Story and Photos by Heike
Hasenauer
Soldiers in bright yellow flight suits
hunch down along the outer rim of the vertical wind tunnel, their headsets
and goggles fastened securely to protect them from the wind's velocity
and the dizzying drone of the 3,600-horsepower engine creating it.
In the inner circle, black-suited
instructors "fly" above the students' heads, ascending and descending at
will within the 24-foot-tall structure that simulates an actual free fall
at 120 miles per hour.
Military free fall is one of several advanced-skills training courses offered
to a special group of soldiers who call themselves "the quiet professionals,"
who "cannot be mass produced." Among their other skills are combat diving
and target interdiction.
Their branch insignia, two crossed
arrows, was worn during World War II by soldiers of the famed 1st Special
Service Force.
Collectively, they operate in some
130 countries, speak about 15 different languages and hold higher-level
positions than conventional soldiers of the same rank. And unlike most
soldiers, their primary mission is not as combatants but as teachers to
soldiers and civilians in Third-World nations around the world.
They are the green berets -- soldiers
who make up the Army's elite special forces.
Becoming one of them takes fortitude and guts, said Capt. Todd Wilcox,
recruiting detachment commander for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command
at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Prospective SF enlisted soldiers must
be specialists and above, and officers must be promotable first lieutenants
and above, before they can volunteer for Special Forces Assessment and
Selection, a 23-day exercise in mental and physical stamina and one of
several prerequisites for the Special Forces Qualification Course itself.
Before a soldier attends SFAS, he's
briefed -- albeit minimally -- about what to expect. Recruiters at Fort
Bragg, and other select Army installations that recruit SF soldiers, explain
what they'll do as members of a 12-man SF Operational Detachment-A, or
A-team, if they make it through SFAS's three grueling phases and subsequent
training.
The first week includes a variety
of psychological and physical evaluations. "A psychologist interviews each
soldier to see if he's stable and whether he has lingering problems from
the past," Wilcox said.
The soldier must also meet the Army
Physical Fitness Test standard for 17- to 21-year-olds, scoring at least
206 points, completing a 50-meter swim in BDUs and boots and marching about
150 miles carrying a 50-pound rucksack and a weapon.
Week two includes more walking and
marching but adds a 1.5-mile-long obstacle course with vertical obstacles
-- 85 percent of which test upper body strength -- and a land navigation
course.
"Some guys need several chances to make it through the challenging land
navigation course called 'Star,'" said 1st Sgt. Joe Callahan, who runs
the selection program. "They have to move across 18 kilometers of rough
terrain with many obstacles, including hills and water. They can't use
roads or flashlights, and they have to navigate at night with a heavy rucksack,
no matter what the weather."
It's the longest land navigation course
in the armed services that someone has to navigate alone, said Callahan.
SSgt. John O'Brien, who graduated
from the SF Qualification course last May, said, "Star was pretty gnarly.
It was really cold and rainy, and we plotted our courses on a map with
a protractor. You just know there are a few swamps here and there and you
try to stay out of them. There were 120 of us on the first Star exam. About
40 of us made it." Soldiers get three chances.
Week three of the SFAS focuses on
the individual soldier's leadership skills and determines how well he operates
in a group. Candidates are separated into 12-man teams that must react
to various stress-inducing situations. "This allows instructors to assess
how well they problem-solve and implement the ideas of the team," Wilcox
said.
Soldiers are given certain equipment
and a mission statement and may have to construct or move something. One
test requires the team to move a trailer over roughly 18 kilometers.
Boards are held after weeks one and
three to identify soldiers who will be eliminated from the program. On
average, only 50 percent of each class is selected to attend the SF Qualification
course.
"I've been to all the SF courses,
and this, in my opinion, is the hardest physically and emotionally," said
Callahan. "It will definitely break a man down after three weeks. It's
not uncommon for a soldier to lose 30 pounds, despite the fact that we
shovel food into him.
"It's mentally draining because a man will base his whole future in SF.
He's giving up another whole career to be SF, and while no one is ever
penalized for not completing the program, to go back to your unit if you
don't make it is extremely tough," Callahan added.
"You have to be in the right mindset,"
O'Brien said. "Every night when you get in you know tomorrow's going to
be just as bad, and it keeps coming. You just have to keep telling yourself
you can do it."
"I got smoked at SFAS," said Sgt.
Dale Bennett, who left his mechanized infantry unit in Germany to become
an SF soldier. "One of the toughest events for me was the 'Sandman.' Two
duffel bags filled with sand simulate downed pilots. We had to carry them
10 kilometers. Guys were literally crying at the end of that."
The soldiers who complete SFAS aren't
home free. Enlisted soldiers must also complete airborne school and the
Primary Leadership Development Course before attending the SF Qualification
course. And those who opt to become special forces communications sergeants
must also undergo eight weeks of Morse code training.
When enlisted applicants finally do
make it to the qualification course, they've essentially entered into a
basic noncommissioned officer course that is unique, Special Forces BNOC,
said BNOC 1st Sgt. Bill Saam.
The course's 80 hours of common leader
training -- together with SF common-task and MOS-specific instruction --
meet the requirements for BNOC in the Army's education system.
While enlisted soldiers focus
on MOS-specific training in Phase Two of the course, officers undergo 15
weeks of instruction in SF doctrine, mission, operations and MOS skills,
said Maj. Rod Walden, operations officer for the 1st Battalion, 1st Special
Warfare Training Group.
Enlisted soldiers select from four
MOSs: the Special Forces Weapons Sergeant course and SF Engineer Sergeant
course, both 13 weeks long; the 21-week SF Communications Sergeant course,
or the 45-week SF Medical Sergeant course.
SF weapons sergeants students learn
to use a variety of U.S. and foreign weapons. They also learn to use the
M-16 plotting board, a fire-direction tool used by most Third-World countries
instead of the mortar ballistic computers most conventional countries use,
said instructor MSgt. Michael Sieradzki.
Soldiers also learn how to serve as
forward observers and run their own fire-direction centers. "When they've
completed the course, they know how to run a bare-bones operation" and
how to train other soldiers how to do it, Callahan said.
"What makes us different from conventional
units is that we could be operating anywhere and see something suspicious
and call for fire on the target," Sieradzki said. "We can do an immediate
call-up without going through special channels."
SF engineer sergeant students train
in theater operations construction. They build not only bridges, but 20-by-30-foot
structures that "in some countries would be viewed as 4-star hotels," said
Callahan. And they learn how to "take out" particular assets by making
them inoperable for a given period of time.
Mine training focuses on the SF soldier's
ability to work with and teach demining operations to indigenous personnel
and foreign troops. "They learn to arm and disarm some 50 U.S. and foreign
mines, with concentration on those most prevalent today," said SFC Stan
Ekstrom, primary instructor of the course.
SF communications sergeant students
learn about all Army communications equipment, plus the equipment unique
to SF. They learn how to write, encrypt and decrypt messages and use the
Emergency Fall-Back System (a message system unique to SF), said SFC Paul
C. Petit, chief instructor for the course. Additionally, they learn about
satellite communications and digital systems, how to transmit and receive
secure data, and to build antennas.
As a member of an A-team -- responsible
for its own communication capability and survival -- the commo sergeant
takes everything he needs to communicate with a forward observation base.
In a final test, students deploy 1,000 miles from Fort Bragg and must establish
a communication link to the installation.
SF medical sergeant students "are
card-carrying paramedics, allowed to walk into hospital emergency rooms
and practice medicine when they leave here," said Lt. Col. John Chambers,
assistant dean at the Special Operations Medical Training Center and commander
of its Medical Training Battalion.
"In fact, they exceed the standard
for paramedics," he continued. "Paramedics don't 'sink' chest tubes or
do 'cut downs' -- exposing a vein to administer a needle. Our guys do.
Because when they get out with an A-team, they'll find themselves in places
where they won't be able to turn to a doctor and ask, 'Should I open the
airway with a knife?'
"They must be able to operate in remote
areas for an extended period of time, with a minimum of medical supervision
and provide patients the full range of care they'd receive at a mobile
Army surgical hospital," Chambers added.
Training for SF medical sergeants
therefore includes four weeks on an ambulance crew in high-trauma-rate
cities like New York City and Chicago, plus a four-week internship at a
Public Health Service agency.
While on his hospital rotation, SSgt.
Randall Sweeney, a recent graduate of the program, administered oxygen,
prepared splints, performed an intubation (throat-tube airway), delivered
two babies, assisted in a Cesarean section and performed CPR and defibrillation
on two heart-attack victims, as well as performing other duties.
In the end, all SF candidates have
one common experience -- Exercise Robin Sage -- an unconventional warfare
field training exercise that puts everything they've collectively learned
to the test. When they've successfully completed that, they've earned the
green beret.
And then training continues -- four
to six months of language training, depending on the language the soldier
studies.
Specialized training in advanced skills,
like military free fall and special operations target interdiction, follows
after the soldier has been assigned to a special forces group. The latter
teaches SF soldiers about non-standard and foreign sniper weapons.
"SF snipers learn how to be self-reliant,"
said SFC Todd Thompson, instructor. "When a standard, conventional sniper
runs out of ammo, he's out of it. When these guys complete this course,
they'll be able to take Soviet ammunition, break it down and reload it
into their own weapons.
"When I was with the 1st Bn., 10th
SFG, in Germany, I did joint-combined training with special operations
forces in Israel and Greece," Thompson reflected. "I've experienced glacier-rescue
training with Austrian soldiers in the Austrian Alps, performed military
free fall with Norwegians and assisted the Turkish government in recovering
two downed UH-60 helicopters from a snow-covered mountain."
Sieradzki, on a sniper team with the
3rd SF Grp. in Kuwait, covered other special operations forces while they
cleared the U.S. Embassy there and escorted the U.S. ambassador. Four members
of the detachment later went into Iraq with U.S. State Department officials
to do a battlefield assessment of the communications sites that had been
bombed by the U.S. Air Force during Operation Desert Storm.
"I deployed to Ghana with a sergeant
who gave classes to 45 Ghanians on how to construct buildings and obstacles,
blow things up and make improvised grenades," said BNOC instructor Saam.
"Another sergeant gave survival classes on how to snare animals and how
to make shelters out of what you find in the jungle. An E-7 had the capabilities
to be the local veterinarian, doctor and dentist."
"I went out one day and taught
a group of Thai soldiers how to free-fall," added SFC Sean Rundell, a member
of the 1st SFG at Fort Lewis, Wash. "Starting out, they can't stay controlled.
In three months, you've taught them. You take them 25,000 feet up, give
them oxygen and watch them descend over a triple-canopy jungle. I can't
explain the feeling of satisfaction that gives me."
Besides travel advantages and more
responsibility than in conventional units, SF soldiers have greater chances
for promotion, Wilcox said.
"Each of our companies has six E-8s;
a conventional company has one. And conventional companies are commanded
by captains. Ours are led by majors," he said. Proficiency and jump pay,
each $110, and a selective re-enlistment bonus that can be as high as $20,000
are other incentives for being SF-qualified.
"For 1997, our mission is to bring
1,500 enlisted soldiers and 330 officers to SFAS," said Wilcox. About 750
enlisted soldiers and 150 officers will actually complete the requirements
for the green beret.