Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Special Forces 101

  The Road to the Top: An Interview with General Henry H. Shelton

  Creating Special Forces Soldiers

  Inside the Rucksack: Special Forces Staff

  U.S. Army Special Forces Command

  Getting Ready: Training for the “Big” One

  Downrange: Special forces in the Field

  Into the Twenty-first Century

  Operation Merdeka

  Glossary

  Bibliography

  NOVELS BY TOM CLANCY

  The Hunt for Red October

  Red Storm Rising

  Patriot Games

  The Cardinal of the Kremlin

  Clear and Present Danger

  The Sum of All Fears

  Without Remorse

  Debt of Honor

  Executive Orders

  Rainbow Six

  The Bear and the Dragon

  Red Rabbit

  The Teeth of the Tiger

  SSN: Strategies of Submarine Warfare

  NONFICTION

  Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship

  Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment

  Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing

  Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit

  Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force

  Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier

  Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces

  Into the Storm: A Study in Command (written with General Fred Franks, Jr., Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  Every Man a Tiger (written with General Charles Horner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces (written with General Carl Stiner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  Battle Ready (written with General Tony Zinni, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

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  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  Copyright © 2001 by Rubicon, Inc.

  Author photograph by John Earle.

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  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley trade paperback edition / February 2001

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Clancy, Tom, 1947-

  Special forces : a guided tour of U.S. Army Special Forces / Tom Clancy,

  written with John Gresham.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-12742-1

  1. Special forces (Military science)—United States—History. 2. United States.

  Army—Commando troops. 3. U.S. Special Operations Command—History.

  I. Gresham, John. II. Title.

  UA34.S64 C58 2001

  356’.1673’0973—dc21

  00-065121

  DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this book are entirely those of the author, and do not necessarily correspond with those of any corporation, military service, or government organization of any country.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Some projects run longer than others. Some years are tougher than others. In the almost two years that went into this book, we have come to know many fine people within the Special Forces community, some have become close friends. Sadly, with all the happy times have also come darker moments. It goes without saying that what Special Forces professionals do is dangerous. The years 1998 and 1999 were no exception. Casualties were suffered. The United States lost Special Forces soldiers. We wish to remember them here:

  None of these losses made the national news. Like the community they served and the company they kept, these men died quietly keeping the faith in their “special” profession. They asked for nothing more than the chance and a place to serve. It is to these special men that that this book is dedicated. Fighting men, of the Green Beret.

  Acknowledgments

  This book—like all the others in this series—has been a team effort; no one person can take total credit for it ... or total blame.

  None of the team deserves more credit than my longtime partner and researcher, John D. Gresham. As always, John traveled the world, met the people, took the pictures, ate MREs, spent cold, sleepless nights in the field, and did all the things that make readers feel they are there for all the action. Next, I have to praise the literary skills of Tony Koltz. Without his constant, passionate prodding and brilliant way with words, this book would never have seen the light of day. We have also again benefited from the wisdom, vision, experience, and efforts of series editor Professor Martin H. Greenberg, as well as Larry Segriff and all the staff at Tekno Books. Laura DeNinno is again to be saluted for her wonderful drawings, which have added so much. This team has brought these books to you, and I hope we all get together again. It was great, guys!

  Any book like this would be impossible to produce without the support of senior service personnel, both retired and in top positions. In this regard, we have again been blessed with all the support that we could have needed or wanted. Great thanks for two retired senior Army officers: General Carl Stiner and Lieutenant General Bill Yarborough. Both gave us their valuable time and support, and we can never repay their trust and friendship. In the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we had the best: General Henry Shelton, Colonel (and Dr.) David Petreaus, Captain Steve Petropelli, and Carolyn Piper made our much delayed interview finally happen. Over in Army Public Affairs, we had the pleasure of doing another book with Colonel John Smith. We also had Lieutenant Colonel Ray Whitehead at Soldiers magazine. Down at U.S. Special Operations Command in F
lorida, General Peter Schoomaker and his staff were generous with their support as well. It’s nice to have friends.

  At Fort Bragg, the home of Army Special Forces, Lieutenant General William P. Tangney, Major General William G. Boykin, and Major Generals Kenneth R. Bowra and John Scales were kind enough to open up the community for our research. Over at the JFK Special Warfare Center, Colonel Remo Butler gave us time and access to his command, which produces Special Forces soldiers. We also need to thank the media relations team at U.S. Army Special Operations Command, who held our hands throughout the project. Major Tom McCollum was there at every turn, was with us on every trip and visit, and did a job no paycheck could ever compensate for. Backing him up was Lieutenant Colonel Tom Rhinelander and Carol Jones, who made sure we walked the line and stayed safe.

  Out in the field, there was the wonderful staff at Fort Polk, who took care of us on our JRTC visits. Major Tom Costello and the incomparable Paula Schlag run a media relations shop that has no equal anywhere in the military today. They put the public face on the world’s finest training center, whose commanding officers, Brigadier Generals Sam Thompson and Charles Swannack, Jr., made us welcome again and again. Down at the SOT-D shop, Colonel Mike Rozsypal, Lieutenant Colonel John Smith, and Major Tim Fitzgerald took good care of us from Yuma to Mississippi. Finally, special thanks to Major Bill Shaw and his lovely wife, Mary Kay, who took us in, fed us, and made us welcome in their home. As friends and professionals, we thank them for their efforts.

  The real story of this book took place out in the Special Forces Groups (SFGs) and Teams, and we never lacked for material. Normally, we would have a long list of the young men and women who helped us, but such a roster is not possible because of the continuing nature of downrange Special Forces operations. As you read this, almost everyone we might talk about is probably on a foreign mission or getting ready for one. Thus, for reasons of personal respect, safety, and security, we have avoided providing names (except where they are already known), and our pictures have been shot to protect identities. We do want to make special thanks to Colonels Ed Phillips and James “Roy” Dunn, along with Lieutenant Colonel Joe Smith, who tolerated our continued presence and questions. And our finest wishes must also go to the teams who let us into their deployments, missions, and lives. In the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 19th, and 20th SFGs, there are a lot of Special Forces soldiers who took us with them in the field and downrange. To those men, I hope we got your stories right, because you sure told them well. You know who you are. Thanks, too, to the fine folks from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (the Nightstalkers), who took us on several exciting rides. We need to thank Colonel Marcos Rojas of the Guardia Nacional’s GAC FAC and Colonel Jose Grant of the 107th SF Battalion in Venezuela. In a bad part of the world, these two fine officers are part of the long-range solution and they are our friends. And for all the folks who took us for rides, jumps, shoots, and exercises, thanks for teaching the ignorant how things really work.

  We must again extend thanks for all of our help in New York, especially to Robert Gottlieb and Matt Bialer at the William Morris agency, and Robert Youdelman and Tom Mallon, who took care of the legal details. Over at Berkley Books, our regards to our series editor, Tom Colgan, as well as to David Shanks.

  And of course, for our friends, families, and loved ones—we thank you once more. We’re finally coming home.

  Foreword

  President John F. Kennedy was a voracious reader. Early in his presidency, at the urging of Roger Hilsman (who was then Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and a World War II OSS veteran with guerrilla warfare experience), the president made himself familiar with the revolutionary writings of Che Guevara and Communist China’s Mao Tse-tung, as well as the military philosophy of the Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap, whose book People’s War, People’s Army offered JFK a revealing taste of the future. As he reflected on these and other sources, our dynamic young president came to feel that the threat to the security of the United States posed by irregular, clandestine, and covert politico-military aggression was grave enough to demand special attention. And he concluded that in the turbulent world of the 1960s, the forces of instability and conflict were largely not vulnerable to attack by conventional military weapons and tactics. As a student of international affairs, President Kennedy was convinced that:“... [A] whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and therefore a wholly different kind of military training ... was called for. ”

  Few of the president’s peers would pursue his studies of unconventional warfare, or reach the conclusions he reached. This failure would later haunt the United States.

  In the early 1960s it was generally accepted in America’s high military command and staff circles (including the Joint Chiefs of Staff) that there was nothing unique about Ho Chi Minh’s war then smoldering in Southeast Asia. Public statements by very high-ranking Army officers made light of the idea that guerrilla warfare was important or posed any serious problems, and rejected any inference that an intense political struggle was woven through the fabric of Communist military action in Southeast Asia.

  As far as the majority of senior leaders were concerned, the basic training, leadership, motivation, organizational principles, tactics, and strategy that had won America’s wars in the past could handle any conflict situation, and would be more than adequate for Indo-Cbina—or any other land infected with guerrilla warfare.

  It was the president himself, and not his military advisors, who first perceived that the front line of defense against paramilitary aggression had to be in the hearts and minds of the threatened population. Though the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high level military leaders did not share his enthusiasm for the development of an unconventional military capability, there was within the ranks of the U.S. Army a small element whose genes had been inherited from the behind-the-lines OSS warriors of World War II. These unconventional soldiers had been given the label of Special Forces.

  It was President Kennedy’s desire that Special Forces become an elite corps of experts both in guerrilla warfare and in counterguerrilla operations, and he made his wishes known to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in very firm terms. Even so, several aspects of the Special Forces Prototype, which was being crafted in response to the desires of the Commander in Chief, were in for heavy going. The reasons were traditional. Unlike the armies of other great powers past and present, the United States Army has always looked with disfavor upon the concept of elite military organizations. Both special warfare and special forces were terms that raised hackles among conventional regulars.

  Which meant there was, for example, minimal official Army support for the philosophy of the great Sun Tzu, which held that special men and units could be found and formed: “When all troops are encamped together, the general selects from every camp its high-spirited and valiant officers who are distinguished by agility and strength and whose martial accomplishments are above the ordinary. These are grouped to form a Special Corps. Of ten men, but one is selected; of ten thousand, one thousand.”

  By way of contrast, the U.S. Army’s vast personnel system was designed to handle the manpower requirements that our nation of over two hundred million souls would generate in time of war. This system focused with reluctance and some hostility on the Special Forces microcosm from which only minuscule conventional fighting power was expected to emerge. For example, the smallest unit of Special Forces, the “A” Detachment, had only two officers, with ten enlisted men (each a noncommissioned officer or rated specialist) under their command. These men were not expected by Special Forces leaders to directly face a heavy, mechanized division. They had other, far more valuable uses. The point was that no unit of similar size had anything like their many capabilities and skills.

  Sergeant Barry Sadler’s famous “Ballad of the Green Beret” made this point well. To a number of members of the U.S. Army’s General Staff, Sergeant Sadler had put to music the chief re
asons why they supported an expansion of Special Forces reluctantly or not at all:“Silver wings upon their chest, These are men, America’s best. One hundred men we’ll test today. But only three win the Green Beret. ”

  The first chapter of Robin Moore’s 1965 best seller, The Green Berets, outlined just how tough it was to become a fully qualified Special Forces soldier. As Moore pointed out, most demanding of all were the unbending requirements that the products of this unprecedented training exhibit character, moral courage, dedication, honesty, and true patriotism, in addition to the technical military skills and physical standards that set them apart from “general purpose” troops. They were anything but run-of-the-mill. They were “special” in every sense. And it was precisely this category that placed Green Berets in frequent jeopardy of being at war with the rest of the Army.

  The Vietnam chapter of American military history reflects little in the way of strategic, tactical, or political credit upon our beloved United States. On battlefields that rarely resembled those Americans had seen—or expected—the massive battering ram of American firepower proved no answer to a will-o‘-the-wisp adversary who was more vulnerable to the weapons of political and psychological warfare than to bullets and bayonets. The United States Army’s Special Forces were perhaps the only element of U.S. military power in Vietnam that practiced the art of persuasion as a major weapons system. Their influence resulted in psychological denial to the VC and the NVA of human and geographic areas that would otherwise have fallen under their control.