Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [81]
“This course is designed to be an academic experience in a learning environment. Now, that means you have to be ready and willing to learn—to give it 100 percent. We hope you will. But if you don’t, my cadre sergeants have my blessing to take you out to one of those swampy draws here at beautiful Camp Mackall and conduct a little attitude-adjustment training. I hope that won’t be necessary, but we want your full attention while you’re here. Y’all clear on that?”
“YES, FIRST SERGEANT!”
“Good, good. That’s what I like to hear. We don’t want any failures of communication while you’re here. Good luck to y’all. Class First Sergeant?”
“Right here, First Sergeant.” The class chain of command has a student first sergeant in charge of the class and student team sergeants in charge of each student ODA. These leadership positions are changed and rotated often during the course.
“Take charge of the formation and carry on.”
“Yes, First Sergeant.” The assigned class first sergeant salutes and does a crisp about-face. “Team sergeants, take charge of your squads and fall into your classrooms.”
When they hit the classroom at 1000 on the first day, there’s an impressive stack of reading and reference material at each student’s place in the classroom. I counted twelve manuals, plus that many or more pamphlets and handouts. The sheer volume seemed more suited to a semester of law school than a sixteen-day leadership course. They ranged from The Army Noncommissioned Officer Guide, on the leadership side, to the Ranger Handbook, on the tactical side, but the course is all about leadership. These reference materials will leave with the students on the completion of the training. Each day the students are assigned mandatory reading to prepare them for the next day’s classes. In addition to a host of leadership topics, the subject matter includes the Army writing style, subordinate supervision, close-order drill, tactical supply procedures, environmental awareness, NBC (nuclear, chemical, biological) precautions, joint operations, and how to give a military briefing. The evenings are taken with study and cadre presentations on the Special Forces history and Special Forces current operations. I was pressed into service for my SOF presentation on warriorship and moral conduct on the battlefield.
“These are skills and information they will need,” Sergeant First Class Don Langston tells me, “in SF training and later when they’re assigned to an operational ODA. Our job is to see that they get this information and that they have a personal library of leadership and tactical material to refer to in the future. We also try to put them in as many leadership and supervisory roles as we can, consistent with the teaching that has to take place to get through this material.”
Langston’s a handsome, blond six-footer from upstate New York. He has his associate’s degree and is currently studying for a BA in history; he wants to teach high school history when he retires from the Army. Langston has been in the Army fourteen years and in Special Forces for eight. He is from 3rd Group and has made deployments to Uganda, Mali, Zimbabwe, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Langston gathered two Bronze Stars and a single Purple Heart for his combat tours. His goals in the military are to become a master sergeant and a detachment team sergeant. He has fourteen men in his training squad; I’m assigned to Langston’s group.
“The course work here is driven by a set curriculum, but we’ve a lot of latitude to spend more time on one topic at the expense of another, or to probe more deeply into a subject after hours. We spend a lot of time with these soldiers in the evenings.” We walk to the whiteboard at the front of his group’s classroom bay. “For example, these are their goals as we developed them in general group discussion.