Original author: Jack Murphy Source: SOFREP
One night in 1977
Darkness pierced by the roar of the engines, a C-130 transport aircraft gradually revealed its silhouette in the night sky, and twelve U.S. Army Special Forces members in the cabin jumped down to officially join a special war. By then, plane hijackings had become so commonplace that the host of "Tonight's Show" would warm up the joke on TV, but the generals in the Pentagon couldn't laugh at all. In 1976, Israeli special forces cleanly resolved a hijacking incident at Entebbe airport, which made the U.S. government realize that there was currently no unit dedicated to terrorist attacks in the U.S. military.
This situation will be different after this mission. The Special Forces crews guided their MC1-1B parachutes to the ground, but their teams scattered in the air, some with parachutes hanging from trees and others landing on an airfield, the entire landing done in thick fog. Their target, a C-130 military transport plane hijacked by terrorists, was hidden in a thick fog. There were no hostages on board, only a black box, and this secret encryption device must not fall into the hands of the enemy.
Capturing the airfield was actually a very "Ranger" mission, but some people chose to drop an entire battalion of green berets in the air to carry out this plan. This high-jumping, low-pitched party was only the vanguard, responsible for inserting in advance of the arrival of the main attacking forces and ensuring the safety of the aircraft. Although they found a few fewer men counting at the meeting point, the Green Berets knew that the time for attack was approaching and they had to take down the target plane immediately.
They advanced silently in the thick fog with silenced Stern submachine guns. Taking advantage of the inclement weather, they quietly wandered between the sentries around the aircraft, perfectly avoiding enemy guards. They rushed to the plane and quickly found the black box. Having gained the initiative, the captain decided to continue the attack on the barracks. This was not planned, but their comrades would arrive over the airport in a matter of minutes. When something happens to the enemy consciousness in the barracks, it will definitely rush out and shoot at the airborne troops.
The high-jumping squad began to attack the barracks, and suddenly a second attack team appeared, attacking the target from the other direction--this was the other team members who had been entangled in the tree before, they had gathered and understood the combat intentions of their comrades. The two squads converged in the enemy barracks and joined forces to clear the target area, and when the sky of umbrella flowers bloomed over the airfield, the green berets under the umbrellas no longer had to face the rain of bullets.
(Speaking of the most well-known green beret, I am afraid it is this one, but he did the net hijacking..... ）
South Carolina
An assessor named Larry Redman was sent to oversee REDCOM's training activities, and he walked up to Special Forces Captain Mark Boyat: "I don't know how you did it, but the Force is with you." He quoted lines from George Lucas' latest film, Star Wars: A New Hope. The two-way attack looked like it had been planned, coordinated, and rehearsed in advance, but both Boyat and the evaluators knew that luck was a big part of the success. The army is trying to repel an enemy that is gradually emerging, terrorism, and luck alone is not the pursuit of warriors.
The 3rd Battalion of the Fifth Special Operations Group took the airfield, and everyone rejoiced, but this was not a real battle, it was only part of the Army's annual Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise (EDRE). The 3rd Battalion of the Fifth Special Operations Group was assigned the D-Pack (Rapidly Deployed Unit) of the Eighteenth Airborne Army. At the time, the military did not have a dedicated counterterrorism unit, so rangers and green berets were ordered to respond to terrorist attacks and other contingencies.
In the 1970s, as the flames of terrorism burned and the flames rolled over the sky above people's heads, fear filled the crowd — the Black September Organization, the Red Army/Bader-Mainhofer gang, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and other terrorist organizations committed a string of hijackings and murders around the world. In June 1976, PLO terrorists hijacked an Air France airliner and took more than 100 hostages, many of them Jewish and Israeli citizens. They hijacked the plane to refuel in Libya and then flew to Uganda, where President Amin had a long history of discord with the Israeli government. The PLO had arranged in advance to hand over the hostages to the Ugandan army, forcing the Israeli government to mediate with other governments and negotiate with terrorists.
On the night of July 3, 1976, Israeli special forces carried out a daring hostage rescue operation. Israel's counter-terrorism forces sent out surprise soldiers, landed unexpectedly at a Ugandan airport, stormed into the place where the hostages were being held, killed dozens of Ugandan soldiers and terrorists, and then flew back to Israel with the hostages. This successful raid was a culmination in the history of special operations that is admired by today's people.
(Procedures for raiding Entebbe Airport)
A few days later, REDCOM Commander General Jack Hennessy received a call from the Pentagon at McDill Air Force Base in Florida, and the Department of Defense asked him if REDCOM could complete the same operation as Israel did at Entebbe Airport. Hennessy replied that the warriors had it, but their level of equipment and training did not meet the requirements. The year before, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) had developed a conceptual plan to deal with a range of potential terrorist activities, but that year was uneventful. At that time, some bureaucrats and military commanders in the United States were busy fighting among themselves all day long, pouring over some bullshit things, suspicious of special operations forces, and their reaction to terrorist activities was extremely scattered, believing that terrorists could not invade the United States. After Operation Entebbe, the 1975 counter-terrorism plan was once again on the agenda.
This directly spawned two emergency contingents – JTF-7 and JTF-11. The former focuses on the Middle East and Africa, while the latter is responsible for Asia and the Pacific. The training missions for these contingents were incorporated into the Joint Chiefs of Staff' Global Training Five-Year Plan, which put the U.S. military at the forefront of many potential future wars, while rangers and green berets also participated in these EDRE training missions.
In order to respond to terrorist attacks, a rapidly deploying special forces must be assembled as soon as possible. In March 1977, on Smoke Bomb Hill in Fort Bragg, the green berets of the 3rd Battalion of the Fifth Special Operations Group were assembled to deal with an almost forgotten form of terror: black violence.
Washington dc
Washington, D.C., 16th Street, is a tranquility and tranquility. Seven black men gathered at the motel and made two phone calls to 7700 16th Street. On the first call, one of them pretended to be a handyman looking for work. The resident who answered the phone had no doubts and agreed with him to fix the lock on the basement door at about twelve o'clock. Soon after, they dialed the phone again, this time pretending to be interested in the homeowner's literature, who said they could go to his house later in the day to buy some pamphlets.
The seven then drove to the train station to pick up eight other accomplices, then drove in two Cadillacs to 7700 16th Street, committing the largest murder in Washington history.
After getting out of the car, the two men walked to the front door and asked about the pamphlet. One of the residents opened the door and asked them to wait, and she went to pick it up. When she returned, a third man stepped forward and identified himself as a handyman. Suddenly, the three men pushed her aside, rushed into the door, and pulled out their pistols and saw-short shotguns. The other five accomplices emerged from the Cadillac and entered the house behind them.
The bandits rushed into the kitchen, brandishing their weapons. A young woman who was feeding a baby lunch screamed. One of the bandits shouted shut up at her, then dragged her daughter out of her arms and led her out of the kitchen and upstairs. The seven intruders were distraught because their targets were not at home.
"Why is this happening to us? What have we done to you?" One of the women asked. "Ask your leader," replied one of the gunmen, "he knew we would come to him and ask him about the letter." ”
The gunmen upstairs heard other children crying and calling their mothers. One of the gunmen found them in a room. In addition to the eighteen-month-old girl just now, there were her cousins, a one-year-old girl and a three-year-old brother, and a nine-day-old baby was also lying in a bed wrapped in a blanket. After hearing cries in another room, the gunman searched the closet and found an 11-year-old boy.
Meanwhile, the family's four adults, two men and two women, were taken to the basement, lay on the floor, and then executed.
When the gunshots rang out, the children were frightened and crying, and the gunmen upstairs became even angrier. He grabbed the baby from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. One by one, he walked back, grabbed the children, and took them to the bathroom until their cries suddenly stopped.
On the first floor, the owner of the house, Caliph Hamas Abdul Aziz al-Khalifa, was arrested. Kaelis and his wife returned home. There was a brief altercation at the gate where Ka Ellis asked his wife to run to the next-door neighbor to call the police. The bandits noticed that the momentum was not right and opened the back door in an attempt to escape. Kaelis ran half a mile behind them until the bandits shot at him. Unarmed, he realized that the men had ransacked his home, and with an ominous premonition, he hurried to his home.
When he returned to his doorstep, the police had arrived and began searching the house.
The basement was covered in blood, and both men were dead. Although the two women are unconscious, they still have vital signs. A police officer pulled out a pistol and went upstairs to search, and he opened the bathroom door —the bathtub was floating with the bodies of three children and a naked baby was submerged in the sink. In a closet in one bedroom, they found the body of an 11-year-old boy whose head had been smashed by a shotgun.
Before the operation, one of the women identified the killer to the detective, telling him that the bandits were from the Illija Poole Killer Corps, referring to Ilija Mohammed, the leader of the Islamic National Group. The murder was in response to the clashes between Kaelis and Muhammad, when Kaelis broke away from the Islamic nation and converted to the form of Sunni orthodox Islam. The discord began with a letter from Kaelis to the Islamic nation in which he insulted their leaders and beliefs: "The followers of Muhammad are eating the flesh and blood of their brothers, the minds of black Muslims have degenerated, and they will suffer forever in hell by fire." ”
A black detective from Washington, D.C., named Ramos Williams, infiltrated the "Islamic Nation" mosque in Philadelphia, many of who also belonged to the so-called "black mafia" and engaged in drug dealing to buy murderers. Ironically, while the people at the Philadelphia mosque claimed to be a firm believer in the black liberation movement, they were secretly trafficking heroin in black neighborhoods, threatening law-abiding black entrepreneurs, and murdering fellow blacks in the neighborhoods. Inside the mosque, detectives began to hear messages about the Death Squad. During the undercover process, he had one of the killers confess to the murder himself and say the names of the other accomplices, all of which were secretly transmitted over the radio.
The killer was eventually arrested by the police and the trial was scheduled, and when Kaelis appeared in court to identify the murderer, he suddenly roared, "You killed my children!" You killed my children and shot my woman! "The bailiffs had to pull him out of the courtroom. When one of the murderers was acquitted, Kaelis broke down.
In March 1977, twelve Sunni Hanafi followers, including Kaelis, attacked three buildings in Washington, D.C. Sunni Hanafi followers surrounded the covenant center, firing aimlessly into the air, brandishing machetes, and an hour later the rest of the faithful captured a local mosque. That afternoon, they stood in front of a building where the mayor and the city council office were located.
Fort Bragg
Sirens rang out over smoke-bomb hills, and fighters of the 3rd Battalion of the Fifth Special Operations Group moved quickly to brief the soldiers on the basics of the scene: When the gunman broke into the building, he immediately opened fire and killed a 24-year-old journalist, Maurice Williams, and a throbbing bullet seriously injured young City Councilman Marion Barry. Hanafi militants occupied three buildings, took nearly 150 hostages and demonstrated their determination to kill. The Green Berets will conduct a hostage rescue operation on U.S. soil.
While many argue that the U.S. government cannot conduct military operations on home soil, the Pentagon has actually set up an office to handle requests for military support from state and federal agencies. Typically in the form of requests for civilian activities, for example, the 82nd Airborne Division was deployed to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Even with direct armed military intervention, all demands require the president's signature before they can be ratified. With the SAR police unable to control the situation and no one ready to rescue the hostages, special forces became the only option for the U.S. government.
According to the Washington Post, twelve gunmen made several demands: They wanted the government to hand over a group of criminals convicted of murder because the guys brutally killed seven innocent people (mostly children). They also demanded the destruction of the movie Muhammad, the Messenger of God, because they thought it was a blasphemous film.
The green berets on Smoke Bomb Hill began adaptive training for precision shooting and helicopter rapid descent. Although no full operational orders were received, it was thought that they would carry out helicopter rappelling on the roofs of the three buildings hijacked by Kaelis and his followers. But in reality, this plan is not very feasible, because the antennas in Washington are numerous, which may interfere with the low-altitude flight of helicopters.
Mark Boyat recalled: "All we had to do was kick the door open, take out all the bad guys, and pray that not too many hostages would be hit during the firefight." However, within 24 hours of the special forces receiving the alert, it was all over. Special forces were neither sent nor left Fort Bragg to deal with the crisis. Ambassadors to the U.S. from Egypt, Iran and Pakistan spoke to Kaelis on the phone and persuaded his accomplices to surrender to the police.
A Member of the Fifth Special Operations Group, who had been involved in the preparations at the time, said: "Even if we were sent in the past, we might just be as consultants. There will be a great deal of legal process to go through, especially as we conduct military operations with all our guns on fire. If we are to deal with kidnappings, we must abide by a very specific rule of firefighting.
In October of that year, a Lufthansa airliner was hijacked by members of the PLO. After refueling in several different countries, the hijackers finally landed in Mogadishu, Somalia. The German police counter-terrorism unit GSG9 rushed to Somalia and took down the plane cleanly. Thirty commandos rescued the hostages, including seventy German citizens, in what became known as Operation Magic Fire.
At this time in the United States, REDCOM was again asked if they could do what Germany had just done. The answer is obvious: of course not. The Pentagon's reaction that day was as disgusting as eating a fly. This type of surgical (rapid infiltration and covert attack on civilian targets) operations requires specialized knowledge and equipment, a high level of uninterrupted training, and highly dedicated combatants, and REDCOM can only stand in front of the Pentagon in embarrassment and say that it currently has nothing.
A colonel named Charlie Beckwiths came up with a brilliant plan, but in the Fifth Special Operations Group, some people also thought of it. In November of that year, a month after GSG9 unveiled its sword in Mogadishu, two specialized counter-terrorism units were established with the approval of the Army.
(Delta Force founder Charlie Beckwiths)
On the other hand, the EDRE training mission also became an opportunity for the top brass to try to find troops who could deal with the hijacking of aircraft. In the fall of 1977, an anti-terrorist EDRE mission known as the "Game of Doom" was also being carried out in an orderly manner. Colonel Montere ordered some soldiers of the Fifth Special Operations Group to pack tropical equipment. The Green Berets packed their gear and rushed to the Army Hunters Military Airfield to join the First Battalion of the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment. The Rangers shrugged their shoulders with T-10 static straight-pull parachutes and boarded the plane. Green berets didn't like to carry parachutes throughout the voyage, so the green beretmaster asked the crew to give them thirty minutes of preparatory notice as they approached the landing zone.
As the plane approached the target location, the green berets put on their parachutes, and the crew opened the tail hatch of the C-130 transport aircraft, and a chill came over them, and the earth was covered in silver. The green berets carrying tropical gear bags were dumbfounded—the Rangers and Green Berets were about to enter Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.
The troops threw themselves into the exercises with great passion and continued to carry out their tasks in full swing.
During an operation on the ground, a flash of light suddenly exploded in the night sky, and one of the Rangers' lieutenants was startled and motionless in the middle of the road, so the green berets stayed away from the infantry. Next, on the way to the target, they encounter a frozen swamp, and the Rangers decide to wade straight over. This was the last straw that crushed the green berets, and they parted ways with the Rangers and bypassed the swamp.
The green beret quickly locked in on target— the president's Boeing 707, which technically became Air Force One once the president boarded the plane. Of course, President Carter wasn't on the plane tonight. The plane was filled with extras playing hostages and terrorists. The green berets sneaked into the target area, infiltrated the plane, and used an intrusion technique to enter the cockpit, without the pilots even noticing.
The seizure of the plane was just an experiment as the Pentagon tried to figure out how to handle the hijacking in the future.
In 1962, during an exchange program with the British Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), Green Beret officer Charlie Beckwiths realized that the United States was losing its special operations capabilities. The United States needs a most elite commando, not a trainer like the Rangers, airborne light infantry, or green berets (that's Beckwiths' bias).
(Special Air Service Regiment)
"We never did a good job, green berets — yes, they were good at teaching and training, but we never got special operations done well," Beckves wrote. At the time, terrorism was just a pawn in the larger geopolitical landscape of the Cold War, the main threat to the United States was the Soviet Union, and terrorism did not appear on American radar like long-range bombers or ballistic missiles. It is true that the U.S. military has to deal with guerrillas or revolutionary wars, but terrorism is not on the list for the time being.
At first, Beckwith envisioned a force based on the SAS structure, which would be the most well-equipped, highly tactical, and budgetary force that would carry out unilateral raids. Beckwith's proposal to the Pentagon was to create a force that could carry out a POW rescue operation like a raid on a POW camp in Shanxi, Vietnam. The United States should have a permanent, professional force to carry out such a mission, rather than forming a rescue force in a pinch. But it wasn't until the 1970s, when terrorism began to show its sharp teeth, that Beckwiese's ideas were accepted.
Supplement: Raid on a prisoner-of-war camp in Shanxi, Vietnam (yes, not China's Shanxi Province), officially known as Operation Ivory Coast, was a mission led by "Bull" Simmons to rescue sixty-one American prisoners of war held in northern Vietnam. As the Military Assistance Command in Vietnam (MACV) was infiltrated by enemy spies, the U.S. military formed a temporary force of green berets to carry out rescue operations. To avoid disruption to the mission, they conducted training and rehearsals at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. On November 21, 1970, special forces flew by helicopter from Thailand to a prisoner-of-war camp in Vietnam. But man was not as good as heaven, the prisoners of war had just been transferred, and the mission ended in failure. However, raids on POW camps in Shanxi spawned the development of new tactics, techniques, and procedures that were needed by a professional POW rescue force.
(POW camp in Shanxi, Vietnam)
"A key factor affecting the future of Delta Force is terrorism. One of the weaknesses of other forces is that they are not professional in the field of counter-terrorism. Those half-bottled or gifted amateurs, regardless of their personal abilities or potential, cannot match international terrorists. Beckwith wrote.
Since the end of the infantry conference in Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1976, the idea of creating a force inside the Green Berets that could carry out such operations has been around. At that meeting, Charlie Beckwiths was also present, but other colleagues in the Special Operations Group felt that the experience of raiding the Shanxi prisoner-of-war camp was enough to guide the unit.
In 1977, the Army was upset about the eventual draw in Vietnam. Special forces are neither popular nor have much sense of belonging in the entire U.S. military. As other special operations groups faced a shortage of personnel, the Fifth Special Operations Group was the only special operations unit that could form a professional POW rescue team, and the experience of MACV-SOG and Operation Flash during the Vietnam War did benefit this team a lot.
（MACV-SOG）
Charlie Beckwith is still working with General Kingston and General De Puy to create a special forces unit independent of the green beret model based on the British SAS experience. Beckwiese went through a long and painful process in which he had submitted plans to set up "that unit," but the Pentagon dragged their heels until October 1977, when GSG9 slapped bureaucrats with facts at an airport in Mogadishu.
Once Beckwiese had permission from the Department of Defense, he intended to create a unit called SFOD-D (Army Special Forces Class D Detachment), also known as Delta Force. Beckwith had already conceived it, and he was going to spend 24 months screening and training a force, and he needed funding, lots and lots of money.
Plans to establish SFOD-D forces were activated.
(Early SFODD)
When Beckwiths gave a briefing to General Hennessy, commander of the REDCOM, General Hennessy said: "Colonel, I am a man of straight talk, if there are terrorists in my area of responsibility that need to be cleared, I will fight back directly, and your troops will listen to my telephone when the time comes!"
"Oh, General, I'm afraid it wouldn't be appropriate for you to do that," replied Beckwith, "because I have no one now." We're just getting started, sir. It will take us two years to forge such a force. ”
"Colonel, didn't you just listen?" If I have a problem, I'll call you. ”
General Hennessy wanted a well-trained team specializing in surgical operations like city hostage rescue and anti-hijacking, and he didn't want to sit behind his desk and wait for eighteen months. Beckwiths needed two years to select and train Delta Forces, during this window of time, the Army needed to build a temporary force to deal with the threat of terrorism until two years later, when Delta Force became effective. The task fell to General Markmore, who was also present when Beckwiths gave a briefing to General Hennessy. General Markmore delegated the task of forming the interim force to Colonel Montere, commander of the Fifth Special Operations Group at Fort Bragg.
Jim Morris, who had served with Colonel Montere in the Vietnam battlefield, said, "Montere is the best warrior and man I've ever worked with. He was smart, calm, sharp, and insightful. Richard Mahinko, the founder of Navy SEALs' Sixth Division, mentioned Montrels and put his hand directly to his mouth and made a smoking gesture. Yes, Colonel Montere was a smoking gun, and because he often wore black gloves, he was jokingly called the "mafia" by some. He is often referred to as "RAM", i.e. Robert Anthony Montreuer. Mark Boyat said, "Colonel Montere knows the troops and trusts them. He had complete confidence in the warriors and the warriors all respected him. ”
Montrel soon established the Counterterrorism Unit of the Fifth Special Operations Group, recruiting soldiers through the "Old Boys" network, all of whom were Vietnam Veterans who were "tough in the jungle." The only members of the new force who have not served in Vietnam are a few officers.
(Green berets during the Vietnam War)
Roger was one of those people, and one morning at work he was unusually shocked to receive the order: "Hurry up and get into the Green Light Building." "That's when Roger was assigned to a very fierce green light group. Their mission format was highly classified at the time, and the assigned special forces soldiers were trained to carry nuclear devices behind enemy lines, detonate nuclear bombs in special ways, blow up bridges, block mountain passes or destroy the high-speed transportation routes on which the other side relied, even if they could not stop the advance of the Soviet Union's rolling iron streams.
"What the fuck is this?" When he walked into the building, he saw a bunch of people. He thought for a moment: "Half of these dog girls are green light, is this a vigilance task?" He sees this as an urgent training mission for EDRE. After everyone was seated, Major Cohen Williamson, head of group operations, gave them a mission briefing. As ordered, they took a truck to Lake Mott on the other side of Fort Bragg.
At the time, Mark Boyat was the leader of the ODA572's high jump and low-pitch group, and he had already heard about the Blu-ray troops. One morning, as he was walking on Smoke Bomb Hill, Colonel Montere asked him if he would be interested in joining the unit. When Boyat replied in the affirmative, Montere said, "Pack up your things and roll over tomorrow." ”
Sergeant Major Jack Jakowicker was training at Fort Bragg. One day, while he was training in parachuting, he was taken to a car as soon as he landed, and the people in the car told him to take him to the headquarters of the Fifth Special Operations Group. When he arrived at the headquarters, he was told he had been assigned to a unit called the Blue Light Force. He was stuffed into a roster in his hand, and when he read it he was taken aback, because he didn't know anyone on it except his own name. "It's okay for me to come, but I have a Class A detachment under me," Jack said, "and if my squad doesn't come, I won't come either." Colonel Montere was thirsty for talent, because Jack had participated in the Raid on the POW Camp in Northern Vietnam and was a rare backbone, so he approved Jack's ODA to join the Blue Light Force.
Colonel Montere called one of the sergeant majors in his brigade into the office: "Look, we have a mission, I want you to set up a unit, you can pick anyone in the Fifth Special Operations Group, I will not hide it." Tell me now, how long does it take from the time you take over the plan to the time the troops become combat effective?" The sergeant major, who had participated in the raid on the Shanxi prisoner of war camp, told the colonel that he could do it in a week. Montrelm didn't believe it, but the sergeant major did.
The warriors who were selected for the Blue Light were experienced combat backbones. At least one in ten people had been involved in raids on POW camps in Shanxi, such as Tannie Young and Frank Rowe, or veteran guns like Lowell Stevens and Larry Kramer who had worked at the MACV-SOG. The remaining 90 percent of the soldiers participated in the Omega And Delta Programs (Charlie Beckwith commanded the Delta Program in 1965), as well as the Sigma Program, on the Vietnam battlefield. John Ward, another veteran of the raid on the Shanxi prisoner-of-war camp, was in charge of the airborne detachment of the Blu-ray unit.
(Special Forces fighters involved in the raid on a prisoner-of-war camp in Shanxi)
Blu-ray's camp is located next to Mote Lake and has just been used as a quarantine facility for the Seventh Special Operations Group. Until then, the purpose of the camp depended on who you were talking to about it. Some say it's a power station for a Voice of America transmission facility. Others say this is where cuban rebels were trained in the Bay of Pigs incident. Anyway, this is the new home of the Blu-ray Force, and the first anti-terrorism force in the United States is now officially formed.
The Blue Light Force, the first anti-terrorist unit in the United States, made its home in Lake Mott. Their camps were small, but they made the most of them. There are four buildings, a combat training ground. Montere is said to have collected $25,000 from a friend of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the Blu-ray force, but that was all they got. In the end, the Pentagon's money was allocated to delta forces. In addition, the members of the Blu-ray Force also carry forward a tried-and-tested tradition of special forces - stealing. "One of our guys stole a jeep from the gendarmes," said the sergeant of the Blu-ray force, laughing. When Colonel Montrels came to inspect, the sergeant major said that the origin of the car was all in the words, and there was no need to go to the bottom of the matter.
Boyat said: "We are always ready to squash the bad guys, always concerned about the situation in the mission area, if there are terrorists who want to find uncomfortable, then let the horses come." We've been preparing for battle with live ammunition, tapeing the grip safety of our 1911 pistols and pulling them down with hammers, ready to do a big job. We've been doing this for a long time. ”
Blue Light Force is actually a synonym for a classified project and hasn't really been called that. This followed the non-categorical naming conventions used at the time, and this interpretation also applied to the green light just mentioned. This is similar to the non-categorical names used by special forces in Vietnam — they used Greek letters as program code names such as Sigma, Omega, and Delta during the Vietnam War.
The Blu-ray force, of about 75 men, was divided into three attack groups, and their structure remained a twelve-man Class A detachment, with one exception. Mark Boyat commanded a team, McCoy commanded a team, "Dutchman" Herman commanded a team, and finally a twenty-four-man team led by Roger, a slightly larger team that was also responsible for intelligence gathering. Two of the ODA were from the Third Battalion of the Fifth Special Operations Group. The other two teams were from the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Fifth Special Operations Group. The Blu-ray Force also had a sniper/observer squad led by an English sergeant major.
(The picture of this CAR-15 comes from the gun world, in fact, the SOF used more MP5 submachine guns in the 80s and 90s)
The Blu-Ray Force's light weapons room includes the silenced Stern submachine gun, the Point Ii pistol, the M1911 pistol, the CAR-15 carbine, the M14 automatic rifle, and the Remington 700 bolt-action rifle. In addition, the Blu-ray Force also has its own artificial intelligence and signal intelligence support. Capt. Tim Casey is a 35A (military intelligence) specialist who leads a squad at 801st MID, while the 400th SOD is responsible for signals intelligence support.
(Silenced Stern submachine gun)
On boardwalks miles from Lake Mott, Wesley Stevens and Sergeant Major Larry Kramer helped construct the so-called "S&K" area. The edge of the Blu-Ray Force camp actually crossed the adjacent Macpherson area, and shrapnel found on the ground was common. At one point, Roger even saw an unexploded armor-piercing shell on the ground.
Stevens oversaw the construction of a shooting house made of old tires filled with sand in the middle, where members of the Blu-ray Force could conduct live ammunition training, including the use of grenades. Due to the sheer size of the S&K area, Blue Light was introduced to a number of Army-wide projects since its founding in November 1977, such as mortar and light weapons shooting, or fragmented grenades and smoke grenades. At the same time, they can also practice live-fire that is completely different from the past, such as the "Australian skinning" tactic used when engaging the enemy (guess what this tactic is, haha). "We aspire to be the best version of ourselves, and self-motivation is the fuel for our Mercedes." Boyat recalls his time at Motte Lake.
The Blue Light Force also built the fuselage of a Pan Am aircraft and a replica of a train car in a short period of time. They also took some very niche projects at the time, where the commandos shot at each other, and the snipers would aim at the commandos' heads and fire — of course, there was no blood, just trusting the shooting. Boyat recalled: "It was a very tight time, our M1911 pistol was scrapped because it was too overused, and we had to fire five hundred rounds a day, which was also the number of Stern submachine guns. ”
In the shooting room, they would shoot with a BB gun first, and then switch to an M1911 pistol. The Blue Light Force was the first to use a pistol as an offensive weapon. When climbing onto the wings of an airplane or making a confined space assault, the Blu-ray forces use the M1911's pistol as their primary weapon. From a technical point of view, such as rapid gun shooting, combat reload training, or rapid switching of main and secondary weapons, all of this was unheard of in 1977.
Bob Kelly was sent to the Blu-ray Unit and served as their senior pistol instructor. Prior to that, he served in the Army's Precision Shooting Team. He was indeed a great shooter, but had never tried a quick shot, and had never practiced a quick change of bullet.
Roger took on some loose temporary assignments and paid for Jeff Cooper's training, the only place at the time where practical shooting techniques were taught. Upon his return from school, Roger demonstrated a Weaver-style shooting pose instead of the usual isosceles, and he also demonstrated the technique of quick reloading, but these tactics were questioned at the time - there were seven bullets in the magazine, and another round in the chamber, so why reload? However, the Blue Light Force did take away all of the Army's reserves of competition-grade ammunition that year, much to the disappointment of the Army's precision shooting team.
(Jeff Cooper, father of modern pistol shooting)
Armed with weapons, ammunition, and training facilities, Members of the Blu-Ray Force can pick up their weapons, put on their gear, and jog to the S&K area for a pressure shooting training. In addition, they can regularly do high jump and low opening training in the compound area located in Lake Mott.
However, there was a problem, Colonel Montere gave the Blu-ray troops a flag with an unofficial badge, but Roger took one look at it and said, This is so ugly, I mean it. It looks like a cartoon skeleton with bones crossed. Roger later went to Greg Daly, a "well-known artist" in the Blu-ray Unit, and asked him to redesign a Blu-ray Unit flag. It would be better to find something else to remove the wishbones skull, because it looks like the infamous SS badge.
Daly replaced it with a crossed arrow instead of a crossed bone, which is featured on the coat of arms of the green beret worn by the Army Special Forces. The skull was altered and tilted to the side, and below it was the motto "Nous Defions," which roughly means "We stand up against it." Nowadays, this maxim and symbol is widely used in special forces, but few people know that it was initiated by Greg Daly and the Blue Light Force. Daly also designed the high jump and low skill badge, which has been used to this day.
(Blue Troop's Troop Flag)
On the shores of Lake Mott, The Blue Light Force was formed and began special training as a temporary counter-terrorism force, while Charlie Beckwith used the two years to carefully nurture Delta Force. Trained in clearing houses and innovative precision shooting, the Blu-Ray Force is on standby at all times, becoming America's unsheathed sword in response to the threat of terror. It was a new type of warfare, and Colonel Montere, commander of the Army's Fifth Special Operations Group, knew that Blue Light needed to get stronger and needed to use unconventional tactics.
One day, Montreal approached Roger and told him that a young lady from the Intelligence Support Division of the Fifth Special Operations Group would join their team.
"I wonder how the warriors should adapt to this?" Roger asked.
"Then what do you eat?" The colonel replied.
Katie McBull is a professional sergeant (E-4, 96B) and an intelligence analyst, so don't confuse her with the controversial Katie Wildell.
Katie is perhaps the only woman who has served in the Special Forces. At first, the Blue Light Force hesitated, but after seeing what she was showing, everyone changed their minds. "It's a big deal to have a woman because she can do things I've never done before. She was accepted by us and she was a shrewd woman. Roger said.
"She is our most valuable possession," said the sergeant major of the Blue Light Force, "and we are all protecting her." For example, we thought she didn't like .45-caliber pistols, so we pulled a Browning HP from the arsenal as her gun. She also has the qualifications to jump high and low, and she can also go out and fight!" In the end, Katie doesn't care about this special care, so she carries the M1911 pistol like any other man.
Katie is an Asian american, between five feet two inches and five feet three inches tall, but in good physical conditioning, and does physical training with male soldiers. Earl said: "She can dress up like a nurse, or whatever identity, and she can sneak up on the villain without alerting." She is one of the good guys in the green flat hat. ”
Although special forces are a male-dominated world, green berets do have a different relationship with women than other military units, as they can be traced back to the Strategic Intelligence Agency (OSS) during World War II. Today, on Bennet Road in Fayetteville, the headquarters of the Special Forces Association is named the French Amphisen Building in honor of a brave lady in the French Resistance who became a member of the British Special Operations Executive Service (SOE) during world war II. She parachuted into Nazi-occupied France several times to perform intelligence gathering missions, and was eventually captured by the Nazis.
The Gestapo did nothing wrong with her fornication and torture, and it was not until 1945 that she was rescued by the Allies. In 1977, the same year that Blu-ray Force was founded, the brave female warrior was awarded the Honorary Green Beret.
(Army Special Forces in Panama in the 80s)
But by 1977, the form of warfare had changed. During the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the United States were fighting to the death, proxy wars between countries arose one after another. The Soviet Union secretly sent military advisers to North Vietnam to help resist U.S. forces during the Vietnam War, while the United States secretly sent troops to Afghanistan in 1980 to support local resistance to Soviet forces in retaliation. Guerrilla warfare swept through the Third World in an attempt to subvert the old colonial system. At this time, the rebels were approaching Rhodesia and provoking trouble in western South Africa. The latest form of proxy warfare is terrorism.
Vadiya Haddad was one of the most dangerous and vicious terrorists of his time, orchestrating numerous terrorist operations, including the 1970 hijacking, and ambitiously planning four hijackings that followed.
Haddad was a former member of George Habash's Palestine Liberation Movement (PFLP) and competed with Arafat's Fatah party. In the mid-1970s, Habash began to seek reconciliation with Arafat, which, in Haddad's view, was too weak. Haddad then split off and formed his own faction, the Palestine Liberation Movement-Special Command (PFLP-SC). PFLP is accused of receiving funding from Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, while Haddad runs his terrorist organization in Baghdad, Iraq.
PFLP-SC is behind a series of hijackings. An Airbus A-300 B of Air France was hijacked by a group of transnational terrorists, including two West Germans, an Iranian and a Palestinian. They flew to Uganda and handed over the hostages to the Ugandan military as agreed in advance, and the hostages were eventually rescued by Israeli commandos in July 1976. It was a landmark event that forced the United States to start taking terrorism seriously.
In 1978, when Haddad died in East Germany (some say he was poisoned by the Mossad), his organization split into three factions and carried out terrorist attacks around the world. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of Soviet archives, Haddad's covert collusion with the KGB gradually surfaced.
If there was any terrorist of that era who was as notorious as Haddad, it was Abu Nidal, who, like Haddad, separated from Khabash's faction and founded the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). Nidal and his terrorist organization orchestrated dozens of terrorist attacks, from Rome to Vienna, to Pakistan, Kuwait, and elsewhere, in his footsteps. Another thing he has in common with Haddad is his covert collusion with Libyan dictator Omar Gaddafi and his headquarters in Iraq. In an interview with Der Spiegel Newsweek, Nidal proved he knew a lot about theatrical performances, saying he was "an evil spirit that wanders in secret, and I am an evil spirit that only moves around at night to bring them nightmares." ”
It is well known that Nidal had close ties with the intelligence services in Warsaw. With the covert support of Poland and East Germany, the ANO organization engaged in arms and cash transactions, doing business with the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Bill Casey, a former CIA director, said: "The Soviets could not command him or control him. But they used him and his team to achieve their goals. ”
These National Liberation Fronts are typical is an Islamic fundamentalist organization. They provided shelter to various armed factions that rebelled against the United States. These organizations are characterized by covert fundamentalism, but they see themselves as national liberation organizations. "After the revolution, they will show their shameless face, they will start to roll over other national liberation fronts, trace back to the roots, and their bosses behind them are the Warsaw Pact countries, Castro and Gaddafi." ”
Even organizations like Bandar, the IRA and the Red Army Brigade, which have no religious ties, have extended an olive branch to the Palestinians for training and asylum, and they have submitted their petitions by planning terrorist attacks. The Stasi and Bulgarians in East Germany were also used by the Soviet Union as agents of the Cold War front. Coincidentally, the United States is the representative of the capitalist hegemonic state, while Israel is only its marionette.
Now that the Soviet Union has broken the balance of proxy wars, the Blue Light forces are about to turn the tide when the building is about to fall.
Meanwhile, Charlie Beckwith is trying to make his counterterrorism forces combative. Delta Force opened with just three people: Beckwells, his secretary Marion, and Sergeant Major William Grimes. After moving out of the smoke bomb hill office, Delta Force moved elsewhere in Fort Bragg, finally at A3275 Boutner. Beckwiths conducted a selection at the Uwharrie National Forest and then included those qualified candidates in the Operations Training Course (OTC), 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a total of 776 hours.
(French gendarmerie task force with a lot of communication with the Delta)
Although Delta Troops are well funded, Beckwiths also knows how to ask for funding. Perhaps because he came from a green beret, he purchased a .45 caliber M3 submachine gun and sawed off the crosshairs. Sergeant Major Michael Weining recalled: "We had to learn to shoot instinctively, and Beckwiths let us hit 3x5 cards, which I think was probably because he hated 3x5 cards, haha. He worked as an explosive weapons technician at the 99th Ordnance Detachment in Vietnam. After his service was interrupted, he returned to the Army and trained with Delta Force in 1978 and graduated from the Operations Personnel Training Course (OTC). He was involved in many operations as an operator of Delta Force, such as Operation Eagle Claw and Emergency Fury.
It was common for Delta Troops to shoot a gun for half a day in one go, and Terry Hall, the ordnancer in the unit, even came up with a brilliant idea, he cut the rubber from the inner tire of the bicycle and put it on the bolt of the M3 submachine gun to eliminate the mechanical impact sound. I would like to thank the peerless predecessors for their careful answers).
Every morning, Beckwiths conducts a "brick lifting gymnasium", requiring you to take a brick in each hand to complete all the projects. The non-commissioned officers were holding perforated bricks, while the officers were holding solid bricks. Beckwith's use of being a rugby player in college had an impact on him — he walked around with a whistle like a team coach when training new players.
"Our classified mission is to rescue prisoners of war. We want to set up a unit that can carry out the mission of the Shanxi prisoner of war camp. In that operation, they assembled people, conducted training, rehearsed the task, and finally successfully completed the task. We hope to eliminate the first two steps, so that they can come when called, can fight, and will win the battle. We don't know what the next threat to homeland security is. ”
The model of the Beckwith Delta Force was born out of the British Special Air Service Regiment, and so did their tactics. In this regard, their progress is ahead of the Blu-ray forces. The Special Air Service Regiment is already conducting counter-terrorism combat missions in urban environments such as Northern Ireland. The technique of rapid gun shooting, which now seems commonplace, was not well promoted at the time, but the special air service regiment was already handy.
"At first, we had a guy from the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, named Ginger Flynn, who helped us with our shooting training program, Weining recalled. Flynn teaches the operators such as double combos. In OTC, however, the operators are actually training themselves. They would sit together and figure out what they wanted to train, and then the gunner would take his weapon and shoot, and the EOD would train with an improvised explosive device. They would practice vehicle ambushes and anti-hijackings, over and over again. Figure out what works and what doesn't. ”
"At the time, the things that everyone was concerned about were airplane hijackings and hostage-taking incidents," Roger said, which reflected the training of the Blu-Ray Force, and these types of missions, including bus hijacking cases, were the types that the national command authorities were most concerned about, "because we focused on the major threats, targets, and hostage-taking incidents that were most likely to happen, so we didn't participate in other missions." ”
(Former SOG member and historian Major John Prast)
"We think of anti-hijacking as a very basic one of several of our future missions," Weining said. We went to the relevant experts to teach us about the aircraft system, we learned about all kinds of airport work, baggage handling, refueling, emptying toilets, replenishing flight supplies, etc., so that we could disguise ourselves as an airport worker in the operation. Delta Sniper also developed the ability to shoot targets inside the cockpit portholes of aircraft. At the same time, the Blu-ray Forces have integrated their attack/intelligence teams (including Katie) to develop some of the same capabilities.
Jack Jacob Vinco, a noncommissioned officer in the Blu-ray Unit, recalls flying to tampa airport, meeting the engineers and learning how to infiltrate them in the easiest way.
Roger elaborated on the Blu-ray Force's point of view: "We didn't have access to the Special Air Service Regiment. They have changed a long time ago because they have gone through a lot of counterinsurgency operations in Northern Ireland, and they have carried out many urban environmental counter-terrorism operations in Kenya, Aden and Malaysia, and they have been doing this for a long, long time. The Special Air Service Regiment had the consciousness to quickly draw semi-automatic pistols from the holsters to shoot. The Special Air Service Regiment was the first to develop a double-strike and modified isosceles triangle firing position. Delta has long been exposed to other mission forms, but unlike blue light forces, its team members have to dress up as ground crews or airport workers to gather intelligence before conducting raids. ”
(The hijacking incident has caused headaches for governments)
Roger continued: "The main concerns of national command authorities are embassies and domestic facilities, overseas bases, or hijackings by U.S. aircraft." Both Delta Force and Blue Light Force are ready to carry out missions in harsh environments, but the reality is that if the president signs an exemption agreement, it is simply impossible for both departments to perform combat missions within the United States. Even if terrorists take hostages at U.S. military bases overseas, they will be surrounded by gendarmes and then disposed of by the counterterrorism forces of the host country under the status of-forces agreement.
Sergeant Major Jack Jacobinko is known as a "tough guy" in the Green Berets of the Fifth Special Operations Group. When asked what type of fighter Jacobite is, former Seventh Special Operations Group Warrant Officer Jim " Smokie" West replied simply, "No nonsense."
Born in an unnamed village in Ukraine's Dobes province, Jacobinko's mother was a coal miner and his family was teeming with typical "Eastern European" tragedies.
Referring to his mother, Jakovinko said, "From 1933 to 1934, when he was 16 years old, Stalin tried to talk about the transfer of famine to Ukraine, as the Germans did to the Jews. "Someone said her brother had a pistol for a piece of bread, and although no pistol was found, the secret police came to the door. They tortured and killed her family. She sat there leaning against the fence, too weak to stand up from hunger and watching the atrocities of the secret police. Two secret policemen walked up to her, and one man pointed a pistol at her head. Another said: "Why waste bullets? She would be sunburned to death. ”
Only after the secret police left did her neighbors dare to walk in and take Jacobinko's mother to help her recover. In 1941, Germany invaded Ukraine and then retreated to Germany after a defeat. Ukrainians who had worked with the Germans had to retreat with them or face purges. "We eventually settled in Berlin, where our father was a firefighter and my mother sewed German army uniforms in a factory," Jacobenko said.
"We left Berlin in May 1945, when the Russians were only a few streets away from us, and if they didn't run, they would die, exile to Siberia, or a dead end." We ended up in a refugee camp in Hanover, England. My father died in 1946 and my mother married my stepfather. As a complete family, it is relatively easy to immigrate to the United States. We arrived in the United States in November 1950. ”
After working on a farm in Idaho for a while, Yako Vinco moved to Jersey City, New Jersey, where he dropped out of school and tried to join the army. But he was rejected because he was too young to be an American citizen. He volunteered in 1958 and became a U.S. citizen in 1961. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was sent to the Dominican Republic with the 82nd Airborne Division. When he returned home, he volunteered to go to the Vietnamese battlefield, arriving in January 1966, where Jakovinko served first in the infantry unit and later joined the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP). He was in charge of a six-man patrol and went through many operations.
（LRRP）
After returning to the United States, he volunteered for special forces and graduated from SFQC (Special Forces Qualification Training) in June 1968. He volunteered again to serve in Vietnam and then volunteered for the 1970 raid on a POW camp in Shanxi. It can be said that Yako Vinco's combat experience is extremely rich, but there are many fierce characters like him, the Fifth Special Operations Group. He was stationed at Smoke Bomb Mountain along with other Vietnam War veterans.
In 1973, JacoVinco was assigned to Lake Mott, where it was a quarantine facility in the Green Berets, where he was tasked with mission staff.
This particular mission is to infiltrate Iran and restore sensitive surveillance equipment installed by the CIA at the border. A State Department briefing officer told Green Berets that Soviet special forces were also eyeing the mission. The clouds of Cold War confrontation hung over the U.S. Army's special forces and Soviet special forces, and a direct contest between the two was not impossible.
Incredibly, State Department briefing officers told the Green Berets that if they exchanged fire with Soviet special forces, they would have to kill the wounded if necessary, leaving no living mouth. Yakovenko sneered: "I asked at the time, maybe the Soviets are also doing briefings now, and are told not to abandon any of their comrades?"
(SOG has found Soviet troops on the battlefield of Vietnam.)
But the mission was eventually canceled, and the Soviets seized some of the CIA's most advanced eavesdropping equipment at the time. During the 1977 Hanafi hostage-taking incident, YakoVinco and special forces comrades were urgently organized to prepare for hostage rescue operations at any time.
Colonel Montere was obviously keen to pull Jacobinko to the Blu-Ray Force, so when Jacobinko asked his entire ODA to be transferred to the department with him, his request was granted. Jaco Venko then served as the leading non-commissioned officer of the assault detachment, and his members served as commandos.
"The Blu-ray Force is ready for an all-weather, all-region mission, and as long as the U.S. finds a threat anywhere, we'll pass." At that time, Delta Forces were still being selected and trained. He explained the situation of the two units at that time.
Kenny McMurring is another non-commissioned officer in the Blu-ray Force. Like Yako Wenke, he also took part in operations in the Shanxi prisoner of war camp, where he served in Thailand during the war and conducted parachute operations.
"Everyone knows that my dad loves to read and never stop refining his craft. His shelves were full of military history, but I knew his most cherished books were about his friends, many of you, here today. He took notes on every book, and each book was marked with favorite pages and paragraphs. His son, Steven McMurrayn (also a green beret), said at a memorial service after his father's death.
Roger remembers McMurrayn as a "very smart guy who really understood the nuances between businesses." "He knew not only about reconnaissance operations, but also about the theories of unconventional and non-conventional warfare, the theories of terrorism and revolutionary warfare. McMurrlin continued to serve after leaving the Blu-Ray Force, where he later served as a company sergeant major in the Seventh Special Operations Group and as a battalion sergeant major in the Third Special Operations Group.
Blue Light Forces and Delta Forces are also busy interacting with foreign counterterrorism forces to develop tactics and improve their strategies. The German Ninth Frontier Brigade also sent men to Lake Mott, such as Colonel Wegener, who successfully rescued 70 hostages at an airport in Somalia. "He liked what we were doing and made some suggestions," said the sergeant major of the Blu-ray unit.
A general from the Israeli Special Operations Forces also came to the Blu-ray forces station. He told the green beret: "Keep an eye on the dynamics of the troops, your counter-terrorism units are training every day, but you have to be cautious. In Israel, we sometimes rotate counter-terrorism forces into police units so that fighters can have a recovery period, because intense training and constant alert pulling can put a lot of pressure on those officers and fighters at the grass-roots level. "Unfortunately, the U.S. Army is not so extravagant, and the Blue Light Force still has to rotate.
Delta Forces often seek advice from fraternal units. "According to my observation, there was no fully integrated anti-terrorist force at that time. The concept of a counter-terrorism force also encompasses the ability to rescue hostages. The achievement of a counter-terrorism capability was a sign of the official formation of the force, but initially we did not know that we were hunting down terrorists. The German Ninth Frontier Brigade, the British Special Air Service and the French Gendarmerie Special Service have dealt with active terrorist groups such as the Red Army, the PLO, the IRA, and we have received help from them and other organizations. We attend training in special schools and are supported by technical experts and apply what we have learned to what we have developed in-house. Jim (not his real name) said he joined Delta Force in his early years and later became a squadron commander.
"A lot of things don't land on the ground. Target analysis, mission analysis, intelligence integration, and you have to have the self-awareness of independent intelligence analysis before you can deploy to a crisis site," Jim said. This doesvetail with Beckwith's point: "I learned a little bit in the Special Air Crew. They taught me that if I'm going to do something special, something very dangerous, then I'd better have my own team. When your life is closely linked to the life of a warrior, you don't need to rely on strangers who don't know the roots. ”
"No unit, including our intelligence agencies, had the special skills we had developed at the time." Jim is talking about the late 1970s and 1980s.
Together with the Ranger Battalion, the Blue Light Force participated in a series of major training exercises administered by REDCOM staff, known as CT-EDRE. These training missions were conducted across the United States, some of which included multiple targets in the target area, but all of these exercises revolved around anti-hijacking, because it was the biggest terrorist threat facing the United States at the time — at least those at the top of the strategy.
The tactical template used was a battalion of Rangers statically parachuting into the combat area and quietly forming a security cordon around the target aircraft. Blue Troops will then make a high jump over the target area and land within the range set by the Rangers.
RedCOM Commander General Hennessy gave his staff a directive to conduct a comprehensive study of all aircraft hijackings, especially the PLO aircraft hijackings in 1970. Another case study was the rescue operation in Zaire by the French Foreign Legion and the Belgian Parachute Commando in May 1978, in which a total of 2,250 foreigners were successfully rescued during a seven-day shootout.
In February of the same year, in Cyprus, terrorists hijacked a plane. Egyptian commandos attempted to launch a surprise attack on the plane, but were violently attacked by the Cyprus National Guard. REDCOM's analysis was that "the Egyptian side has sentiments, but no logic and good plans", and the Cypriot authorities are so sympathetic to the PLO that they sent the National Guard to quietly ambush to a hidden position, and the Egyptians began to act as soon as they intervened. The tail number of the aircraft was 777, which later became the number of the anti-terrorist unit created by the Egyptian military as a sign of shame and courage.
One of these CT-EDRE was held in Indian Springs, Nevada, where Mark Boyat and his comrades performed the first large-scale night jump,000 low-pitch operation, meaning the C-130 dropped 25 paratroopers at once. While preparing for the exercise, a special forces soldier expressed skepticism: "This will not work."
Colonel Montere simply smiled at him and replied, "Want to gamble money?"
Montere had great confidence in his green berets, and he had a special trust in them, which in turn inspired his subordinates to be loyal to him.
The second battalion of the Rangers regiment, led by Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Downing, first engaged in the maneuver, passing quietly and quickly in the dark, the Rangers walked for several miles, and then formed a donut-shaped safety circle around the target aircraft. The Rangers of the Second Battalion of the Rangers showed great patience, and one of the members even reached the target area with a broken leg. Subsequently, 25 Blu-ray troops parachuted into the target area, guiding their MC-3 parachutes to a safe position, and then preparing to take down the target aircraft. They put on tennis shoes — shoes that neither slipped nor made much noise when they climbed up from the wings of the plane. For the most part, they use a real Boeing 727 or 737 as an auxiliary training device, so explosions are not allowed, not to mention the technology that has just been developed.
Behind Mott Lake, special forces soldiers rehearsed the free-fall skydive to the fullest.
Paradoxically, the widely circulated view at the time was that jumping high and low was an unreliable way of delivering troops, as it was difficult to keep the landing point close or to land in a small area.
Another training mission was conducted on a small island in Hawaii, where Blue Light troops landed on the runway of the island's airport and then walked up to the Boeing 707 plane hijacked by the "terrorists" (which actually belonged to Pacific Command). The Blue Light Force climbed into the fuselage with a ladder and sneaked into the rear of the plane, quickly seizing control of the entire plane. One of the non-commissioned officers then activated an emergency inflatable evacuation slide at the hatch, allowing the hostages to slide out quickly and successfully evacuate the target aircraft.
There has always been a rumor that Blue Light Force and Delta Force are competing with each other and that the winner will become the Army's permanent anti-terrorism national team.......... In fact, it is not, because the positioning of the Blue Light Force at the beginning is a transitional unit, and it has never exceeded this range. However, there is another interesting record of their verification process, which is that Delta Force went to the training ground of Blue Light Force.
(Photo of Delta Force training in 1979, when only they were in the U.S. military to conduct this type of indoor melee and hostage-saving training.)
The shooting training programs and schedules of the Blue Light Force and Delta Force overlap a lot, which makes some people eager to prove who deserves to be the Army's "Dream Team". At that time, there was no data applied to shooting training, because new shooting techniques related to counter-terrorism were still in their infancy. How fast is it when shooting? How accurate is it? Sure, you need to be faster than the enemy, but where is the bottom line? What is right?
The Army needs to design their mandates, conditions, and criteria for counterterrorism operations. Maybe that's why they tested blue-ray and Delta force shooting at the same distance in the same month to set standards. After all, both blue and delta troops are based on green berets — delta troops started out with only one or two Rangers.
Meanwhile, Charlie Beckwith felt some pressure as he tried to get Delta Troops on track. He tried to recruit people through a selection course, but the Rangers did not allow his own people to participate. At this time, the relationship between Beckwith and General Mike Moore also lit up red. In January 1978, Beckwith argued that (it is now impossible to know whether right or wrong was known), and General McMur began pouring influence and resources from delta forces into blue light troops.
The atmosphere in The Fifth Special Operations Group was heavier than ever, and Colonel Beckwith and Colonel Montreuer were at odds. They were very divided on how to recruit members, and Montere tended to look for those former veterans, battle backbones, "old guys". Beckwith favored the special air service regiment model, setting up a selection process to identify those who were best suited to the battlefield and those who could fight independently. In Beckwith's view, Montere had this idea: "Delta Force does belong to the Green Beret system, but Beckwith doesn't want to stay there all the time." It is enough to have a blue light unit in the green beret system, and if you don't believe it, the real knife and real gun will be pulled out and slipped out. ”
And the Blue Light Force did just that. The Blu-ray force held numerous presentations for VIPs and visitors, including FBI Director William Webster, CIA Director Stanford Turner, The Director of the Traffic Authority, several generals and Materials Beckwiths himself. When The Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Bernard Rogers, came to inspect the Blu-Ray Unit, they had him stand on the flat panel of a truck, holding the railing, and two snipers were firing 300 meters away, and balloons filled with red drinks on either side of the general exploded in response.
"What!?" The general screamed and jumped down.
"Those are our snipers, you can rest assured that the bounce is about four inches above your head," explains the Sergeant Major of the Blu-ray Unit. In fact, the actual distance may have made it more difficult for the general to accept, but the sergeant major still conveyed his point of view.
The soldiers of the Blue Light Unit also conducted a shooting drill. They built simulated buildings and warehouses in building facades that simulated urban environments. Cardboard targets flash in windows and doors from time to time, and blu-ray troop commandos must shoot targets with their 1911 pistols. Other times, they set up targets in buildings, some of them simulating hostages and others simulating terrorists with guns. Then the plot is that the Blue Light Troops whirlwind swept in like leaves and put down all the imaginary enemies.
In July 1978, Major Bucky Bros split his Delta Squadron in two and went it separately. Bucky served in Vietnam and participated in the selection of the Special Air Service Regiment at the request of Beckwith. The first squad set out for a hostage rescue exercise, while the second squad was sent to raid a building to rescue hostages taken by "terrorists". This operation is crucial as it is the last verification operation on Delta Force. Delta Force attacked both targets simultaneously at 4 a.m.
The first squad quietly approached the retired National Guard No. 121 aircraft and infiltrated the two hatches that were prepared in advance to break through. They gently leaned the cushioned ladder with the contact head against the fuselage. " Bang " , both hatches were blown away, and the Delta team members rushed in like a tornado to take down the plane. At the same time, the second squad broke the windows of the target building, cleaned the remaining glass around the perimeter with steel pipes, and then burst in. Killing the terrorists and freeing the hostages took seven seconds.
There were still some issues to verify, and the military didn't know how to assess counterterrorism operations, but Delta passed the test and was recommended by General Mike Moore and General Meyer, who was later promoted to deputy chief of staff of the army, so the dust settled.
"After we passed the assessment, the Blue Light Force seemed redundant. Delta Force fills that gap and we can be on duty ready for war. If something happens, we are always ready to solve it. Beckwith said. General Meyer agreed, and the Blu-ray forces were immediately disbanded.
In August 1978, Colonel Montre called the Sergeant Major of the Blu-ray Unit into his office.
The colonel said, "I want you to take all of you to Delta Force for a briefing."
"They don't want to go," replied the senior non-commissioned officer of the Blu-ray force.
"This is a direct command."
"We were told we were going to have a mandatory meeting with Colonel Charlie Baker," Jack Jacob Vinco recalled, "fifty people attending." ”
Others wrote that there was simply no commonality between Blu-ray Force and Delta Force, but if one looked deeper on the issue, one would know that this was not a feud between the two units, but a personal feud between Blu-ray Force and Charlie Beckwiths. To understand why these emotions exist, we have to go back to 1965, when Beckwith was the commander of the Delta Program B52 detachment, noting that The Delta Project and the Delta Force are not a concept.
Nha Trang, Vietnam, 1965
"What the hell are we fighting here?" Major Charlie Beckwith (at the time) drove through the streets of Nha Trang, where he had just been appointed commander of the Delta Program. His soldiers spent the weekend hanging out in town, on the beach, in bars, "putting their XXX on Vietnamese chicks" (Beckwith said). An enraged Beckwith grabbed a Delta Project sergeant and told him to call everyone to the barracks for concentration.
He read them the program of action, and then stressed that they came here to fight, want to get rich, get out! Don't accept this set, get out! The thirty men he had been assigned to in the Delta Plan were very touched by the commander's words, and then walked twenty-three in one breath. There is no ambiguous statement that everyone evaluates him as "okay" and "OK", and either likes this person or hates this person. Much of this has to do with his aggressiveness when attacking, a style that some consider to be reckless and egotistical.
To recruit more people to fill the vacancy, Beckwith wrote a job application that read:
For those who volunteer for the Delta Program, we promise to give you a medal, or a body bag, or both.
That's how he recruited.
Beckwiths will command the force on a reconnaissance mission in the Lao valley in 1966, code-named "Shredder.". Then came one of the worst battles in the Delta Project. Seven members of the Special Forces were killed in the operation. Beckwith decided to fly into the valley by helicopter, believing that if he had been on the front lines, he would have inspired the First Cavalry Division to provide the support it should have provided.
Due to cloud cover, the helicopter was forced to fly low, which made the helicopter a living target. Almost instantaneously, the bullets of the large-caliber machine gun pierced through the helicopter, hitting Beckwith's abdomen and then coming out from the other side.
(Detachment B52)
Beckwiese was then urgently evacuated and it took a long time to recover. Because Beckwell's delta plan resulted in many casualties in green berets, many special forces soldiers held a grudge against him, and in 1977 they walked into the Blue Light Unit with this hatred. A green beret who had participated in the Delta Program in Vietnam and then joined the Delta Force said: "Some of the rumors on Motte Lake are true and some are false, but I can't confirm anything from my personal perception."
He said when it came to what many green berets thought of Beckwiths, he said: "Some people say they shouldn't go to Laos on missions because the weather is bad. But as a soldier, sometimes you have to do something you don't want to do. The Delta Program also included some green berets that accused Beckwith of losing many of his men in an operation in Laos. His personality and aggressive nature have also made many enemies. ”
August 1978, Fort Bragg
Colonel Beckwell stood up and began to give recruitment speeches to the people in the Blu-ray Troops. "Beckwells gave us the opportunity to join Delta Force, and most of us agreed to join," Jacob Venko said. Everything seemed to be going well until he told the Vietnamese veterans of the Blu-Ray Force that if they wanted to become members of the Delta Force, they would have to take the Delta Force selection and evaluation course. This caused a commotion among the veterans – how old is Beckwell? A bunch of real men who fought and bled in the Vietnam War who want him to evaluate?
A non-commissioned officer of the Blu-ray unit also asked Beckwith directly. Beckwith replied, "We have to know if you're going to back down when you're going to kill someone." It would be a big mistake to use this to reply to a bunch of green berets that have survived a lifetime. The attitude of many Blue Light Unit non-commissioned officers is, you know where I am, you know what I did, why do you need to evaluate me?
In addition, some of the Blu-ray Troops have served with The Delta Program with Beckwies, and as long as Beckwiese stays in Delta Troops for one day, they will not join delta forces.
Another non-commissioned officer of the Blu-Ray Force, who happened to be a MACV-SOG veteran, stood up and asked Beckwith, "You call this unit the Army Special Forces Class D Detachment, which one?" The kind that you destroyed in Vietnam?" The briefing didn't go as well as Beckwiths had hoped. Then, Beckwell took them somewhere else, showed them something, and then the blue-ray troopers left. During this briefing, no one volunteered to participate in the selection of Delta Force.
Several published books say that Blu-ray has never been invited to Delta Force's garrison, nor has Any Blu-Ray Force member served in Delta Force. It's all nonsense, and as you can see, Beckwith did invite all the Blue Troopers to Delta Force — though he didn't appear to be very witty along the way. It can be verified that at least four members of the Blue Light Force have served in the Delta Force.
In August 1978, the Blue Light Force was withdrawn.
Blue Light Force is a thing of the past, and Delta Force continues to train to counter the global threat of terrorism. In November 1979, Iranian students broke into the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and detained Americans working there, triggering a hostage crisis that lasted 444 days. For Delta Force, the culmination of hostage-taking, the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, was yet another devastating blow to U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
Back at The Fifth Special Operations Group, the members of the Blu-Ray Force were a little disappointed. Recalling his experience in the Blue Light Unit, the sergeant major of the unit was full of emotions: "It was funny, but it was frustrating that we were told that we don't need you anymore." However, army special forces have not completely withdrawn from the war on terror. At Mott Lake, a new course offered by The Fifth Special Operations Group is called Special Operations Training (SOT), which is not a true counterterrorism course, but a high-level weapons course. For a long time, it was operated by the Fifth Special Operations Group, but was later absorbed by the Kennedy Special Operations Center, a special forces school. Colonel Montere said: "We are trying to make the experience developed by the Blu-ray Force useful, which is based on the lessons of the raid on the Shanxi prisoner of war camp. ”
Commanders desperately needed a district-level emergency response force, and at a critical moment, a group of fighters were needed to turn the tide, and the blue light unit began to appear on the later green berets.
An ODA of the Tenth Special Operations Group was sent to Germany to carry out counterterrorism missions on the basis of their normal responsibilities, and also to carry out unconventional warfare behind enemy lines at the time of the Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Later, Company C, 1st Battalion, 1st Special Operations Group, based in Panama, and 1st Special Operations Group, stationed in Okinawa, underwent similar raiding missions. Today, each special operations group has a company specially assigned to carry out a strike mission, called the Commander's Division Of Command Response (CIF), which is used to carry out counter-terrorism missions.
Colonel Charlie Beckways and Colonel Bob Montere may have been rivals in the military, but both officers left a strong legacy for today's special operations units and gave the United States a very strong counterterrorism capability.
Over the years, terrorism has evolved, and counter-terrorism forces have had to adapt. "There are almost no hijackings now," Roger said, "and governments are doing better in preventing it." Like any good guerrilla, you and I are trained to change tactics and adapt to changes. He was referring to the special forces training direction.
(Anti-Hijacking Training)
Jim, a former squadron commander of Delta Force, had reservations, saying: "The Western world has some understanding of predicting future terrorist operations, but we have rarely succeeded." The enemy has time, has potential targets, has the means to attack, and they have a huge advantage in the dark. Some emerging organizations will imitate the actions of others, so past cases may be repeated in a similar way, for example, the commander of Delta Force and the Twenty-second Special Air Service Regiment has said that we should abandon anti-hijacking training because the world has changed, security technology has matured, and there are not so many hijacks. Terrorists use terrorist activities as political chips, and different terrorist organizations are in different maturity levels, however, terrorist organizations do not appear at the same time and under the same conditions. Different teams have different audiences, different goals, and don't achieve the same level of organizational maturity. Emerging groups are likely to follow the example of their predecessors and move into similar actions. Some of the recent hijackings in Asia are much more complex than similar incidents in the Middle East in the 1970s. After a day of training, we used to sit there and have an open discussion about technology, equipment, and related matters. We'll also have a cold beer and guess what the bad guys will do next. We have strategies in place to deal with these potential threats, and we also have plans for things that have not happened before and have not been discussed. ”
Delta Force continued to evolve, not following the lead of the British Special Operations Forces, but becoming an independent special forces force with American characteristics, having more in common with the Strategic Intelligence Agency, and surpassing the British, leading the trend of counter-terrorism forces around the world. However, the influence of the British Special Forces has always been there, largely due to the influence of Beckwith.
Beckwith believed in the rules of the big boys and personal self-discipline, which he had learned during the exchange to the Special Air Service. "He learned a lot there," Jim said, "and we did a lot of live-fire training on the field." Delta Force operatives will come in and out of the unit building at any time with guns and live ammunition to do their jobs. But if you accidentally misfire, pack up your things and leave on the same day. ”
"We use internal nicknames and call signs to address them, not military ranks. However, even though combat units do not refer to each other by rank and name as they do in ordinary units, I have never seen Delta Force disregard internal protocols, because Delta Force has carved it in mind. We are free to express our opinions and propose solutions to everyone's problems. Some of the major improvements were made by the most grassroots people, who were the hardcore professionals. Selection is a process of constantly weeding out people we don't need, and they all pass. We recruited across the Army (with some exceptions, and there were also Navy SEALS and Marines who had joined Delta Force), so these volunteers brought a lot of skills that weren't unique to green berets. As far as I know, the blue light unit's soldiers are all from green berets, and for this type of unit, it is not a good selection process to go directly to the combat backbone of the battle. ”
(Delta's insistence on selecting the best of the best has been a great success)
That's true, but perhaps it wasn't necessarily appropriate, with Beckwiths forging delta troops into the spire of a pyramid with ideas, while Montere relied on faith to gain the respect and loyalty of his men.
Perhaps that's the biggest difference between the two, and why for many retired green berets, the issue still involves all sorts of emotions. Beckwith was a polarizing figure, but he fueled the birth of modern American special forces through tough tactics and staunch arrogance, and created a dedicated counterterrorism unit through a dubious bureaucracy like the Pentagon. People may not love him, but people recognize what he must do. Surging passion and inexhaustible motivation are two of the qualities that are deeply rooted in the bone marrow. "The only thing a man like Colonel Beckwiths wants to do and want to do is to make this unit take off, and of course, he has made countless enemies," Weining said.
On October 22, 2015, Delta Force carried out a hostage rescue mission in Hawija, Iraq, working with the Kurds to attack ISIS's black jails and find 70 Kurdish "freedom fighters" and "civilian prisoners" whose lives were shortly over. Unfortunately, a Delta team member named Joshua Wheeler was killed on this mission. This operation by Delta Force was fully in line with the surgical operation envisioned by Charlie Beckwiths forty years ago, clean and tidy to rescue prisoners of war.
In 2016, the Fifth Special Operations Group changed back to the hat badge they used in the Vietnam War. This shows that the Fifth Special Operations Group has not forgotten its roots, and that today's Special Forces soldiers stand on the shoulders of many of the fighters serving in Vietnam – especially those who have dedicated everything to them.
(Today's Delta Force)
Today, the legacy of the Blu-ray Force is still for future generations, but its contribution has been largely forgotten and not recorded in some niche books. The United States is grateful to the Blue Light Force, which was America's first counterterrorism unit and the only well-trained and well-equipped force at the time to fight terrorists who posed a threat to U.S. national interests and citizens. The Blu-ray Forces showed those who came after them the way forward, a way to counter terrorism and developed revolutionary tactics, techniques, and procedures that are valuable assets that are critical to U.S. national security and to these events that occurred after September 11, 2001.
"Do you know what the worst-case scenario is?" Roger asked rhetorically, "It's not a mission failure, it's not that bad." "The worst thing is that if we were too timid to even try, nothing would be as good as it is today, and we might not be able to go that far." Thanks to the foresight of Colonel Montere and Colonel Beckwith, the American people today know that their military will stand behind them in the darkest hours, and we will never sit idly by. ”
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