Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [162]
“Communications. I want a situation report as soon as you’re safely on the ground. It’ll make me feel good. Until I hear from you, I’ll have a quick-reaction evacuation force in full readiness until I know you are on the ground and moving safely. Situation reports. I want a situation report daily; I want to know what you need and the current intelligence. Intel reports and situation reports will drive decisions at the highest level—even to national command authority level, your lips to president’s ears. You are the ground truth—all before this is dated information.
“Be aware of what Civil Affairs and Psyops can do for you, especially during demobilization and the political climate that will follow the cessation of hostilities.”
He looks at the two rows of soldiers that make up 915. “One of the hardest things you may have to do in this exercise is to keep your focus. This is as real as it gets without real bullets. Flip the switch—get your head in the game and keep it there. This is a real operation. Life and death. Talk to each other; if one of you gets down, then another of you is going to have to kick him in the ass. Play it for real, to the max of your ability, and you’ll leave here with skills that you’ll need and be thankful for down range. Do well in Robin Sage, and you’ll be ready for duty with a Special Forces operational detachment.”
Lieutenant Colonel Stark rises, and 915 is on their feet a nanosecond behind him. He shakes each of their hands and takes his leave. I sat in on other briefbacks, and each commander handled it differently. Some interrupted to ask questions of the briefer. Others aggressively challenged the team leader, and still others would quiz the team—asking the ODA junior weapons sergeant about guerrilla weapons training or the senior communicator about far recognition signals. The afternoon following the briefback is the time for the Phase IV written examination, a comprehensive exam that tests military knowledge in all aspects of unconventional warfare. To prepare for it, each member of 915 pairs up with someone who has a different MOS—a Bravo with an Echo, the Delta with a Charlie—and they grill each other on their specialties and what they’ve learned to date in Phase IV.
While 915 and the other student ODAs plan, prepare, brief, and test, there’s a curious gathering of soldiers in the parking lot just outside the Rowe Training Facility compound. A steady stream of trucks and buses brings soldiers from Fort Bragg to Camp Mackall. This contingent is a mix of 82nd Airborne veterans, a National Guard unit from Wisconsin, and a service support company from Fort Benning. These are the Gs—the guerrillas who will serve as Pineland irregulars for the Robin Sage exercise. They’re organized into their guerrilla bands and then, along with their G chiefs, head out to their G bases. There the G chiefs, who are mostly veteran role players of Robin Sage, will read them into their roles as irregular soldiers and get them in character, as well as the uniform of a Pineland guerrilla. For some of the combat veterans from the 82nd, they’ll have to dumb-down their military skills. For the service support soldiers, they will learn some new skills. All of this is part of a realistic unconventional-warfare training scenario and the capstone of Green Beret training.
I asked Lieutenant Colonel Jim Jackson why, in the light of the global war on terrorism, Robin Sage did not morph into a foreign internal defense or counterinsurgency scenario with a Middle East/ Southwest Asia flavor. “It’s been talked about,” Jackson told me, “but Robin Sage has met the test of time. If these Special Forces students can handle what we throw at them here in Pineland, they can handle unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, and counterinsurgency warfare anywhere in the world.”