foot patrols on the bridge and a Boston whaler that patrols the river. Altman, who brought along both radios, finds a shallow rise above their position and rig
s a ladder-line, J-pole antenna to the small, handheld MBITR. “I had great commo with the G base, and I was transmitting with only a tenth of a watt of power.” He passes along the recon team’s observations. Armed with this new intelligence, Daniel Barstow, Sergeant Brian Short, and the four Gs who will be with them plan their mission throughout the day. That evening, under Dan Barstow’s direction, the team delivers a briefback to Colonel Chissom. Chissom is happy to see his Gs delivering portions of the mission brief. Shortly before midnight, PFC Baker and his recon element link up with Barstow and the assault team. Together, they attack and eliminate the enemy force guarding the bridge. There are five of them sitting around a fire by the river, and the attackers are able to get quite close before they open fire in a one-sided assault. With the guard force neutralized, they place their charges on the rails, pull their time fuses, and move off for their extraction point. After they’ve cleared off the target, I remain with the OCE who will retrieve the dummy charges. He’s a former 18 Charlie engineering sergeant. He times the time-fuse burn from the “fire in the hole” to the puffs of smoke at the base of the inert caps. Both burn times of the dual-primed charges are very close to the allotted five minutes. The OCE also grades the quality of the det-cord tie-in and the placement of the charges.

  Sergeant Barstow’s team and the recon element are not the only teams in the field. Soon after Barstow and company leave camp for the attack on the bridge, Specialist Justin Keller, along with Sergeant Aaron Dunn and two Gs, set out to recon the drop zone for the preplanned aerial resupply the following evening. They’re collected by the auxiliary in yet another old pickup truck and taken to a location several miles from the G base. Keller has a military GPS called a plugger and verifies that they are at the right location. Then they settle in to put eyes-on the vacant field for the next twenty-four hours.