Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [153]
“For all of you, everyone in Robin Sage—the G chief, the auxiliary truck driver, the local guy from the underground, and especially the guerrillas—are there for you to work with, get to know, learn from, and understand. Today, it’s role-play. A year from now, maybe less for some of you, it will be downrange and deadly serious. Good luck guys, here in training and in the real world.”
Following the unconventional-warfare classes, 915 and the other student ODAs enter a four-day block of mission planning, mission-planning training, and preparing for their mission-readiness exercise. During this time, the team members spend time with their phone-book-sized background materials on the customs, history, politics, culture, economics, current events, and geography of the nation of Pineland. Regarding geography, the nation of Pineland is physically the south-central portion of the state of North Carolina. Pineland is bordered by the equally mythical nations of the Republic of Columbus to the south, the Republic of Appalachia to the west, and the United Province of Atlantica to the north. Each member of 915 has to know all about these nations as well as the country they are about to invade—Pineland.
Captain Santos and First Lieutenant Kwele hold classes in the team room to bring the others up to speed on MDMP—the military decision-making process—and, more specifically, their roles in helping to plan the mission. All of them have some familiarization with mission planning, but most of this is tactically orientated planning as outlined in the Ranger Handbook. This is in-depth planning that carries into the mechanics of linking up with and training a guerrilla army. On the third day of this reading and planning work, Major Kennedy, in the role of their forward operating base commander, holds a staff mission briefing for all the ODA detachment leaders and their assistants.
“Don’t lose sight of my objective,” he tells his team leaders. “Your primary task is to disrupt the Pineland army and the Pineland security forces, and to condition the battlefield in advance of conventional forces. Training your Gs is only part of what you have to do. Once you infil into your areas of responsibility, you are ground truth. You’re to continue with your area assessment and report intelligence back up the chain of command. Secure, reliable, accurate communications are an important part of your job. I’m not too concerned about format, but I am concerned about your painting a clear picture of the battlefield. Real world, what you report can go straight up to the White House.
“Read carefully the motivations and problems of the locals you’re training. Always be studying your guerrilla counterparts with an eye to how they can be most effective against our common enemy. And while you and your Gs are working toward a common goal, be thinking about what their future agenda might be after the hostilities are over. Think downstream. Understand the second- and third-order consequences of what you do. And while you’ll be immersed in the details of training your Gs and conducting missions, think about demobilization and the role of Psyops and Civil Affairs in the aftermath of the fighting.
“You’ll be challenged, and you’ll be confronted with dilemmas. You will have to think your way and negotiate your way out of these dilemmas. And through all this, never forget that you are an American Special Forces ODA with the full backing of the U.S. government. Your skills and presence