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to keep these teams in an operational environment. Each line company in a Special Forces battalion will have one or more of their company detachments specially trained in military free-fall parachute operations, underwater (scuba) operations, or urban combat operations. And, finally, three battalions, along with a headquarters company and support personnel, constitute a Special Forces group. A Special Forces group will have an authorized strength of about 1,400 personnel, of which some 650 soldiers make up the operational detachments, the ODAs. That doesn’t mean that the ODAs are the only guns in the fight. The company bravo detachments and even members of the SF group staff may be called into action when conducting operations. But it’s the twelve-man ODAs that carry the operational load. They’re the ones who are out there day in and day out, working with the locals and conducting independent combat operations.

There are five active groups and two Army National Guard groups. First, the five active groups. The 1st Special Forces Group is at Fort Lewis in Washington State with one battalion forward deployed to Okinawa. The 1st has responsibilities in the Pacific theater. The 3rd Special Forces Group is based at Fort Bragg and focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. The 5th Special Forces Group, once tasked with Vietnam, is now the group with primary responsibility in the Middle East. They’re based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 7th Special Forces Group is oriented toward South and Central America. They call Fort Bragg home. The 10th Special Forces Group is based at Fort Carson, Colorado, with a battalion forward based in Germany. They have responsibility for the European theater. There are two National Guard groups, the 19th and the 20th. The 19th is based in Draper, Utah, and is made up of units generally located in the western half of the nation. They focus on support of the active groups in the Pacific and the Middle East. The 20th, with eastern-U.S. National Guard units, is based in Birmingham, Alabama, and provides support to the 7th Special Forces Group and Latin America. These two National Guard groups play a significant role in the current Special Forces deployment posture in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The active and National Guard Special Forces groups train for and maintain a regional orientation—tactically, operationally, and with the appropriate language skills. The 5th Special Forces Group again carries a heavy operational burden. The men call their area the sandbox, or, simply, “the box,” and they deploy on a routine basis to Afghanistan and Iraq. The other groups split time between their duties in their assigned areas and helping the 5th in the active theater. The Guard groups, like many Army National Guard units, are very busy. The “part-timers” in the 19th and the 20th are spending a great deal of time overseas and a great deal of time in harm’s way. More than the other SOF organizations, the Army Special Forces Command relies on and deploys its National Guard groups. The active groups have no problem integrating their guardsmen into their deploying units. In reality, they’ve no choice. Since 9/11, SF soldiers in the active groups are deployed 270 to 275 days a year. Any way you slice it, that’s above and beyond, for the men and for their families back home. And the National Guard groups? They, too, are gone a great deal of the time. Those volunteering for recall, which many reservists have, can be gone as much or more than their active-duty brothers.

Prior to 9/11, the Special Forces groups were undermanned, perhaps as low as 80 percent of their authorized strength. That has changed. With aggressive recruiting and the training pipeline running at full capacity, the active groups are approaching their authorized strengths. If the recent pay incentives and bonuses now being made available to seasoned SOF personnel achieve the desired result, the groups may plus up in excess of these authorized levels. As of this writing, we have something on the order of forty-five hundred Green Berets to carry this fight to the enemy.