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RELEASE NUMBER: 051121-01
DATE POSTED: NOVEMBER 22, 2005

Building renamed honoring father of Special Forces
By Sgt. Joe Healy
U.S. Army Special Operations Command Public Affairs Office

FORT BRAGG, NC (USASOC News Service, Nov. 22, 2005) – The academic facility where today’s elite Army Soldiers study was renamed in honor of a deceased Green Beret who is remembered as the father of Special Forces.

The Colonel Aaron Bank Hall was rededicated during a formal ceremony here Nov. 21. The building, formerly known as the Special Operations Academic Facility, has 91 classrooms and 62 offices. Approximately 2,000 people occupy it daily. It is Fort Bragg’s largest academic facility.

Bank died in April of 2004 at the age of 101.

Battling solid winds and a steady rain, approximately 200 Soldiers, civilians and retired Green Berets braved the elements and were on-hand to view the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“Colonel Bank was the pioneer of Special Operations,” said Retired Maj. Gen. John Singlaub. “Banks believed special operators were a brotherhood of men who were risk takers. They had confidence in themselves and in their chain-of-command.”

Speaking to the audience in fluent English, French and German, Mrs. Katherine Bank, Bank’s widow, thanked the many life-long friends in the audience. Her husband would have been very pleased, she said.

Both Singlaub and Banks served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. The OSS is considered the United States’ first intelligence agency. Many of its members quietly created the U.S. Special Forces and Central Intelligence Agency during the 1950s.

Bank was fanatical about training, Singlaub remembered. “He believed that Soldiers must have expert knowledge of their weapons systems – so much knowledge that firing the equipment should be ‘second nature’”.

“Then the Soldier could focus solely on the mission,” Singlaub said.

The training at Bank Hall educates Soldiers in Special Forces, Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs. Language courses there include French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.

The Army's elite Soldiers train there.

“President Kennedy once said, ‘A nation reveals itself by the men it produces and the men it honors,’” said Maj. Gen. James W. Parker, commanding general, U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. “Today we remember a truly great man.”

Parker listed off Bank’s military achievements: OSS member; first-ever officer of the 10th Special Forces Group; responsible for the first Special Forces Training Doctrine; and named father of Special Forces by a congressional resolution.

Parker also said that Banks would be proud to know that Soldiers train with modern technology, such as computers and satellites, in the facility which bears his name.

Bank’s military awards and decorations included: the Soldier’s Medal, the Bronze Star Medal with “V” device, the French Croix de Guerre and the British “Mention in Dispatches.” Campaign medals included: the World War II European Theater and Asiatic-Pacific Theater Medal, the Korean Service Medal, the UN Service Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the Combat Infantryman Badge and Master Jump Wings.

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