The US Army Special Forces are a Tier One spec ops force known worldwide as the Green Berets. SOFREP covers Special Forces with topics written by real Special Forces Operators.
Army Special Forces Qualification Course
Blake Miles writes about his first days on the Special Forces Qualification Course: ‘There is no way in hell I’m going to make it through this.’ This was the thought that bounced around my head from time to time when I first got down to Fort Benning, Georgia to start my military career as an aspiring US Army Special Forces Soldier. The first step was graduating Infantry Basic. This was probably one of the easier steps.
Read about Blake’s experience surviving the Army Special Forces Qualification Course in his post, What is an SF baby?
How Do Special Forces Operators Assess Situations?
Take a look at Behind The Green Beret: Building Rapport, which will help you to understand the Special Forces perspective as you read Cultural Analysis: Russia & Ukraine; a primer on Benghazi, A Green Beret’s In-Depth Analysis of ‘Benghazi: The Definitive Report’; and for thoughts on Afghanistan, How SOF got Screwed by the Conventional Force – A Lesson from Jim Gant .
The Special Forces Medic: 18-D
Interested in Special Forces Medics? At places like the JFK Special Warfare Center and School, our Special Operations personnel train for the austere environments which they will face overseas. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of the training is not secretive in nature. However, there is one closely held training secret within the Special Operations community. That secret is out now, and activist groups and politicians are now trying to prevent our soldiers from receiving this life saving training.
Read on as Jack Murphy asks, Why Does PETA Want to Kill Our Special Operators?
And you can get Glenn Doherty’s take on 18-D Medic training using the Goat Lab: “The reason the 18 Delta medics and now other SOF units have been using this method before and throughout the GWOT is because it works. We have the best trained and most prepared combat medics in the world, and they have and will continue to save lives because of the use of caprines and other animals in training.”
The Special Forces Weapons Sergeant
In Part 1 of his series on the Special Forces Weapons Sergeant, Jack Murphy writes, “The Special Forces Weapons Sergeant Course, also known at the 18Bravo Course, is an experience that few have the cojones to face. In this course you learn all manner of killing people, places, and things with a variety of direct and indirect weaponry. Basically, it’s a gun nut’s wet dream come true.”
He continues in Part 2: We were planning to hit a training objective the next day and our instructors made the mistake of giving us a grid location to the target. They also left us alone for the night with our trucks. I quickly organized a recce mission with two 18C students who I knew, and we rolled outside the wire around midnight. Taking pictures of the objective, we used them to help plan the mission.
The Difference Between Rangers and Special Forces
“Big dumb Ranger stomping through the woods,” a retired Sergeant Major from 5th Special Forces Group said with a smirk to me after an After Action Review in Robin Sage. Robin Sage is the culmination exercise at the end of the Special Forces Qualification Course, basically your final exam prior to donning the Green Beret.
Robin Sage, Domestic Counter-Insurgency: Green Beret-Style
On Special Forces Soldiers, Blake Miles writes, “Obviously I am biased, but I firmly believe that one of the most prominent reasons United States Army Special Forces soldiers are so special is because of their ability to earn trust in any environment they walk into. This gives them the unique ability to spark that unquenchable fire of fearlessness in the face of despair and terror…”
(Featured Image Courtesy: DVIDS)