TWENTY-FIVE

IN THE ARMY you learn to accept change. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad, but change is something you learn to live with.

General Snippens left his slot in DCSOPS and was replaced by Maj. Gen. Jack Faith. A brigadier’s post, which had temporarily remained open under Snippens, was filled with Gen. Roderick D. Renick, Jr. But one other change probably affected Delta the most. Tom Owens, our chief liaison contact with the Pentagon, was supplanted by Lieutenant Colonel Whitman (pseudonym). We learned quickly that Whitman was flexible, unselfish, and supportive. He would work long hours on Delta’s behalf, and was secure enough in his own skills to admit when he didn’t know something.

A new team began working under General Meyer and looking out in the Pentagon for Delta’s best interests. We started to live with each other. As someone pointed out, not one of our three new superiors in the chain of command to the top had Special Forces experience. Only Whitman had Ranger and airborne training. In two of the cases it would make no difference, but in the case of Rod Renick it would.

The Stockade in early summer: the initial individual training phase had successfully concluded and the first stages of unit training had begun. Delta’s A Squadron, comprising two troops, was commanded by the enthusiastic Major Buckshot. The machinery was in place and working smoothly. A lot of hard work and sweat was generated that summer. Fort Bragg in July is a hot place to be.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Delta was asked to ante up.

“You’ve spent some big dollars. Because of your situation reports, we know where you are and what you’ve been doing.” This was Lieutenant Colonel Whitman calling from the Pentagon. “General Meyer believes it’s time we evaluated Delta.”

“Well, you know, my two years aren’t up yet. Delta has only been in business about eight months. I think we ought to wait.”

General Meyer disagreed. Whitman was understanding but firm. The message was clear: “You’re going to hear more about this, Colonel, in a few weeks. I’ve been told General Warner will do the evaluation for the Army.”

Oh, shit! I thought. Pentagon politics are unfathomable. Could General Warner have bypassed General Meyer and gone directly to General Rogers? I knew they were good friends, but I didn’t know how close. The emotional pendulum began to swing again.

General Meyer told me, “I walk the halls of the Pentagon daily and people say to me. ‘How is Delta doing?’ I respond by saying. ‘They’re doing good.’ Then I begin to think, ‘How good is good?’”

Carefully considered, the reasons for the validation made sense and there were quite a few of them:

a. Determine Delta’s status since its activation.

b. Develop a yardstick to measure the unit’s performance. (Army Training Tests were available to all units in the Army in order to determine their performance, but there was no ATT written for Delta.)

c. Justify the amount of money spent to get the force under way.

d. Have a firsthand look at the established force.

e. Allow others to have a look, too, hopefully to clear up misconceptions they might have.

I understood the above rationale, but did not understand why FORSCOM was tasked to conduct the validation. My fears were well founded. I expected the worst when the news arrived that FORSCOM had selected the commander of XVIII Airborne Corps, Lieutenant General Warner, to conduct the validation. Warner’s deputy for the validation was going to be my “old friend” Brig. Gen. “Sandy” Meloy.

The trouble was Warner and, of course, Meloy—who had crossed swords with General Kingston over the philosophy—appeared to me to be totally unsupportive of Delta. I believed that both officers felt Delta’s mission should be entrusted to the two Army Ranger battalions. Furthermore, because neither Generals Warner nor Meloy had ever observed Delta’s training activities, they remained ignorant of the unit’s unique strengths and skills.

There being no alternative, however, to having the validation supervised by FORSCOM, it was imperative for Delta to be evaluated against the standard the unit had trained to. No sense testing a violinist on a trombone. It became important, therefore, for the unit to frame a paper that would clearly reflect its various training activities (shooting, physical fitness, explosive, hand-to-hand combat, as well as intelligence and operations skills as they applied to combating terrorism). A letter detailing all this information was provided to Lieutenant Colonel Whitman in Washington and to Major General Mackmull at the JFK Center.

The letters notwithstanding, I saw the validation as a sandbag job. The pressure was really on. If Delta failed this test, there was a chance the unit would be deactivated, and either Blue Light or the Rangers would pick up its counterterrorist assignment. And the foxes were going to protect the hen house.

A validation group, consisting of Generals Warner and Meloy, Colonels Thomas and Spinks, Lieutenant Colonel Redman, two or three field-grade officers from XVIII Airborne Corps and the Ranger battalions, and ten to twelve noncommissioned officers from within the Special Forces Groups at Bragg, framed a test by which Delta would be graded. The validation would be broken into two parts—individual skills and team skills.

It surprised no one. Delta didn’t do well in the shooting stations. Warner’s evaluators had us shooting at distances and targets that were unrealistic. They were too long and too small. We’d been doing room clearing, very close quarters shooting; dash into a room and take people out very, very quickly. We hadn’t been, as the expression goes in the Army, punching paper. In other words, Delta didn’t worry about the black in a bull’s-eye. We’d been shooting at silhouettes. The techniques Delta had adopted were patterned after the British 22 SAS and not along U.S. military or police lines.

The sniping station was unrealistic. It was done at night and because of the optics involved very few snipers after dark are fail-safe. The scenario was just Buck Rogers–ized. With scopes, a shooter cannot tell at night whether a target is wearing a red shirt or a blue shirt. All he sees is gray. Obviously, the wrong person can easily be shot. It became apparent to everyone on the Delta side that the validation group had little, if any, knowledge or experience with terrorist tactics and techniques. And yet, one handgun station using multiple targets gave the shooters ideas on how they could improve their combat shooting techniques. It was well designed and very stimulating.

Everyone knew Delta operators could land navigate very well. It was no surprise to see a rigorous land navigation course put in over in Uwharrie. The lanes were put through some typically rough terrain. The three guys tested made it easily. They said, “Sir, it was a waste of time. It didn’t measure the skills that we measure.” It was just a flog, a march from one point to another.

Delta was evaluated on hand-to-hand combat. We’d spent very little time on throwing people around. An instructor in the martial arts from the Special Forces was brought over, he was Sgt. Willie Chong. I was asked to cough up a couple of people who would go in with him. Delta had one inexperienced man and he was put in second. After a few minutes on the mats, Chong was taken to the base hospital. We were told later he suffered a brain concussion. No other evaluators had been lined up, so Delta received 100 percent on hand-to-hand combat.

It was time to test the unit skills. This second leg of the validation was designed to test all of Delta’s intelligence, operations, and command and control procedures, as well as the squadron’s tactical proficiency. A large-scale field exercise was prepared, which required that Delta take down, simultaneously, two targets—a hijacked airplane and a terrorist-held building. Obviously, this scenario was the linchpin of the evaluation.

No question that it was a difficult assignment. Buckshot would need to divide his squadron. He decided that First Troop would take down the aircraft and that Second Troop would take down the building. The exercise was going to be evaluated in both planning and execution.

Planning required accurate information. Delta was prepared with an excellent crisis checklist. The SAS had helped us design a detailed list of tasks to be accomplished at the site of the crisis, and Ishimoto and the other personnel in the intelligence shop had improved on it.

The first thing Delta’s operations and intelligence staff did, therefore, was ask the evaluators the questions that appeared on the checklist. “How many people are on board the aircraft and in the building?” They didn’t know. They’d have to go and find out. “What type and model aircraft is being held? When did it last refuel? How much fuel remains? How much baggage is on board? How much of it is carryon luggage?” The questions were real-world and would be asked in any straightforward crisis situation. The evaluators were caught at a distinct disadvantage. They hadn’t been prepared for this type of response and didn’t know what to do. Delta was relentless. Curt Hurst, Wade Ishimoto, and Forrest Foreman of the ops and intel staff had the evaluators by the tail. “What are the physical characteristics of the pilot? Of the crew? Who are the passengers? Where are they coming from and going to? What group is holding the targets? Find us a similar plane we can rehearse on.”

General Mackmull came over to me. He was grinning, “Where did you get that checklist? You’ve got the evaluators confused and it’s great.” As the Delta staff continued down the checklist, his smile went from ear to ear.

“What kind of building is being held? How many stories does it have? Is it attached to anything? Is anyone inside sick? Do any of the hostages have unique characteristics? How are the terrorists armed?” The answers Hurst, Ishimoto, and Foreman received were often, “We don’t know” and “No, you can’t do that.” That was the easiest way. The questioning went on for some time.

“Who’s handling the negotiations?”

“We don’t know.”

“Please find out. When can Delta coordinate with the negotiating team?”

“We don’t know.”

“Find out.”

“Can we survey the targets?”

“We’ll get back to you.”

Eventually we were able to look over the targets, and I went out to see what I could. An umpire prevented me from getting too close to the occupied building.

Thirty-two miles west of Fort Bragg, out by Big Muddy Lake, the validation group had chosen a recreational building at Camp Mackall. Used during World War II as a training site for the 82nd and other airborne units, the area was generally controlled by the Special Forces School. Many of us knew it well and that was a break. I was more worried about the aircraft. This was an old National Guard AC-121 parked on an improved strip about 1,000 meters west of the barricaded building. Delta had been training on modern jet passenger aircraft procured through the generosity of various U.S airlines and the good offices of the FAA. Evidently, the evaluation group hadn’t known how to obtain a 727, or an L-1011, which in the real world stood a better chance of being hijacked than an antique AC-121.

When Delta knew everything there was to know about both targets, Major Buckshot moved A Squadron to a nearby assembly area, and at dusk divided the unit into its two elements. General Warner accompanied First Troop and General Meloy followed Second Troop.

On the aircraft side Delta had a Sergeant Franklin, whom the men called “No Lips.” He was a very fit senior noncommissioned officer. In the darkness, his movement toward the plane was a model. He simply became part of the environment. Unless you watched him closely you wouldn’t know he was moving at all. Because there were no windows in the aircraft’s tail, the remaining operators of First Troop stealthily approached it from that direction. Padded ladders were softly laid on the fuselage. Two hatches had been selected. In the time it takes to suck in your breath, both doors were blown and the plane was taken. Even I was impressed.

Second Troop, over near the building, contained a very hard man. He was, as they say, as tough as woodpecker lips. His name was Jacks (pseudonym). He’d studied the target, particularly the wooden window frames. Delta had trained on taking out windows by violently running a steel pipe around their inside rims. When the order was given, Sergeant Jacks and his pipe, along with several other operators, very professionally, very decisively, and very violently dismounted all the building’s windows. The assault force leaped through them. Within seven seconds the terrorists had been taken out and the hostages freed.

Later I learned the cost of repairing the building was nearly $5,000. I don’t think General Meloy realized what was going to happen or he might have stopped it.

The action had been sudden and swift. Most of the role-playing terrorists had been frozen by the violent manner in which Second Troop had entered the building. One role-player never had had a chance to move off a bed and another fell victim to one of the operators who in springing through a window landed on his back.

Both targets had gone down around 0400 hours. By the time we returned to the exercise headquarters, the sun was just lighting the eastern sky. The critique began shortly afterward. The conference room was packed. Maybe seventy or eighty people stood or sat wherever they could. Delta officers and senior NCOs were still in their combat gear and carrying their weapons. There had been no opportunity, either, to wash the camouflage off their faces. In addition to these familiar painted faces, I noticed a lot of what I call straphangers. The room was filled with cigarette smoke and the rich odor of sweat. General Meyer, who’d flown down the night before to observe the aircraft assault, sat nearly inconspicuous amongst the troops.

General Warner began. “That was the most professional cross-country movement I have ever seen. Never heard a person say a word. Had the targets been real, I believe Delta Force would have been successful.” Standing in a corner, General Meloy watched and said nothing. He used his colonels, particularly G. G. Thomas, to castigate us.

In the shooting phase of the validation, some of the guys had done well, but others hadn’t. General Warner remarked. “Work on this, Colonel. You don’t want to be known as the unit that can’t shoot straight.” Finally there was nothing more to say and General Warner announced that Delta had passed the evaluation. Looking at me, he asked, “Do you have anything you want to add?” “Yes sir,” I said, “I do!”

I stood up and looked around the crowded room. “I hadn’t realized the Army had so many experts in what I do. You know, there’s not a single one of you, except for General Mackmull, who ever attended a day of my training. So, I don’t know what makes you think you know so much about this business. I consider this whole thing a setup, and I don’t appreciate your comments.” I spoke my mind. I said my piece. “Some of the shooting stations were totally unrealistic. If you had read our paper you would have known what we could do.”

I was really emotional by then. I had good reason to be angry. To get to the plane we’d had to march through a swamp, carrying aluminum ladders. Realistically, that wouldn’t have happened, instead they would have arrived in small vehicles. We were, I thought, being evaluated the way a Ranger battalion would be. We were better, more sophisticated than the Rangers. Dragging long aluminum ladders through a swamp… We’d done it very, very professionally, but it was stupid and all so rudimentary. We were so far past that type of action. It gave me a chance to blow off some steam.

Colonel Thomas spoke up, “I’m sorry now I gave Delta Force as many points as I did. I wish I hadn’t.” Colonel Spinks also spoke up. Some strong words were exchanged.

It was then up to General Meyer to wrap up the proceedings. He thanked General Warner and extended his appreciation to everyone in the room who helped make the evaluation run as smoothly as it had.

The meeting broke up, people talked in groups, there was some laughter across the room, some handshakes, and congratulations were passed on. I heard someone say. “You know, we’re not making cornflakes here.” Bright morning sunlight filled the room. I found myself in a cluster of generals. General Meyer said to me, “Charlie, I’d like to see you in private.”

In one of the many metal prefab buildings that are found all over the Fort Bragg reservation, we found an empty room. The day was going to be another scorcher.

General Meyer sat back. “O.K. What’s on your mind?” A few days before the evaluation I’d sent him a message asking to talk to him. I answered, “I sort of sensed Delta would come out of this the way we did. But I need to do some more blocking and tackling. I need more time. I need the rest of my two years.” He understood that. “Charlie, you’ve got to understand, it’s only fair to check you out periodically. We need to see if you’ve kept on the right track. Everyone has to be checked every now and then, even me. What’s next?”

“Do I have the authority to send people overseas to see an actual incident if one should occur? I gotta be able to see for myself. I gotta talk to people. There’s only so much I can do at Bragg.”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but I’ll check.”

He was writing all this down. I asked him some more questions and he told me to see his deputy, General Faith, about them.

Blue Light seemed now, after our evaluation, to be redundant. Delta Force had filled the gap and we could be put on alert. If anything went down, we were ready to handle it. “There’s really no more need for Blue Light, sir.” General Meyer agreed. Mountel left Fort Bragg shortly after that. Went to India, I think.

Then General Meyer said, “Let’s just talk for a few minutes, Charlie. How are you doing? How’s your family? You look tired.” He made me feel good. Put me at ease and gave me a lot of confidence. He knew how to do that well. This only took a few minutes. He stood up. “I’ll see you later.” And he slapped me on the back.

A few days after the evaluation I received a phone call from one of General Warner’s aides. Could the general, he wanted to know, some morning take PT and run with Delta? I explained to the aide that for security reasons Delta never conducted its PT program in a formation—as did other units on the post. We never ran as a body. Physical fitness, I explained, was an individual responsibility in Delta, and the men ran at various times of the day and probably not more than two at a time. I was told that General Warner was angry when his aide gave him the message.