Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [84]
Block, like all enlisted Green Berets who become officers, has been through the Q-Course twice. When an enlisted Special Forces soldier elects to become an officer and qualifies for officer training, he does not have to reselect, but he must, as a newly commissioned officer, again complete Phases II, III, and IV.
“The groups need every one of you,” Captain Block continues, “but we’ll not cut corners and we’ll not relax our standards. You have to perform, and you have to demonstrate character. Show us you want to be a Special Forces warrior, and forget about everything else. For the next five weeks, consider yourself on deployment. And good luck to each of you.”
The following day, the class draws weapons at Fort Bragg and moves en masse to Camp Mackall and the Rowe Training Facility. The Phase II area is a scattering of temporary metal buildings dating back to the 1950s. The twenty-five-by-fifty-foot metal-sided structures each house a student detachment of twelve to fourteen students—a student Operational Detachment Alpha. Most of the student ODAs are assigned their own building, but given the needs of the Special Forces groups and the nation for more Green Berets, some of the Phase II ODAs are billeted in recently erected tents near the main compound. These are semipermanent structures served by generators and portable toilets. The tents are erected on existing concrete slabs—pads that date back to World War II, when they served as foundations for the temporary barracks hastily built for soldiers preparing for the invasion of occupied France. Both the tents and the buildings are partitioned in the now-familiar barracks-area/operational-bay configuration. The shower, mess, and laundry facilities are in the central area of the Rowe Training Facility and serve Phase II students as well as other training venues at the facility.
Life in the team huts and tents is conducted as if the student ODAs were on operational deployment, which means they move about the Rowe Training Facility as a team or in pairs, and when they sleep in the barracks, two men will always be awake and on guard duty. They have to be prepared to move, fight, or fend off an attack at all times.
Class 1-05 is organized as student ODAs, and all training evolutions are conducted within the individual ODA or a pair of ODAs. Each ODA or team is assigned a cadre team sergeant who is a veteran sergeant first class. Most student ODAs also have an assigned teaching/ training assistant. He is a civilian employee of the Northrop Grumman Corporation and, almost without exception, a retired Green Beret. These civilian trainers are called different things in different phases, but in Phase II, they are referred to as training assistants and considered cadre. Like the soldiers in Class 1-05, I’m also assigned to a student ODA. My team is ODA 811, usually referred to simply as “eight-one-one.” My cadre sergeant is Sergeant First Class Paul Janss.
A word about student ODAs and cadre sergeants. Much of Special Forces training is conducted in groupings or teams that reflect the basic deployment unit of Special Forces, the Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA). The student ODA will often mirror the deployed ODA in size and composition. Operationally, it’s usually twelve Green Berets per ODA, but in training that number can range from ten to sixteen soldiers per student ODA. It’s the same for assignments within the student ODA—detachment commander or team leader, team sergeant, intel sergeant, weapons sergeant, and so on. The numbering—say, 811, as in the case of my student ODA for Phase II—would also reflect a functioning ODA’s group, battalion, and company affiliation. For training in the Q-Course, they’re somewhat artificial. An instructor in the form of a cadre sergeant or assigned cadre