Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [148]
At the team hut, the men continue to settle into their quarters while they await the arrival of their cadre officer and cadre sergeant. The thirty-six-day Phase IV curriculum can be broken down into three parts: classroom training at the Rowe Training Facility, preparation for Robin Sage, and the Robin Sage exercise. A word about Robin Sage. It is one of the most intense and well-choreographed military training exercises I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve seen my share of military training exercises.
Robin Sage is a storied field exercise that ranges over some fifteen counties and eighty-five hundred square miles of south-central North Carolina, from Camp Mackall north to Greensboro, west to Charlotte, and south to close to the South Carolina border. This wide usage of public and private lands is made possible by a mosaic of land-use agreements. There are a great number of patriotic farmers and landowners, including race-car legend Richard Petty, who allow the use of their property for this exercise. A number of rural communities take part in this exercise and act out the part of the Pineland citizenry. To train these 300 Special Forces candidates, there will be over a thousand support personnel: over 350 contract role players, 400-some volunteer auxiliaries, and 250 or more military and civilian contractor personnel. In addition to the support personnel, there are the soldiers who play the role of the guerrillas—the freedom fighters in this unconventional-warfare mega-exercise. These soldiers also serve in the role of opposition forces—usually enemy soldiers. They come from all over the Army and include National Guard components, marines, and, on occasion, West Point cadets—wherever the Army can find men and women to come and serve in this capacity. These soldiers play the role of Pineland guerrillas that have to be trained and led into battle by the student ODAs. This ad hoc guerrilla army can range from 400 to 600, depending on the availability and the size of the Phase IV class. The optimum mix is two guerrillas—or “Gs,” as they are called—for every Phase IV student. With our forces committed to the global war on terror, finding soldiers in this quantity with the time to support this training has been a challenge.
Robin Sage is the third name given to this comprehensive Phase IV Special Forces training exercise. The origin of the name is unclear and often disputed among Special Forces veterans. It’s generally thought that it came from the North Carolina town of Robins and Special Forces colonel Jerry Sage. Sage, an OSS veteran, was a former 10th Special Forces Group commander.
The logistics, coordination, command, and control of this exercise, as you may imagine, are formidable. And the exercise play, while highly formatted and supervised, is free flowing. The direction and development of the exercise scenario is, within bounds, driven by the capability, performance, and decisions made by the student ODAs. Each ODA is tasked with a mission to infiltrate the fictitious nation of Pineland, link up with their assigned guerrilla band, and conduct an unconventional-warfare campaign. Their mission is to orchestrate guerrilla operations in advance of a planned invasion by conventional coalition forces. Robin Sage is a complex, freewheeling, wide-ranging military/paramilitary exercise on a scale that I’ve never before experienced. It’s worthy of a book, not just the chapter I’m able to devote to it here.
In the 915 team room, the student ODA gathers to meet their assigned cadre team sergeant