Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [149]
“Captain Santos, you up?”
Santos looks around the team room and finds his student team sergeant. “Sergeant Olin?”
“We’re up, sir,” Staff Sergeant Olin replies.
“We’re up, Sergeant,” Santos tells the 915 cadre team sergeant.
“OK, bring it in. I’ve got some word to put out.” Sergeant First Class Troy Blackman is from southern Ohio and joined up right after high school. He has been in the Army for twenty years and the Special Forces for fifteen. All of his time has been with the 5th Group. Blackman deployed as a young sergeant for the first Gulf War and most recently to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom. During the intervening decade, he has made more than a few deployments to the Middle East and Southwest Asia. He can converse with the locals in Arabic. Blackman hopes to be on the next promotion list for master sergeant and return to the 5th Group for an assignment as an ODA team sergeant. Sergeant Blackman flips through his notebook, then looks up to survey his student team.
“I have a few things for you before we get started. First of all, I want you to understand that this is serious training. I’m serious, the captain’s serious, and I expect you to be serious. Stay focused, be a team, help each other, and work for the common good. You’ve all come too far to screw up now. At the top of my list is integrity. Don’t lie, cheat, or steal. Violate our standards of integrity and you are gone. Violate UCMJ [the Uniform Code of Military Justice] and you may do time. UCMJ is an acronym for jail. In addition, you’ll really piss me off. I care about this training and about Special Forces. You’re all needed in the groups and in this war. Don’t demean me or this training.
“A few no-nos. We use blank ammo, but even so, accidental discharges and negligent discharges will get you out of here. Lie about it, and you’re gone forever. ’Fess up, and you’re gone from this class, but we might be able to get you back for the next class. All training materials are classified DTNB—don’t tell no body. Play the game. No interaction with anyone that’s not in the course. Once you go into isolation for the final problem, you will not talk to anyone in another ODA.”
Sergeant Blackman covers team room protocol; he wants 915 to keep their spaces clean and orderly. Inside, they can be informal; but outside, they have to be in a full and correct uniform, and observe the buddy system. Blackman then asks for each man to introduce himself and to state why he chose Special Forces. The reasons range from the patriotic to the boring civilian job to the inactivity of their conventional unit.
“I came into Special Forces because I was looking for a challenge,” Blackman tells 915, “and I stayed in Special Forces because I get to serve with the greatest guys in the world. I have two families—my wife and two boys at home, and I have my brothers in SF.”
A tall man standing off to one side speaks for the first time. “I joined Special Forces because I wanted to work with other cultures and to operate with the freedom and independence that you can only find in Special Forces,” Captain Garrett Childers tells the student ODA. He’s 915’s cadre officer. “As many of you know, that kind of freedom is seldom given to a junior leader in a conventional unit.” Captain Garrett Childers is six-two and lean, with something of an academic bearing and a perpetually mild expression. He’s a West Point graduate with ten years in the Army, half of that in Special Forces. His father was with the World Health Organization, so Childers grew up in South America and Europe. He’s fluent in Spanish and French. His operational time has been with the 7th Special Forces Group. Captain Childers has made several deployments to South America, a rotation in Afghanistan, and a rotation in Iraq.
“I want to see good leadership,” Captain Childers continues, “from top to bottom. I’ll look for strong leadership from the senior members of the team and from the junior members as appropriate. Use your time well to front-load your standard patrolling procedures and to get