Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [0]
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FOREWORD BY ROBERT D. KAPLAN
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
SPECIAL FORCES 101—HISTORY, TRAINING, AND ORGANIZATION
CHAPTER 2
RECRUITING THE UNCONVENTIONAL
CHAPTER 3
THE PREPARATION
CHAPTER 4
THE SELECTION
CHAPTER 5
SPECIAL FORCES TACTICS
CHAPTER 6
THE 18 SERIES
PHOTO INSERT
CHAPTER 7
THE DETACHMENT COMMANDER
CHAPTER 8
ROBIN SAGE
EPILOGUE: AFTER-ACTION REVIEW
GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS AND MILITARY NOMENCLATURE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY DICK COUCH
COPYRIGHT
This book is dedicated to the volunteers—the young men who join up to become special operations warriors. They are talented, capable, motivated, and intelligent, and all that America has to offer lies before them. Yet these patriots choose to enlist. They turn away from civilian opportunity and fortune for a life of sacrifice, struggle, danger, and service. And because they choose to serve, the rest of us are free to enjoy the bounty of this great nation. God bless and protect these gallant volunteers.
“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
Then I said, “Here am I. Send me.”
—ISAIAH 6:8
INSCRIPTION ON THE DOG TAG RESTING ON THE FLAG-DRAPED, HOMEWARD-BOUND CASKET OF AN AMERICAN SPECIAL OPERATIONS WARRIOR KILLED IN ACTION IN AFGHANISTAN, JULY 2005
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank those in the Army and Army special operations chain of command who allowed me such full and complete access to Special Forces training. A special thanks is due to two commanding generals of the JFK Special Warfare Center and School—Major General Geoffrey Lambert (ret.), who approved the project, and Major General James Parker, who supported my work while he was in command. And start to finish, Colonel Manny Diemer, Commander, 1st Special Warfare Training Group, was always there to help. I especially want to acknowledge and thank the many cadre team sergeants and officers who made time for me while they went about the deadly serious business of training tomorrow’s Special Forces chosen soldiers.
FOREWORD
ROBERT D. KAPLAN
In the days and weeks after 9/11, the Pentagon scrambled for options to take down the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The most practical and available method turned out to be deploying the A-Teams of United States Army Special Forces, popularly known as the Green Berets. It wasn’t that these twelve-man detachments were necessarily the greatest commandos the armed forces could muster: rather, it was that they were the most adaptable. Whereas Navy SEALs and Army Rangers—to cite two examples—might kick in doors faster, the Green Berets could do that very well, too, as well as deal more effectively with indigenous forces of a very different culture: something that took patience, maturity, and a knack for diplomacy. The twelve-man team, which could divide into two six-man teams because of its duplication of occupational specialties, was also a perfect bureaucratic instrument that had survived throughout the decades.
Afghanistan brought Army Special Forces, or SF as it’s known within the special operations community, full circle from the Vietnam days, involving SF in both training and fighting with indigenous forces for the first time since the 1960s and early 1970s. Since the Afghanistan campaign, Green Berets have not only fought some of the most difficult battles in Iraq, but haven’t let up around the world with their training missions, which are the bread and butter of SF.
In Chosen Soldier, Dick Couch takes us to the heart of the Special Forces world, focusing on how an Army Special Forces soldier is created. You can’t understand SF unless you delve into the training behind it, which, in turn, reveals the cultural mentality of this branch of the Special Operations community. Thus, this is an essential book.
Never before has SF been so prominent, and, therefore, never before has it faced so many critical decisions, which makes an understanding of Green Beret training doubly important. Think of SF as like the technology company Apple in the early days of the computer