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Old 04-01-2008, 10:50   #16
Ret10Echo
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I know from experience in the SOCCE in B-H and Kosovo that the conventional forces I dealt with had no idea how to use S.F. (Use in this case is not necessarily the direct control of Special Forces detachments but the type of information and capabilities that could be provided) and they treated us with disdain (actual contempt in many cases). Watching them make the same errors because they didn't listen to what we had to say was painful. It would take several iterations of the "step on your crank" exercise before the senior staff would listen. Then the whole table was reset when the staff rotated.
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Old 04-01-2008, 10:58   #17
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Does anyone think that MajGen Mulholland's promotion to 3 star and and command of USASOC will have a positive impact on the situation?
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Old 04-01-2008, 22:24   #18
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As I said before- Time for Special Forces to get the hell away from SOC and back under the Department of Defense...It will probably take another Messiah to get that done but the search should be on for a pregnant virgin...
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Old 04-02-2008, 18:20   #19
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Is history kinda repeating......... I remember the same complaints many, many years ago. Commanders didn't understand SF and the missions for which it was trained. And then the draw down and reduction in the number of groups and personnel which led to cries of the demise of SF. SF has changed and will continue to change. But there is too much talent, skills, and expertise out there to consider anything like the death of SF.


my .02

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Old 04-02-2008, 21:00   #20
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Guys,

I always consider the source on things like this...and MG (Ret) Guest is neither one of my role models for an SF soldier nor a source I pay much attention to here. He came to us in 1/10th from a DAO assignment in Osterriech and proceded to break a leg on his first parachute jump. When he got out of the cast and could jump again he injured himself again. I then left for OCS and friends back in the 1/10th did not think much of him. However, he made O-6 on the backs of the quality of the teams there and was given command of the 5th SFG. His claim to fame as the 5th SFG CDR was in removing the gold and red stripes from the 5the flash...which pissed off a lot of people...and little else. Joe D could fill you in on that one. I was an ODA CDR in the 7th SFG at that time and the 5th SFG was not a very happy place to be. In a nutshell, Jim Guest's opinions are exactly that...his opinions and not much else. In light of the achievements of both SF and SOF over the last half of a century I cannot concur with his opinions on this issue. Period. MOO.

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Old 04-03-2008, 06:19   #21
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Guys,

I always consider the source on things like this...and MG (Ret) Guest is neither one of my role models for an SF soldier nor a source I pay much attention to here. He came to us in 1/10th from a DAO assignment in Osterriech and proceded to break a leg on his first parachute jump. When he got out of the cast and could jump again he injured himself again. I then left for OCS and friends back in the 1/10th did not think much of him. However, he made O-6 on the backs of the quality of the teams there and was given command of the 5th SFG. His claim to fame as the 5th SFG CDR was in removing the gold and red stripes from the 5the flash...which pissed off a lot of people...and little else. Joe D could fill you in on that one. I was an ODA CDR in the 7th SFG at that time and the 5th SFG was not a very happy place to be. In a nutshell, Jim Guest's opinions are exactly that...his opinions and not much else. In light of the achievements of both SF and SOF over the last half of a century I cannot concur with his opinions on this issue. Period. MOO.

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Very well said, I was in 5th when he was Gp Cdr.
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Old 04-03-2008, 06:47   #22
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I was in 5th during the Days of Guest..... I honestly think that if Joe D. was not there a lot of us would have quit...and gone to another group....or even SWC
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Old 04-03-2008, 07:45   #23
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Just to put the first paragraph comments into perspective I conducted a word search for SEALs, Rangers and Delta and did not recieve any results either. The level and/or scope of the document is on a different level and not ment (I believe) to discuss individual units.
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Old 05-20-2008, 23:53   #24
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After 50+ years, everyone else in the SOF community is attempting to reinvent the SF model. Evidently SF's model is the only successful model for counter-insurgencies and now the 'sexier' SOF outfits are scrambling to get a piece of the pie. NSW and MARSOC have started up their own language programs. We had a SEAL team visit us in our camp out in the desert the other day and were telling us about their FID partners.....since when do SEALs do fid-successfully?
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Old 05-23-2008, 21:26   #25
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The old jealousy of Special Forces by other army units, Navy and Marines lives on. We can do what the SEALs do, we can do what Force Recon can do, we can do what the Rangers do. But none of them can deploy to a mission that is going to last 1 to 2 years, with little or no support from their home units. This is what makes SF unique in the Armed Forces. !2 of us, with little guidance can go to Bum F_ _ k, Egypt, take a local force, turn it into a cohesive fighting unit, multiply that force and expand the operation until the enemy government is overturned. No other U.S. force, NONE, can do that.

That is why we get crapped on from time to time and why we, as I have spouted before, need to get the hell out of SOC and back under the command of the Department of Defense....

Just my dos centavos worth...
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Old 05-23-2008, 22:44   #26
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The old jealousy of Special Forces by other army units, Navy and Marines lives on. We can do what the SEALs do, we can do what Force Recon can do, we can do what the Rangers do. But none of them can deploy to a mission that is going to last 1 to 2 years, with little or no support from their home units. This is what makes SF unique in the Armed Forces. !2 of us, with little guidance can go to Bum F_ _ k, Egypt, take a local force, turn it into a cohesive fighting unit, multiply that force and expand the operation until the enemy government is overturned. No other U.S. force, NONE, can do that.

That is why we get crapped on from time to time and why we, as I have spouted before, need to get the hell out of SOC and back under the command of the Department of Defense....

Just my dos centavos worth...
SOCOM is a joint command under the DoD.

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Old 05-23-2008, 23:04   #27
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Then we need to be detached from SOC.
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Old 05-27-2008, 21:51   #28
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Special Forces and the Mainstream Army

I have just read MG (R) Guests article as taken from the Soldier of Fortune Magazine, and the comments made by my brothers in arms. I didn't know MG Guest when he was in 5th Group. I was in 7th Group at the time serving as a medic on ODA 751, and do remember him removing the Viet Nam colors from the 5th Group flash. It was, to say the least, disheartening and shameful. I met General Guest for the first time after I was appointed as a warrant officer, MOS 180A. I had been assigned to SWC as the manager for MOS 180A and had been given my major additional duty as force projection officer by, at that time, BG Guest. During my first briefing to him I presented him with a dismal projection of personnel in the enlisted ranks, warrant officer field and for captains. He asked me why we had these shortages and what he could do to fix the problem. I replied as follows;

enlisted: SOCOM does our in-service recruiting and 1) is not budgeted adequately, 2) SOCOM has an extremely small recruiting staff that is untrained as recruiters and cannot sufficiently canvass the worldwide army for the quality and caliber of personnel we need, 3) SOCOM recruiters cannot gain access to army posts as needed (some Post Commanders would simply say He*# No you can't come on my post and take my engineers, etc). Solution- Contract with USAREC to do all our in-service recruiting. They were budgeted, had cart blanche to any US Army installation and had people trained to recruit.

warrant officers: We were 200 warrant officers short! Authorized 330 and had 130 on hand. I explained to him that we were so short because we couldn't approve the applicants that we had, there just were not sufficient numbers of enlisted men in the ranks who met the established selection criteria. At the time, warrant officer applicants for MOS 180A had to have three of the five CMF 18 MOS's, one of which had to be 18F, SF O&I, they had to speak at least one foreign language at the 2/2 level, be Static Line Jumpmaster qualified and be an E-6 or above. Additional credit was to be given to those NCO's that were HALO or SCUBA qualified. Recommendation- Realistically set the selection criteria to reflect the qualifications of the force.

captains: I don't recall the exact number of captains we were short but it was tremendous. We had just stood up 1st Group and were looking at the 3rd if my memory serves me correctly. We were so short that many teams were non deployable because they had no captains. Some of you ghosts of the past will remember those teams. I explained to BG Guest that there were two major problems associated with our captain shortage. The first occurred when the young captain went to his Infantry Commander and told him he wanted to serve a tour in Special Forces. One of two things happened. The Commander talked (threatened) him out of applying to SF or used the young officer to round out his senior rater profile. If it was the latter the officers career was ruined. It doesn't take long for the drums of the conventional army to telegraph this data to the world of young captains. The second problem with our captain shortage was the need for captains to get branch qualified. Let's say that five captains completed Special Forces Training and were assigned to an ODA. We were lucky to keep them for a year. They had to leave Special Forces and take a company command under their respective branches. Command of an ODA didn't branch qualify them. We would be lucky to see these men again before they were an 0-4 or 0-5! Talk about a lack of continuity! Recommendation- Special Forces as a Branch. Bring our officers in as captains, branch qualify them here and keep them forever.

I'm not going to bore you all with a blow by blow on all these issues. Suffice it to say that USAREC did take our in-service recruiting and I did re-set the selection crireria for MOS 180A. BG Guest sent me to brief the Chief of Staff, US Army, Gen Carl Vuono on Special Forces as a branch. Gen Vuono wanted to have all the MACOM Commanders views on the subject before he made a decision on the subject. I hoped a plane, went to Hawaii, briefed MG Bagnell and then on to Korea to breif LTG Livsey. Both were in support. After several more briefings we took the comments back to Gen Vuono. The rest is history.

I say all of this just to support MG (R) Guest and to say that regardless of his past imperfections, he is an ally. He loves Special Forces and each and every one one of us, past and present. I hope I haven't set anyones hair on fire by anything I've written, that is not the intent. Perhaps, just perhaps, I've provided a little history to the subject line.

Keep the faith,

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Old 05-28-2008, 04:59   #29
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Perhaps, just perhaps, I've provided a little history to the subject line.
You give Guest more credit than he deserves. While he may have supported you in your efforts it was Dickie Potter that took this ball and ran with it; Scotty Crerar laid the ground work for 180As and fought for it.
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Last edited by Surgicalcric; 05-28-2008 at 10:44.
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Old 05-28-2008, 06:44   #30
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[QUOTE=Jack Moroney;211391]
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Perhaps, just perhaps, I've provided a little history to the subject line./QUOTE]

You give Guest more credit than he deserves. While he may have supported you in your efforts it was Dickie Potter that took this ball and ran with it; Scotty Crerar laid the ground work for 180As and fought for it.
X2

Guest had his own personal agenda and it never was the long term future of SF as we saw it.. He did what he thought Big Army wanted and behind that he advanced his agenda. He was not a good steward for SF.
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