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2003 Edwardsville Journal of
Sociology, Volume 3:2 back to ejs volume 3:2
The post 9/11 War on Terrorism and the impending military action in Iraq have brought a new term into the American lexicon: “Special Ops.” News reports are full of accounts that allude to Special Operations military units, but few are conversant with the history and significance of American commandos. As the role of Special Ops is ever increasing, the purpose of this essay is to acquaint the reader with US Special Operations.
The term Special Ops (or Special Operations) refers to certain elite units in the US Military. Those units include US Army Rangers, US Army Delta Force, Navy SEALS, US Army Special Forces ("Green Berets") and to a lesser degree Marine Recon Units and Specialized Air Force units.
SEALS are organized into teams usually consisting of eight operational platoons and a headquarters element. They are concentrated on either the east or west coast of the United States. SEAL Team One is based in Coronado, CA. Their mission focus is Southeast Asia. SEAL Team Two situated in Little Creek, VA and their mission concentration is Europe. SEAL Team Three is also based in Coronado, CA with a mission focus in Southwest Asia. SEAL Team Four (consisting of ten operational platoons and headquarters unit) is based in Little Creek, VA. Their mission focus is Central and South America. SEAL Team Five is based in Coronado, CA with a focus on the Northern Pacific and SEAL Team Eight is based in Little Creek, VA with a mission concentration in the Caribbean, Africa and the Mediterranean.
Rangers are organized into training and combat battalions under the banner of the 75th Ranger Regiment. Combat battalions include the 1/75th (Ft. Stewart, GA), 2/75th (Ft. Lewis, WA) and the 3/75th (Ft. Benning, GA). These battalions can be deployed anywhere in world and rotate in terms their deployment status. At any given time there is a Ranger Battalion that is ready to respond immediately to any given crisis in any given environment. To that end, Ranger School is broken down into three distinct phases: the desert phase (conducted in the Salt Lake Desert in Utah), the swamp phase (conducted in the Florida Everglades) and the mountain phase (conducted in and around the Tennessee Valley Divide). A Ranger battalion consists of three combat companies (a company consisting of about 100 men broken down into three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon) and a headquarters element.
Special Forces are broken down into “Groups” and “teams.” A Group consists of anywhere from eight to twelve companies. A SF company is further subdivided into six A teams and one B team. Each A team consists of 12 SF soldiers. It is an independent, multilingual operational unit comprised of soldiers trained and crossed trained in different military specialties (i.e. weapons, medical, communication, etc.). B teams are essentially a command and control element. The 1st SF Group is located in Ft. Lewis, WA with a mission focus in Asia and the Pacific. The 3rd SF Group is located in Ft. Bragg, NC with a mission focus in Africa. 5th Group is out of Ft. Campbell, KY with a concentration on the Middle East, while 7th Group is housed at Ft. Bragg with a mission concentration on Central and South America. Last, the 10th SF Group is located at Ft. Carson, CO with a mission focus on Europe.
Little is publicly known about Delta Force in terms of size and focus beyond their stated counter-terrorism mission. As one former Delta Force soldier put it: “These are guys that are putting their lives on the line, taking on some very serious bad guys. The less anyone knows about the unit, the better” (Arizona Star Daily, October 7, 2001).
Special Operations comprises a relatively small percentage of our total armed forces. There are approximately 30,000 active duty special operations soldiers (officer and enlisted), 3,700 in the National Guard and approximately 10,000 in the Reserves. Their operational budget is about $3.7 billion or 1.3% of the Defense Department’s budget (Special Operations Posture Statement, 2001).
There have always been "Special Ops" units in the US military (meaning small groups of soldiers who are trained to execute highly dangerous, specialized missions; for example, in the American Revolution and the French and Indian War, MAJ Robert Rogers led a group of men known as "Roger’s Rangers," who used the then unheard of guerilla tactics of ambushing the enemy, moving at night, etc.), although they were not formally recognized as such on a large scale until WWII. The DDay invasion of Europe brought the first wide spread fame to special ops units. General Eisenhower quickly realized the massive military potential of airborne troops (paratroopers) to decisively impact a battle. Dropping men behind enemy lines while the bulk of your attacking force advanced from the front proved to be a potent recipe on the European front. Of course, convincing men to volunteer to parachute behind enemy lines is an idea that has to be "sold." The hook was the special status afforded paratroopers. To attend airborne school, known for its exhaustive physical training and rigorous standards, and graduate earned a soldier the right to wear a new decoration; Airborne wings. This became the first modern American formal symbol of the uber-soldier; the toughest, most dedicated, most fearless soldier in the military (There is nothing novel about this idea, incidentally. The greatest military minds in history have used the same tactic. Most notably Napoleon, who understood that "men will die for a piece of ribbon"). During WWII, Ranger units were formed (taken from the aforementioned "Roger’s Rangers"). The mission of those Ranger units was to parachute behind enemy lines and attack a specific, high-risk objective; e.g.,. a bridge, a command post, etc. While those smaller missions are legendary in their own right, true fame came to the Rangers on DDay. Approximately 230 Rangers were tasked with scaling a steep cliff on the beaches of Normandy and taking out a heavily fortified enemy position. The plan was to use rocket launched ropes that would be used to climb the cliff. Unfortunately, the wet weather on DDay, accompanied by sea water damage rendered the ropes useless. Using their hands and feet, the Rangers scaled the wet, treacherous cliff, all while under enemy fire. Regrouping at the top, those alive fought their way to the objective and destroyed artillery pieces that were responsible for much of the Allied killing on DDay. The exploits of those Rangers on that day set a standard which in some way is reflected in every Special Operations group in the military: that is, accomplish the mission at all costs. This is the standard; failure is not acceptable. This dogma is engrained in all Special Ops candidates: the last and most important sentence in the Ranger Creed, shouted at the top of your lungs when called upon to recite, reads “Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission, though I be the long survivor!” Similarly, Navy SEAL training stresses victory at all costs. SEAL candidates are physically punished severely through torturous exercise if they come in last. Candidates that finish first in a given training event are given a few minutes to sit down and rest while the rest of the “losers” suffer the consequences. Hence, SEALS learn from the first day of their training that “It Pays to be a Winner.”
So, “Airborne Rangers,” and indeed any Airborne Soldier (belonging to the 82nd Airborne or 101st Airborne) were elites among “lesser” soldiers. From the beginning, they have been feared, despised, admired, accused of arrogance and held in awe by their fellow soldiers, and perhaps there is validity to all those reactions. To wear a Special Operations designation sends a clear message to those who do not: I am a soldier willing to endure pain beyond what you have ever experienced. I am soldier who possesses skills you don’t have. I am willing to take risks you won’t. I am more determined, more disciplined and more dedicated….I am tougher than you.
Special Operations soldiers are first and foremost trained to kill or destroy things. To do those things effectively, training must be grueling. In the heat of combat, most soldiers go on autopilot and simply rely on their training to react. Because Special Ops missions are infinitely more dangerous and stressful than most conventional combat, the training must be incredibly arduous. It must be geared to do two things: first, it has to apply maximum physical, emotional and psychological pressure on the candidate. Weak candidates must be rooted out, because to “break” or fail in a training environment is potent predictor of a soldier’s potential to break on an actual mission. Second, the training must impart advanced military skills in navigation, firearms, close quarter combat, leadership, explosives and tactics. The standards for such training are high and uncompromising; if a candidate fails a given training task, he is usually given one, perhaps two opportunities to pass. If he does not pass, he is dropped from the course. As all special ops training is voluntary, there is no way to challenge an expulsion. The candidate must either reapply for admission to the school or simply live with the fact that he “couldn’t make it.” (Failure carries with it regret, but not shame. The only real shame is to quit because “you couldn’t take it,” or some other such reason. This loser mentality is scorned and ridiculed in Special Ops; for example if a Ranger candidate simply wants to quit training because he deems it too tough, he must sign an “L.O.M.” or a statement of Lack of Motivation. The declaration essentially asserts that the individual is not hurt, nor failing the course, but simply not motivated to complete it. Such a step is also a potential career killer, as LOM’s become a part of a soldier’s permanent record. Such steps are really yet another screening mechanism for Special Ops schools. Because of the threat of shame and career repercussions, only the truly motivated (or those who believe themselves to be so) apply to the schools. Training standards are enforced; for example, the graduation rate in a given Ranger class is about 1 in 3 candidates. SEAL school (formally known as BUDS, Basic Underwater Demolitions) has an even lower graduation rate.
Rangers saw action in the Korean War and again distinguished themselves for bravery under fire. But it was the Vietnam era that really spurred the Special Ops movement in the US military. In the early 1960’s, President Kennedy started sending military “advisors” over to South Vietnam to train those soldiers to more effectively fight the North Vietnamese. Kennedy was enamored of the idea of American commandos and put the weight of the White House behind the expansion of the United States Special Forces. This Army unit was intended to be a hybrid; they had all the skills of the Army Ranger (indeed, the natural progression, then and now, in Army Special Operations is to attend Airborne School, then Ranger School, then Special Forces School, known as the “Q” course, or Qualification course) coupled with ability to “win the hearts and minds” of local populations through military training and civil engineering assistance. They were trained at Ft. Bragg, NC at the JFK Special Warfare School, while Airborne and Ranger Schools stayed at their traditional homes in Ft. Benning, GA. As we all know, these “Green Berets” as they came to be called, (because of the green beret they adopted as symbol of their military distinction) found out they were facing an enemy that was highly trained in guerilla warfare. Conventional American military tactics failed against these hit and run fighters who would rarely decisively engage the enemy, choosing to strike quickly, usually at night, to incur as much death and destruction as they could and then flee to “live to fight another day.” Rangers and Green Berets studied and slowly adopted the tactics of the VC. Similarly, the Navy realized it, too, had to use unconventional guerilla tactics to fight this enemy. Hence, the birth of the Navy SEALS, who gradually gained a reputation as perhaps the best guerilla fighters in the world.
Vietnam was a crucible for American Special Operations units. SEALS, Green Berets and Rangers suffered causalities, but those deaths were not in vain. Lessons were learned, training was consequently tailored and, by the 1980’s, the United States had succeeded in establishing training programs that produced the most feared and effective commandos in the world. The 1980’s also saw the rise of arguably the most secretive of all Special Operations units, the Army Delta Force. After the failed and totally embarrassing hostage rescue attempt in Iran, the Army decided it needed a unit that specialized in hostage rescue. Delta Force is the last and most competitive rung on the Army Special Ops ladder. The nature of their mission demands total secrecy; hence members are allowed to wear long hair, beards and moustaches. Members train in civilian clothes, as that is what they may wear to retain anonymity on a mission, and must continually prove their proficiency in such training criterion as the 2 bullets between the eyes in 2 seconds standard. It is rumored that Delta Force is tasked with conducting covert political assassination (technically illegal by Executive Order of the President), but that is vehemently denied publicly.
Rangers have been in the spotlight in recent history. They jumped into Grenada (along with the 82nd Airborne), Panama, played an understated yet crucial role in the first Gulf war, fought with incredible courage in Somalia and most recently in Afghanistan. With the advent of the War on Terrorism, focus has shifted to Special Forces, who are trained to interact and fight with locals, which made them naturals for the campaign in Afghanistan. Currently, Special Forces are in northern Iraq, coordinating Iraqi Kurds and other Iraqi dissidents for the forthcoming invasion of Baghdad. SEALS have played a pivotal role in all the aforementioned operations. The extent of their participation is generally not advertised, as they pride themselves on secrecy and the camaraderie bred of being “unsung heroes.” More recently, the Air Force as formed its own Special Operations Units, but these groups are essentially minor players in the Special Ops theater. Marine Reconnaissance Units are considered Special Ops, although they are never tasked with the higher profile missions given to Rangers, Green Berets and SEALS.
In summary, then, the purpose of Special Ops Units is as follows:
Rangers: The US Army Rangers are essentially a quick strike force. Rangers are trained to conduct three basic tasks: the raid, the ambush and recon. Reconnaissance is certainly an important part of the Ranger mission, but the Ranger Raid and Ranger Ambush are legendary for the effectiveness. So, Rangers are sent to destroy a given objective. While attacking, the mission is to kill enemy soldiers or blow things up. After that has been accomplished, they will collect as much intelligence as possible and either hold the position or pull out, depending on orders.
Special Forces: As mentioned in the History section, the mission of Special Forces is to work with, and train, foreign military units. They lend their considerable expertise to groups friendly to the US, and often play a combat role when those groups engage the enemy. Currently, Special Forces teams are being used to laser guide munitions by establishing an outpost near enemy forces and using tracking devices to pinpoint aerial bombs.
SEALS: The name says it all: these are commandos who can arrive on the battlefield by sea, air or land. They are trained paratroopers who can make HALO (high altitude, low opening) jumps, swim miles to a coastal objective and fight fiercely once the enemy is engaged. SEAL teams are small, and are used, like Rangers, for very specific, quick strike missions.
DELTA FORCE: As mentioned, a highly trained, unconventional Special Operations unit that specializes in hostage rescues and counter-terrorism.
The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center has radically shifted tactical and operational thinking for most military strategists. The days of training for large scale, protracted mechanized engagements are over. For instance, in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, soldiers who desired to be engaged in combat flocked to Armor units. We thought that the Soviet Union would be our enemy and the battle would entail massive tank engagements on the plains of Europe. Those who chose to train in Special Operations were widely considered “dinosaurs,” spending their time learning antiquated tactics and strategies. Obviously, the fall of the USSR negated that belief and the rise of terrorism has brought Special Ops back to the fore. Today’s military puts an increasing emphasis on Special Operations Units because of their mobility, capability and effectiveness. More and more, it will be these units that spearhead our future military efforts in the War on Terrorism and beyond.
References and
Recommended Readings:
Couch, D. and Cliff Hollenbeck. 2001. The
Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228. Crown Publishers.
Lock, D. and Harold Moore. 1998. To Fight with
Intrepidity: The Complete History of the US Army Rangers, 1622-Present.
Pocket Books.
Southworth, S. and Stephen Tanner. 2002. US Special
Forces: A Guide to America's Special Operations Units-The World's Most
Elite Fighting Force. DeCapo Press.
Special Operations Posture Statement, 2001, Appendix D, Budget and Manpower.
Matthew Petrocelli
is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Studies. He is a West Point graduate, former Army
officer and Airborne Ranger. His email is mpetroc@siue.edu
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