Hans Halberstadt - War Stories of the Green Berets

B Y H ANS H ALBERSTADT

First published in 2004 by Zenith Press, an imprint of MBI Publishing Company, 400 First Avenue North, Suite 300, Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

Copyright 1994, 2004, 2010 by Hans Halberstadt
Zenith Press hardcover edition published in 2004. Digital edition 2010.

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Digital edition: 978-1-61673-744-3
Hardcover edition: 978-0-7603-1974-1

Printed in the United States of America

To the memory of Staff Sergeant Paul P. J. Johnson, 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division; killed in action, October 20, 2003, Fallujah, Iraq.

Aaron Bank and other great men who designed the framework for todays U.S. Army Special Forces (SF) planted a seed that has permeated the genealogy of Green Berets ever since. Occasionally old-timers are heard to lament, The new breed is different. The trainings not tough enough. Theyre too young. Theyre too old. Its too easy. They dont have the right mix. From time to time I have expressed some of those fears myself. Someone should have said to me, Oh, ye of little faith. Getting a fresh look at SF today, I find the reality is they are as good as any who preceded them.

Todays Special Forces soldiers are everything we had hoped they would be. Sure, there are occasions when someone slips through the cracks, someone drops a ball, or some vogue training concept temporarily sends chills through us old guys. Then the genes they inherited overcome popular trends. Like a sophisticated honing system the Special Forces community always makes the adjustment, calculates the direction, and locks on to the basic operational tenants of its forefathers. It is no wonder that they are the most respected, most revered, most loved, most intelligent, and the most creative men ever to bear arms for the United States of America.

Some mockingly refer to Special Forces as just teachers. And yes, we are teachers. Others have tried to denigrate us by laughing at our inclination for living native, which we do. Many dont seem to understand why we place so much importance on cultures, customs, traditions, languages, religions, agriculture, politics, and economies. They have often scoffed that such training has no application in military operations. Still others have insinuated that our reserved use of force is an indicator of weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Woe to the foe that mistakes kindness for weakness in todays Special Forces soldier.

So misled are the poor souls who see victory only in terms of lethal capabilities. No doubt, a Special Forces A-teams application of brute force would stagger the imagination of our most competent adversary. The team members individual strength, skills, survival instincts, and most important, ability to persevere is without equal. But it is their inherent ingenuity and passion for the human race that is their true strength.

To SF soldiers, victory is defined by a productive and free society. The route to checkmating a ruthless, tyrannical government is not in reigning destruction on the populace. Rather, it is our A-teams around the globe, leading by example, that give hope to people who had none. It is the SF soldiers who toil with indigenous peoples, eat with their families, sleep among them, care for their health, assist in the birth of their children, share in their grief, and rejoice in their successes that make for permanent change in this world.

We believe the peoples of the world are basically good. The Concept of Operation for every SF mission always considers how might we achieve a lasting, positive result with the fewest casualties on each side. For that matter, how can we do it without firing a shot. As a practical matter, the peaceful path sometimes fails and Special Forces teams will unleash a fury known only to the occasional enemy survivor of such an encounter.

As we face more and more enemies without a name, without an identifiable country, without an organized army, enemies that hail from what weve come to call non-nation states, we will need Special Forces more than ever before. It is the indigenous people of any given countrybecause of hatred against Americans or indifference toward uswho allow the enemy to survive. Since their inception, Special Forces A-teams have been neutralizing hatred and indifference wherever they have left their imprimatur.

SF has long been adept at an art that many military forces find difficult to grasp and most shunnation building. Our country cant afford not to have this asset in our arsenal. We must preserve it, expand it, trust in SF soldiers judgment, and listen, really listen, to their assessments. For it is from their experiences that we will be able to develop meaningful strategies for world peace.

Colonel Gerald L. Schumacher (ret.)
United States Army Special Forces

A lot has changed in the 10 years since the first edition of this book was published. The Armys Special Forces (SF), along with special operations forces (SOF) from all the American armed forces, are now a key component of real world operations in a way that wasnt true a decade ago. During that 10 years, huge amounts of money have been invested in SpecOps, invested in more people wearing green berets, more people supporting them in the background, new communications systems, specialized aircraft and the people to fly them, exotic weapons, and even better training.

At the same time, Army Special Forces has been called to action even more than in the past. During this last decade, all the special forcestheir skill sets, missions, and organizational capabilitieshave been worked into battle plans in much larger roles than ever before. There was a time when conventional force commanders, traditionally hostile to unconventional warriors, tasked SOF units with tactical missions on the edges of the big picture, assigning them roles that were not really important. Now, conventional commanders ask for SF units early and often, work them into the plan, and depend on them for critical tasks. The stories that follow describe some examples of such integration.

That attitude began to shift in the 1970s, matured as a result of lessons learned on the ground in Grenada and Panama, and was refined in the first Gulf War. Today, SOF units often work side by side with conventional units, combining the virtues and values of each community in highly successful operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a sort of golden age for the U.S. Armys Special Forces. History is being written and rewritten on hostile battlefields far from home, and it is an extremely positive and successful history.