Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [89]
For five days, the two student ODAs run battle drill after battle drill, patrol after patrol, danger crossing after danger crossing, recon after recon, ambush after ambush—beginning at dawn and continuing until well after dark. Nearly all the training drills deal with security of movement, accountability, and communication. During movement to and from the bivouac area, training continues with cadre ranging out in front of the student patrols to ambush them with automatic-weapons fire and artillery simulators. At the bivouac area, the student ODAs set security, eat, clean and oil their weapons, reload their magazines with blank ammo, and try for a few hours sleep. They set up at a different location each night. It’s usually well after midnight before they’ve settled in, and the bivouac area becomes a scattering of low poncho tents and Gortex-encased human forms that emanate a soft rumble of snoring. While they sleep, two men are always awake and on guard. For most of the nights during this initial field exercise of Phase II, it rains.
“These guys will work hard for the next four weeks, but we’ll work even harder,” Jan says with no trace of malice. “We get less sleep than the students. After they work a day and into the night, they can go to ground and get a little sleep. We have to spend time documenting the training and grading them. Who’s proficient, and who needs work. Which of them are leading well, and which of them need to be put into more leadership roles. The Rangers and the men who are doing well, we try to let them polish their fieldcraft and try different techniques. A typical Phase II student ODA will have a range of abilities, and while we must train those who need it to an acceptable standard, we have to challenge those who are more accomplished.”
After five wet days in the field, the student ODAs hump it back to the Rowe Training Facility and are given time to overhaul their gear, refit, and get a hot meal and a hot shower. Then, for the next several days, they train in and around the facility compound. Except for the initial briefing by the phase first sergeant and the phase company commander, there are no speeches or visits by seniors from higher commands—with one exception. On the morning following their return from the field, Class 1-05 crowds into one of the two large classrooms for an address by the 1st Special Warfare Training Group command sergeant major. Command Sergeant Major Van Atkins, a bull of a man with twenty-eight years in the Army, is the senior enlisted man responsible for making Green Berets. He works directly for the group commander, Colonel Manny Diemer—or, as some of his subordinate battalion sergeant majors see it, Diemer works for him.
“Thanks for being here,” Atkins tells the candidates of Class 1-05. “Thanks for wanting to be a Green Beret. How you guys holding up? They treating you all right out here?” There’s a soft murmur of grumbling and chuckles. Atkins grins at them. “Training’s hard, men; it’s supposed to be hard. Not everyone can be a Green Beret, but you can. You all showed that when you were selected. Suck it up; make it happen. The Special Forces groups need you, and your nation needs you. Hell, I need you. Some of you are hurt, and most of you got a little cold and wet out there the last few days. Guys, this is as good as it gets. In the groups and on deployment, you will get less sleep, be colder, carry more, do more—and you know what? You’ll have a helluva lot of fun doing it. Being a Green Beret is the greatest thing in the world. All my friends are Green Berets. I don’t have any friends who are not Green Berets. I even wonder why I like my mother, because she