Only half of the 12-man detachment, part of the 1st Special Forces Group, is available to stalk Rattlesnake Hills on the edge of the city for this morning's PT. One member is injured, another is in sniper training, and the team's Fox (intelligence specialist) is in dive school. The rest are sleeping off the prior night's guard duty at the Yakima Training Center. The clandestine operational detachment is a long way from its home base at Okinawa. The wide, undulating landscape and relentlessly rocky terrain here more closely resemble Afghanistan, where the team is slated to spend 2013.
The men shrug on 30-pound rucks and wordlessly start the brisk march. Boots crunch on gravel in an increasing cadence. The detachment's Alpha (commander) is a 29-year-old captain, a combat veteran who served in the infamously violent Korengal Valley in Afghanistan while with the conventional Army. His Zulu (senior nonenlisted) is a 37-year-old master sergeant; this team has no warrant officer, so the Zulu is second in command. Since this A-Team is readying for a deployment?they call it going downrange?their real names cannot be used. Special operations forces (SOF) value secrecy above everything except physical fitness.
The team's leaders call out a word of warning: No running allowed. "If one starts, they'll all try to be first," Alpha says. "We all have Type-A personalities on this team."
The trail winds steadily upward, past a handful of isolated ranch homes. As soon as the team sees an opportunity, the members leave the semipaved road and ascend a steep hillside matted with rocks and ankle-high tangles of scrub brush.
The team's senior Echo (communications specialist) pauses to admire the view. He's a sergeant first class with 15 years of experience in the military, including work as a scout and sniper in the conventional Army. His shoulders are broad and so is his grin. He smiles a lot. Yakima never looks better than it does from the crest of a hill at dawn, city lights still glittering under a recently risen sun. "Kinda makes getting up at oh-five-hundred worth it," he says.
A civilian four-wheel all-terrain vehicle is unexpectedly waiting for the team as it finishes zigzagging down the slope. The homeowner driving it quickly endorses the men's presence in a polite hearts-and-minds moment. "It's okay, if it's you guys," he says. "I have to come out and check on people, since methheads and hookers come up here to do their business sometimes."
It's considered a light morning of PT; a more typical start to the day consists of a 90-minute run (not including forward and backward sprints up the inclines and a slate of leg-burning squat thrusts) and the first of two daily free-weight workouts. But the next few days and nights at the Army training center will be crammed with lessons in operating vehicles they have never driven before. A brief hike will have to do.
Alpha's men will be among the nearly 10,000 special operators in Afghanistan in 2013, preparing for the administration's 2014 exit of major combat troops. "While the aggregate number of total personnel in Afghanistan will decrease as we approach 2014, the special operations forces' contribution may increase," Adm. William McRaven, head of Special Operations Command (SOCOM), told Congress in March. They will be there until at least 2017.
The expectation in Washington, D.C., is that these teams can take the lead in keeping the Afghan central government in control of a dysfunctional country of 35 million. If they can, America's longest war will end with a qualified win. If they fail, the nation could slip into civil strife and again become a haven for terrorists. "The rumbling around town is that special operations forces will basically own the U.S. mission in Afghanistan," says Travis Sharp, a fellow at the Washington, D.C.?based Center for a New American Security. "SOF has been on the rise for a decade. Now we are going to see if they can hold and consolidate gains." He adds: "If I trust anyone to get the job done, it'd be SOF."
Although Pentagon planners are finishing this war with a geopolitical Hail Mary pass, at least they are relying on the right players. Special operations A-Teams are made of incredible individuals with an action hero's resume of skills: para-jumping, foreign-language fluency, a professional athlete's physical conditioning, and familiarity with an entire catalog of vehicles and weapons. And then there are the specialties: construction and demolitions, communications, intelligence gathering, and battlefield medicine verging on internal surgery.
These dedicated, sincere men are setting out to tame a land of suicide bombing, systematic abuse of women, and legendary duplicity. They are high-value individuals deploying to a place where human life has little value.
During the ruck march, I remark to Zulu that my backpack weighs about 20 pounds less than his. I recycle a line from a Dirty Harry movie to explain my minimalist packing: "A man's got to know his limitations." The 37-year-old Zulu shoots me a skeptical look. "Oh, really?" he says. It's clear I have spoken heresy. Admitting something can't be done is not in these guys' DNA.
The Soft Side of Special Ops
When most people think of special operations, they think of lightning-fast raids that target terrorist leaders. The killing of Osama bin Laden was the capstone on a decade of aggressive wartime missions that the military calls direct-action, or kinetic, missions. Although presidents have virtually no control over the planning or execution of these missions, they can be elected or booted from office based on their outcomes. Just ask Jimmy Carter, who signed off on an ill-fated hostage rescue in Iran.
Direct action, with its associated stealthy recon, building breaches, helicopter repelling, and double-tap gunshots?fits a violent stereotype of spec ops that does not match the reality. SOCOM has another mandate: to prepare other nations to take care of themselves. "The selection process is very good at weeding out anyone who only wants to shoot people in the face," Alpha says. "We need warrior-politicians."
These "indirect-action" missions include training foreign troops and teaching locals how to establish responsible governments. The strategy also promotes economic development by building bazaars, encouraging farmers to grow extra food crops to sell, and constructing roads. No one makes video games based on indirect-action missions.
The public may not have a good grasp on SOCOM's activities, but Washington, D.C., is increasingly relying on its broad mandate to counter global instability. Since 2001, SOCOM's ranks have doubled and are funded to grow from 66,100 to 71,100 by 2015. Its budgets tripled since 2001 to a 2012 tally of $10.5 billion. The tempo of deployments has risen too: the command's personnel (not all A-Teams) now work in at least 75 nations, 15 more than the total at the end of the Bush administration. "I expect the operational demands placed on special operations forces to increase across the next decade and beyond," McRaven says.
SOCOM has become the U.S. government's tool of choice for soft power projection, but this is partly by default. "Most of our resources, when it comes to these types of efforts, are placed in the Department of Defense," says Rick Nelson, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who served with Joint Special Operations Command. "The reality is that the State Department and USAID are not funded at appropriate levels."
Spec ops has become a tempting option for civilian policymakers. Teams are easy to send into the field because they can be deployed with little disclosure to the public or to regional allies, minimal advance warning, and fewer bureaucratic approvals. "The U.S. government is at risk of seeing SOF as a panacea for all of America's security problems in the world," Travis Sharp says. "There is a reasonable limit to what they can accomplish and remain sustainable."
The nation-building aspect of SOCOM's work is increasing as the war efforts recede and kill/capture raids become rarer. But those who assist SOCOM?Congress, which pays, and conventional forces, who contribute airlift, bases, and support personnel?may not be eager to aid the kinder, gentler SOCOM missions.
"The spotlight has been on the kinetic operations against high-value targets," says Adm. Eric Olson, former head of SOCOM. "Everybody lines up to support those, with a full capability and budgets." His concern is that as SOF leave battlefields, the smaller, less violent operations won't get the attention they need: "Instead of having the spotlight on special operations forces shift, I think it will just dim."
Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/the-future-of-special-ops-9077296?src=rss
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