11-10-2011, 07:54
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#1
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Area Commander
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Western WI
Posts: 6,824
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Special Units Do The Dirty Work "Bearded Bastards."
USA Today
November 10, 2011
In Afghanistan, Special Units Do The Dirty Work
But can gains in security last beyond withdrawal?
By Carmen Gentile, Special for USA Today
CHAMKANI, Afghanistan -- Insurgents prowling the steep mountains and narrow valleys of this remote land have a name for the U.S. Special Forces: "Bearded Bastards."
Growing facial hair is one way U.S. Green Berets blend in among the locals here along the Pakistan border. Their specialty is what the military calls the "self-sustaining element," a force able to fight for long periods in extreme conditions.
"We operate in the seams and gaps where conventional forces can't go," says Maj. Eric Wright, a Special Forces advance operational base commander in nearby Khost Province.
More at the LINK HERE.
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Badger52 is offline
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11-10-2011, 08:18
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#2
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: OCONUS...again
Posts: 4,702
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Badger52
CHAMKANI, Afghanistan -- Insurgents prowling the steep mountains and narrow valleys of this remote land have a name for the U.S. Special Forces: "Bearded Bastards."
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The "Bone-clone" administration must be furious!
Stay safe.
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“It is better to have sheep led by a lion than lions led by a sheep.”
-DE OPPRESSO LIBER-
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Guy is offline
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11-10-2011, 09:21
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#3
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posts: 20,929
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Special Forces, aka, The Green Berets, "Bearded Bastards."
I'm impressed to say the least. A news reporter actually made the link (correctly) between "Special Forces" and the "Green Beret's"...... Well done Carmen Gentile.
Team Sergeant
Special Units Do The Dirty Work "Bearded Bastards."
By Carmen Gentile, Special for USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/a...0/1?csp=34news
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"The Spartans do not ask how many are the enemy, but where they are."
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Team Sergeant is offline
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11-10-2011, 09:24
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#4
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Orange, Ca.
Posts: 4,941
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I like the blending in element. When I got to SE Asia, I was told to blend in and keep a low profile. I am 6'4" and weighed 225 pounds back then. Kinda hard to blend in to a population where the average height was 5'4"....
Last edited by mark46th; 11-10-2011 at 23:33.
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mark46th is offline
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11-10-2011, 09:27
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#5
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Quiet Professional (RIP)
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Carriere,Ms.
Posts: 6,922
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Sergeant
I'm impressed to say the least. A news reporter actually made the link (correctly) between "Special Forces" and the "Green Beret's"...... Well done Carmen Gentile.
Team Sergeant
Special Units Do The Dirty Work "Bearded Bastards."
By Carmen Gentile, Special for USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/a...0/1?csp=34news
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Big Teddy
__________________
I believe that SF is a 'calling' - not too different from the calling missionaries I know received. I knew instantly that it was for me, and that I would do all I could to achieve it. Most others I know in SF experienced something similar. If, as you say, you HAVE searched and read, and you do not KNOW if this is the path for you --- it is not....
Zonie Diver
SF is a calling and it requires commitment and dedication that the uninitiated will never understand......
Jack Moroney
SFA M-2527, Chapter XXXVII
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greenberetTFS is offline
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11-10-2011, 09:33
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#6
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Quiet Professional (RIP)
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Carriere,Ms.
Posts: 6,922
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mark46th
I lkie the blending in element. When I got to SE Asia, I was told to blend in and keep a low profile. I am 6'4" and weighed 225 pounds back then. Kinda hard to blend in to a population where the average height was 5'4"....
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I had the same problem,I was 6'1" and 245 pounds back in the day and to top it off I had blond hair.............
Big Teddy
__________________
I believe that SF is a 'calling' - not too different from the calling missionaries I know received. I knew instantly that it was for me, and that I would do all I could to achieve it. Most others I know in SF experienced something similar. If, as you say, you HAVE searched and read, and you do not KNOW if this is the path for you --- it is not....
Zonie Diver
SF is a calling and it requires commitment and dedication that the uninitiated will never understand......
Jack Moroney
SFA M-2527, Chapter XXXVII
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greenberetTFS is offline
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11-10-2011, 10:39
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#7
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: OCONUS...again
Posts: 4,702
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mark46th
I lkie the blending in element. When I got to SE Asia, I was told to blend in and keep a low profile. I am 6'4" and weighed 225 pounds back then. Kinda hard to blend in to a population where the average height was 5'4"....
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I'm 5'10", 185lbs. with a tan from hell! And some folks didn't realize that I blended-in, in AFRICA!
"Talk about institutionalized thinking...."
Stay safe.
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“It is better to have sheep led by a lion than lions led by a sheep.”
-DE OPPRESSO LIBER-
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Guy is offline
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11-10-2011, 11:01
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#8
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Occupied America....
Posts: 4,740
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"Bearded Bastards" has a nice ring to it though... (for those who can grow a respectable beard )
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Ret10Echo is offline
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11-10-2011, 11:09
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#9
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 42
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Interesting story, spent 7 months in Chamkani.
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Triguy18E
SFA: M-11269 LIFE
As one veteran of Operation White Star described the situation: “We were teaching too many subordinates over there (Vietnam) when we should have been teaching the superiors. Why teach the lower-grade people when higher-ups don’t know how to utilize the skills taught? It’s a waste of time.”
Special Warfare, June 2002, Vol. 15, No. , P. 49-50
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triguy18e is offline
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11-10-2011, 11:21
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#10
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: NorCal
Posts: 15,370
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I'm waiting for the upcoming movie version - "Inglorious MFers" - watch for it.
Early morning. A small farm compound in Afghanistan. Two bearded SF soldiers, a Medic and the Team Sergeant, are kneeling outside a nondescript stone-walled structure, watching and waiting.
Medic - "Ever wonder whether we'll ever leave this place, Top?"
Team Sergeant - "We'll be here fighting until hell freezes over...and then we'll be here fighting them on the ice. Ever learn to skate, Doc?"
And so it goes...
Richard
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“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)… There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” - To Kill A Mockingbird (Atticus Finch)
“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” - Robert Heinlein
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Richard is offline
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11-10-2011, 12:01
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#11
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Guerrilla
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Fayetteville, NC
Posts: 280
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guy
The "Bone-clone" administration must be furious!
Stay safe.
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'Bone Clone', have not heard that name in years. As long as it is out, might as well throw in 'Rambo' as well. You know wherever they are they are both hating everything about this.
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69harley is offline
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11-10-2011, 12:10
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#12
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Guerrilla Chief
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: NYC Area
Posts: 828
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Sergeant
I'm impressed to say the least. A news reporter actually made the link (correctly) between "Special Forces" and the "Green Beret's"...... Well done Carmen Gentile.
Team Sergeant
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Some Google-Fu shows that he has spent some time embedded with SF, he was wounded by an RPG in 2010. I guess whomever he was embedded with taught him well.
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"Crime is an extension of business through illegal means, politics is an extension of crime through *legal* means."
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BOfH is offline
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11-10-2011, 13:19
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#13
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: North Texas, I can see OK from here!
Posts: 2,077
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ret10Echo
"Bearded Bastards" has a nice ring to it though... (for those who can grow a respectable beard )
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I'm 43 Y.O. and still can't!
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SF18C is offline
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11-10-2011, 18:39
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#14
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Guerrilla
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: SE U.S.
Posts: 207
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Popped my cherry there.
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“Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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stickey is offline
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11-10-2011, 19:30
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#15
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 554
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guy
I'm 5'10", 185lbs. with a tan from hell! And some folks didn't realize that I blended-in, in AFRICA!
"Talk about institutionalized thinking...."
Stay safe.
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I got the same problem...and I was 1/10. I once had a TL tell some local in Kosovo that I was a Africana American Soldaten. I wanted to beat his arsch. I'm AMERICAN DAMN IT!!!
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