Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [7]
The fourth major component of the U.S. Special Operations Command is the Joint Special Operations Command, also located at Fort Bragg. The composition and missions of this command are closely held information. A significant portion of their portfolio is counterterrorism, which has kept them busy for the last fifteen years and certainly since 9/11. They draw their personnel from Army, Navy, and Air Force veterans of the other special operations components. Collectively, the units within Joint Special Operations Command are known as tier-one forces, and they are some of our very best.
Getting back to the Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. Excluding the 1st Special Warfare Training Group, they are organized into seven operational Special Forces groups. There are five active and two National Guard groups. The organization, location, and regional focus of these groups will be taken up in the next chapter. For now, let’s turn to a discussion of SF and SOF missions.
There are four primary missions that the major SOF ground components address in one form or another. The first is direct action, or DA. Direct action is perhaps the most visible of SOF missions, encompassing raids, strike operations, enemy leadership snatches, and the like. These are typically short-duration actions, potentially involving insertion by helo, fire-and-movement activity on the ground, and close-quarter engagement with the enemy. The media loves direct action and direct-action footage. No matter what the in-theater event, the coverage will likely be accompanied by video of some guys leaping out of airplanes, jumping from helos, racing about the battlefield, and doing a lot of shooting. These video clips may or may not be related to the news being reported. And, sadly, the news coverage may be all out of proportion to the relevance of the direct-action mission. It’s simply a high-visibility event. This does not imply that direct action is not an important and valuable SOF skill, nor one that does not command a lot of attention in SOF training.
Next there’s special reconnaissance, or SR. SR missions have long been a staple of the SOF skill set. In some cases, they may precede or form the basis for a DA mission. Often it’s purely an intelligence-gathering operation. A SOF element often may quietly watch a village from afar for several days, observing patterns of movement or waiting for a target individual to show himself. In the current fight, a number of SR missions have been undertaken to secretly observe a target house or compound prior to a precision air strike in an attempt to avoid civilian casualties. These are seldom reported as they may involve clandestine or covert means. A clandestine operation is one that is kept secret from the enemy. A covert operation is one that is secret and in which the hand or presence of the U.S. government is kept quiet or unacknowledged. Many military units conduct clandestine operations, but covert work for uniformed soldiers is usually reserved for SOF. Clandestine and covert operations are most normally linked with SR missions, but both terms can apply to other SOF missions as well.
The third mission is unconventional warfare—UW. This a broad term, but most usually applies to offensive military operations that are not conventional, that is, do not involve regular U.S. military forces such as armored, mechanized, or infantry divisions. These operations are often clandestine and sometimes covert. In the