Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

Carl Stiner grew up on a hundred-acre farm in rural northeast Tennessee, eight miles from the nearest town, La Follette. In the 1930s and '40s, the divide between town and country in that part of the world was vast. The main roads were paved; the rest were dirt or gravel. There were occasional trips to town, but people still mostly shopped in country stores. There were few cars, and electricity was scarce, finally reaching the Stiner farm in 1948. People made their own entertainment. For boys, most of that was outdoors — hunting or hiking in the nearby Cumberland Mountains, and swimming or fishing in Norris Lake, the big TVA project built in 1936.

It was a God- and country-loving community. Everybody went to (mostly) Baptist churches on Sunday, and every able-bodied young man served his country.

A bus line ran twice a day between La Follette and nearby Middlesboro, Kentucky. Stiner still has vivid memories of looking out across the fields at age six or seven and watching older boys walk toward the highway to catch the bus to the induction center in La Follette during World War II. Whether they'd been drafted or volunteered, they all went. Later, he listened with respect as the returning boys, now men, recounted their combat experiences — the dread, discomfort, and pain, but the fun, too, and the joy of parades through newly liberated towns. The sacrifices had a purpose that even a ten-year-old could recognize.

When the time came, he knew he owed his country no less service than these men had given.[5]

Like most folks in rural Appalachia, the Stiner family's roots in America went far back.

The Steiner (the original spelling) family came to this country from Germany around 1710. Five Steiner brothers settled in Pennsylvania, then Steiners moved to Virginia and North Carolina. In 1820, Henry Stiner (the spelling had simplified by then) crossed over into East Tennessee, looking for land. He found what he was looking for at the Great Bend of the Powell River. The soil along the river was rich, the woods were full of deer, the river was abundant with fish, and only four other families were living nearby. Henry purchased 1,000 acres and then went back to North Carolina to collect his family. Several other families returned with them to the Powell River Valley. By 1889, the settlement had three stores, a steam sawmill, and a gristmill; living there were twenty-seven families, including more than a hundred children; there were thirty-five dogs and sixty-five horses.

Later, in 1936, the rising of Norris Lake displaced the community at the Great Bend of Powell River. Among those forced to move were Emit Stiner and his family. Emit was Carl's father.

Carl Stiner remembers his family this way:

Starting in 1936, my father worked as a diamond drill operator and powder man for the Tennessee Valley Authority, constructing Norris Dam as well as some of the other TVA dams that were built in the thirties and forties. He drilled foundations for the dams and set the charges for blasting out rock or spillways. By the time the war started, he already had several children, which meant he was not drafted, but was instead taken into service for the construction of the Oak Ridge nuclear plant (a few miles from La Follette).

When he was not building dams and nuclear plants, my father farmed. But during the war, Oak Ridge took precedence.

The plant was started in 1942 (though its existence was not officially known until President Truman announced production of the atomic bomb in August 1945). It was a crash program, and security was very tight. The facility was protected by a high Cyclone fence, armed security guards patrolled on horses, and construction workers had to live like army forces in a barracks on the plant complex (where they were often kept busy seven days a week). But occasionally my father could get loose and come home on the weekends. When he was away, my mother, Hassic Stiner, supervised the farm and took care of the family.

I was the oldest of five — three other brothers and a sister. And my paternal grandparents also lived with us.

We all worked hard. Counting leased land, we farmed about two hundred acres, raising tobacco, grain crops, and cattle — and that was before tractors. Horses and mules did that job. About the time one of the boys turned six, he went to the fields to work; and during the growing season (when we weren't at school) we worked sunup to sundown, weather permitting, six days a week. Even if it rained, there was something to do, like pitching hay, or grinding feed for the cattle.

It was hard, but our life was not harsh. There was time off on Sunday for church, friends, and play. Since there was only one car per family which wasn't used much for recreation, our friends would congregate at a common place, which was as likely as not our farm. Fifteen or twenty boys might gather there on Sunday afternoons for ball games or boxing.

The boys liked our farm because of its central location, its large level field for our ball games; and there was plenty of livestock, in case we decided to do a little rodeoing (but never when my dad was around, because he didn't like you messing with the livestock). Sometimes we ended the day by choosing sides and fighting a corncob battle among the barns. One of these could last for a couple of hours. Getting hit on the side of the head with a wet corncob is an experience that's not easy to forget.

There was also plenty to enjoy up in the mountains (they call it hiking these days; we called it climbing) — cave formations, waterfalls, spectacular views; and the copperheads were an ever-present but exciting challenge. Nearby Norris Lake always beckoned for swimming, boating, and fishing. It was a beautiful lake, nestled in the mountains, narrow, deep, and huge, with lots of jags and branches running up into the hollows — more than eight hundred miles of shoreline. We'd go fishing on a Friday or Saturday night, build a big fire, and sit there and fish until the next day. In season we went hunting.

My dad was a superb hunter, and he always owned a pair of splendid bird dogs. From the time I was old enough to recognize what a shotgun was for, I wanted to go with him. He started letting me do it about the time I started to help him work the farm. Not that I was old enough or big enough to carry a gun or shoot. But I could stalk thickets and brush piles, and flush birds out; and 1 could learn weapon safety from him, as well as all his hunting tricks.

I was thirteen when I was given my first shotgun. It was a single shot, and I couldn't load it until a dog was actually pointing. That way I'd have a chance at hitting the bird, but wasn't otherwise dangerous. If I missed the bird, my dad still had time to shoot it himself.

When I was older and had learned everything he felt I needed to know about hunting, I was allowed out on my own. In high school, a bunch of my friends and I would always go out on Thanksgiving Day, rain or shine, for our annual quail hunt (for safety purposes, there were never more than four in a single hunting party). We'd be out all day, without stopping to cat. And then our mothers would put out the big turkey meal in the evening.

It was a great place to be young. We found adventure in everything we did. If it wasn't there already, we made it that way. We went out and found things to do that gave us enjoyment, and learned to see the good and the purpose in whatever we were doing — even the heavy, manual farm labor. This meant it was pretty hard to be bored and frustrated.

I always enjoyed what I was doing and took a lot of satisfaction from it. And this has stayed with me. I live and farm there still. Something just clicked in me, I guess. I left just after college, and spent most of my life away. But I had to go home and make whatever contribution I could for what my community had given me in my younger days.

Looking back on those days, I feel very fortunate to have been reared in a home where discipline, love, respect, and adherence to principles were the standards by which we were raised.

The most powerful influence on me, without a doubt, was my father. He was tough — hard as the concrete he used to work — but fair, and expected every person to pull his own weight. He was a man of high principles, and required us kids to conform to them. Yet he was not rigid. He cared deeply for everyone in his family, and wanted us all to be (in the words of the old Army ad line) "all we could be." He would have made a good first sergeant.

It's worth mentioning some of his principles that have stayed with me and that I have tried to apply in my own life:

• Always respect other people, unless they give you reason not to.

• Don't run with sheep-killing dogs, unless you are willing to suffer the consequences of being caught up with them.

• Anything that is worth doing is worth doing right. Nothing good ever comes without hard work.

• Don't ever accept less of yourself than you are capable of.

• You've got to set the example for anybody who works for you. Don't expect them to do anything you wouldn't do first. (For us kids, he expected us to do more work than any man he could hire.)

• Look beyond the end of your nose, and work toward what you want to become.

My father had few illusions. He never wanted us to follow in his foot-steps and bend our backs to a lifetime of brutally tough construction and endless farm work. He understood what education would give us (though he himself only got through eighth grade). The older we grew, the harder he and my mother pressed us to get the best education we could. "You don't want to do what I'm doing for the rest of your life," he kept telling us. "Your back won't hold out forever, and you will never be able to give your children what they need to prepare them to support their families." I will never forget his charge when he and my mom dropped me off at college (it was my first time there; I'd never visited the place before I was accepted). He said: "Boy, get an education, or don't come back."

His advice bore fruit. All but one of the children ended up with college degrees, and most went on for advanced degrees.[6]

There was another big education motivator in those days. Before the war, college was not in the cards for most young men from Appalachian Tennessee. But the postwar period saw GI Bill — trained doctors, lawyers, and other professionals bringing their expertise back to our Eastern Tennessee communities, and this brought us all long-term benefits. Those who didn't seek college were still able to take advantage of the technical skills and training opportunities they had gained in the army and other armed services to become skilled tradespeople — electricians, mechanics, plumbers, and the like.

It was amazing to see how all this skill and expertise began to grow our community. And it wasn't hard to apply these lessons to ourselves. So my objective was to go directly into college after high school. I applied to two or three, and all of them accepted me.

In those days, we didn't have high school counselors to steer us, and in any case, I didn't know much except agriculture. At the same time I was strongly aware of the obligation to serve my country after college (and felt it would be better to go in as a commissioned officer). For those reasons I elected to go to Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, called Tennessee Tech, which was the only one of the three colleges I applied to that offered both a degree in agriculture and an ROTC program. Tennessee Tech was in Cookeville, Tennessee, cighty-two miles north of Nashville.

Though Tech offered only Army ROTC, that was not a problem for me, since I never considered another service. I guess it was partly because of the influence of the boys I saw going off to the Army and fighting the war, and partly because I grew up outdoors in the country with lots of friends. The Army offered a continuation of that life. And truth was, I didn't know that much about the other services.

On my graduation day, June 30, 1958, I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry. This was a reserve commission; I was offered a regular army commission two years later. Though my mom and two of my brothers attended the graduation and commissioning ceremonies, there was no time for celebration, because I had to report for active duty the same day. I set out within the hour for Fort Benning (near Columbus, in southwestern Georgia), and drove without stopping, so I could report in beforc midnight without being AWOL.

Fort Benning is a vast military base, primarily infantry — and called "The Home of the Infantry." Housed there are the Infantry School, the Airborne School, the Ranger School, the basic and the advanced officer courses, as well as officer candidate school. Many combat brigades were stationed at Benning, as was the 10th Mountain Division, which had just returned from Germany. I was initially assigned there as an assistant platoon leader.

My first duties were as "pit" officer (running the targets up and down) for a known-distance rifle range, and officer in charge of a 106mm recoilless rifle range. And at least two afternoons a week the officers taught general education subjects to the NCOs to help them get their high school GEDs.

I loved the Army from day one — even though my jobs then weren't especially challenging, and I hardly had much responsibility. I liked everything about it: the people, the structured environment, the training, the responsibility, and the opportunity for growth by using my own talents, capabilities, and initiative.

After approximately six months, I took the Basic Officers Course, followed by Jump School and Ranger School. All were completed within eighteen months.

The Basic Course took up where the ROTC program left off. We mastered more advanced skills and developed technical competence in leadership, weapons, and tactical subjects that qualified us to lead an infantry platoon in combat operations. For example, we studied map reading in much greater detail than we had in ROTC; we learned how to effectively employ every weapon that was organic to a platoon; we learned patrolling and tactics at the platoon level, integration of fires, and how infantry should function with armor.

My other big learning experience in those early days at Fort Benning was meeting Sue, who became my wife.

Understand that just as Fort Benning is called the Home of the Infantry, Columbus is known as the mother-in-law of the infantry, because so many Columbus girls marry the new second lieutenants that come into town. It certainly turned out that way for me.

When I drove into Fort Benning on that Friday night after 1 graduated from college, it was 10:00 P.M. I signed in at Division Headquarters, was assigned a BOQ room, and was instructed to return by 9:00 A.M. Monday.

I had no idea what to do for the rest of the weekend, and I had never been to Fort Benning.

The next morning, as I was looking for a place to eat, I ran into First Lieutenant Jim Smith, who was also living in the BOQ and who knew a good place to go for breakfast — if I had a set of wheels (he had wrecked his car). What we could do, he said, was go eat breakfast, and then in the afternoon drive over to the officers' club, where his girlfriend and one of her friends were waiting for him, and we could all go out together.

That sounded pretty good to me. So we did that. The friend turned out to be Sue.

Jim Smith's girlfriend, Ann Scott, met us at the Officers' Club swimming pool. After I was introduced, Ann pointed to her friend, Sue, who was in the swimming pool, and called out to her to come over. After the introductions, the next order of business was the evening's activities. "Wouldn't you all like to go to dinner with us tonight?" Jim asked Suc and me.

In view of Sue's good looks and her bright and pleasant personality, I certainly welcomed the opportunity, but I knew that his motivation was my means of transportation. I think Sue might have been a little leery, but we were both caught in a bind with the two of them standing there looking so plaintively at us. Suc and I sort of shrugged and said okay, and then we all went to dinner that night at the Patton House on Fort Benning.

Over dinner, I learned that Sue was nineteen, employed as a secretary to the president and vice president of Burnham Van Service, and enrolled in night classes at the Columbus Center of the University of Georgia. It also turned out she was the reigning "Miss Georgia Air Reserve" (somebody else had obviously thought she was as good-looking as I did).

In her family were five sisters and a brother (almost the exact reverse of mine). Her brother, the oldest of the children, had fought in World War II and then become a lineman with the Georgia Power Company, where he was tragically electrocuted. Her dad worked for Bibb Manufacturing Company (a textile mill in Columbus), and her mother kept the home.

From the beginning, I liked Sue a lot, and as I got to know her family, I liked them also. I'm not so sure that she thought as much of me as I did of her, but we started dating occasionally, and I continued to do my thing, soldiering as a young lieutenant.

Meanwhile, I became friends with a service station owner named Kirby Smith, who also owned a pair of modified stock cars. Although he did not drive himself, Kirby sponsored his mechanic in stock car racing. I liked racing and would go with them on the weekends, and after a time I started driving myself. We would usually go to Valdosta, Georgia, and race there on a Friday night, then on to Montgomery, Alabama, and race Saturday night, then to Atlanta for Sunday night racing, and then back to Columbus in time for me to stand reveille on Monday morning.

I liked the racing — the challenge, the competition, the risk, and living on the edge. I guess I have always been that way — and the Army has afforded similar satisfaction in most of my assignments.

Sue and I dated for eighteen months, and in August 1959, we became engaged. Three months later, we were married in her church, the Porter Memorial Baptist Church in Columbus, Georgia. Proposing to Sue, though, put an end to my racing career. When I popped the question, she gave me an ultimatum. "It's either your racing, or me," she said. "You make the choice." It didn't take me long to sort out my priorities.

As I look back over the forty-one years of our marriage, Sue has proved the best companion and wife any man could ask for — my closest friend and toughest critic. She has been a role-model mother, raising two outstanding daughters, while taking care of the family and wifely responsibilities in every command I held. Marrying her was the soundest decision I ever made.

JUMPING OUT OF AIRPLANES

Clancy: Jump and Ranger Schools came after the Basic Course. For Stiner, Jump School came almost immediately. He graduated from the Basic Course on Friday, had Saturday off, reported to Jump School on Sunday, and started training on Monday morning.

Parachute and Ranger training are tough! Few people enjoy jumping out of airplanes. The risk is always there, rushing up at you; parachutes don't always open; and even when they do open correctly, bones can break when a trooper lands.

However, it's also not much fun to spend a couple of hard weeks in a swamp in summer or in the mountains in winter, with little or no sleep, having to live off the land when food is not available while conducting training as stressful and physically demanding as real combat. Ranger experience puts a soldier up against the absolute limits of mind and body.

On the other hand, soldiers who successfully make it through these ordeals have a right to feel good about themselves. The best soldiers are usually Airborne- and Ranger-qualified; and Airborne or Ranger units are usually thought of as elite.

All of this notwithstanding, in the 1960s every officer had to go through either Jump or Ranger School, and officers who expected to be assigned to a combat unit, whether infantry, armor, or artillery, had to go through both. The Army expected officers to be versatile. It wasn't enough to serve effectively in their own technical specialties; officers had to have all the skills necessary to lead a unit in combat, and the broader perspective that gave. Even officers who weren't in combat branches, such as quartermaster, ordnance, or signal, were expected to handle specialized combat-oriented tasks and challenges.

Every officer served at least two years in a combat unit before going to the branch in which he was commissioned, and to the basic officer qualification course in that branch. For those in noncombat branches, this was not only valuable experience in itself, but helped them later in serving and supporting the combat units.

This is no longer the practice in the Army, partly because the shortage of officers has meant that the services can no longer afford the luxury, and partly because of the way the Army has evolved over time. Now the Army is run the way business is, where most people are specialists. Forty years ago, everyone outside of the technical branches was seen as a generalist. The perception was that it didn't matter who you were on the battlefield, you were a better leader if you had a core of basic officer skills that enabled you to take care of your men under all circumstances.

In most ways, today's Army is a better-prepared and more effective force than the Army of forty years ago, but the discontinuation of combat unit training and experience for all officers is a real loss.

The objective of Jump School has always been to teach a soldier how to put on his parachute and equipment properly, then how to exit an airplane, descend, and land safely. Mental alertness, confidence, and the ability to react automatically to just about anything that might happen during a jump are critical.

The course normally took four weeks, but the Army was testing to see if compression could save training time and money without affecting performance, so for the 1958 class of infantry lieutenants, the course was compressed to three weeks. The instructors were all handpicked NCOs, all master jumpers — and they were professional and tough.

The program of instruction consisted of a ground week, tower week, and jump week — all punctuated with an extensive physical training program and a very stringent personal inspection each morning, especially during the first two weeks.

Following the in-ranks inspection by the Black Hats (the Airborne cadre), daily training started with a one-hour session of rigorous physical training: push-ups, squat jumps, sit-ups, pull-ups, deep knee bends, squat thrusts, and a three-mile run in combat boots. The Black Hats' favorite technique for teaching alertness was to bark: "Hit it!" This could be directed at an individual or at the whole group. The instant anyone heard the words, he immediately had to hop up about six inches off the ground and go into the correct position for exiting an aircraft — that is, chin on chest, forearms and fingers extended as if grasping the reserve parachute, elbows held tight to the sides, and counting: "one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand," representing the seconds it takes a parachute to open. Once in the exit position, he'd start jumping up and down with knees bent and toes pointed to the ground. Anyone who was slow to react and/or did not do any of this correctly could expect to hear "Give me twenty," or however many push-ups the Black Hat wanted to lay on.

Their favored "weapon" for ensuring conformity and mental alertness was push-ups or squat jumps for every infraction or mistake in training — no matter who committed it — so on any given day, a trainee could find himself doing two hundred or more extra push-ups.

During the first week, Stiner and the others were taught how to perform parachute landing falls from any direction (left front, right front, left side, right side, left rear, right rear). They started by standing on the ground in the sawdust pit and hopping up and then falling in whichever direction they were told to. After they'd mastered this skill from the ground — maybe a hundred or more parachute landing falls (PLFs) — they moved up to a PLF platform, a wooden structure five feet off the ground. They continued falling from there until they were proficient in every kind of PLF.

Each time anyone made a PLF, he had to simulate a "prepared to land" position — that is, he'd reach up and pull down on the two front risers of his (simulated) parachute, with elbows tight to the side, chin tucked to the chest, knees slightly bent, feet and knees held tightly together with toes slightly pointed toward the ground. When he touched the ground, he'd roll in the direction that would most cushion his fall.

After PLFs, they advanced to the "swing landing fall trainer," a circular steel frame suspended by a cable that hangs over a six-foot-high platform. The student, wearing a parachute harness, attached his risers to this frame, then stepped off the platform and began to swing free. The instructor on the ground controlled the swing and determined when and how the student would hit the ground. As often as not, it was when he was in the most awkward position for landing. This device realistically replicated the kinds of falls a jumper was likely to make under actual conditions. Since most injuries occur upon landing, it was vital for the student to master them all.

During the second week, they worked on the thirty-four-foot tower, which provided a rough likeness of the sensation of jumping out of an airplane, except there was no 125-knot wind blast. According to the experts, thirty-four feet is the optimum height for creating the greatest fear: Anyone who falls from that height without a parachute has a chance to survive. Above that height, it's all over anyhow.

On top of the tower was a boxlike structure replicating part of an airplane fuselage. A steel cable extended from inside this "fuselage" at a slight angle downward for approximately 150 feet, and then it was anchored about eight feet off the ground. The student hooked his risers to a pulley that rode on this cable. Upon the command "Stand in the door," the student took a position in the door. Upon the "Go" command, the student leapt up and out, and then immediately assumed a tight body position and began his count. By that time, he had fallen to the length of his risers, approximately eight feet, and could feel the jolt of the cable (in an actual jump he would have fallen approximately 200 to 250 feet by the time his parachute opened). When he felt the jolt, the jumper checked his (imaginary) canopy to make sure it was fully deployed, with no more than four broken suspension lines and no tears larger than his helmet. He did that by comparing his rate of fall with that of the other jumpers in the air; if he was falling faster than they were, he considered activating his reserve parachute.

During descent, the jumper kept a sharp lookout in order to avoid other jumpers, and then began his preparations for landing when he was approximately fifty to a hundred feet above the ground. By this time, he had reached the end of the cable. Once there, he was critiqued by a Black I lat and told to recover and jump again. About fifteen to twenty exits were required from the thirty-four-foot tower before a trainee got a "good to go."

The last two days of the second week, Stiner and his comrades worked on the 250-foot towers. There, a trainee wore a special type of parachute, which was attached to a ring equal to the circumference of an actual parachute canopy. He was then pulled up to an extended arm on the tower. At the top, his parachute was released and he was allowed to float to the ground. He would then land as hard as if he'd jumped from an actual plane.

The third week was devoted to jumping. Also included were instructions on actions inside the aircraft, which were conducted in mock-ups. The Black Hats performed the duties of jumpmasters and would put everyone through the jump commands. These were: "Twenty minutes," meaning: "Do a preliminary check of your own equipment; helmet tight, etc." At ten minutes came "Get ready," meaning: "Unbuckle your seat belt and prepare to stand up." Next came "Outboard personnel, Stand up," meaning: "Jumpers seated closest to the skin of the aircraft stand first." Then "Inboard personnel, stand up," meaning: "All the other jumpers, stand up." Then "Hook up," meaning: "All jumpers hook their snap fastener." This was attached to the end of the static line, and hooked to the anchor line cable. Then "Check equipment," meaning: "Each jumper checks his own equipment, plus the static line of the jumper to his front." Then "Sound off for equipment check." The count started in the rear of the stick (the line of jumpers), with each sounding off loudly, "Okay," and slapping the buttocks of the man in front of him. The count was passed forward by every man in the stick. The last man to receive the count then signaled the jumpmaster, "All okay, jumpmaster." One minute out from the drop zone, the loadmasters (part of the plane's crew) opened the jump doors. The jumpmaster looked out to verify that they were in fact over the drop zone, then looked to the rear of the aircraft to verify that no following planes had dropped below the altitude where his paratroopers would be exiting. Once he had verified that it was safe to jump, he pointed to the first jumper and commanded: "Stand in the door." The jumper shuffled to the door, assumed an exit position, and watched for the green light. When it lit, the jumpmaster commanded, "Go," and slapped him on the buttocks. The jumper exited, and the stick followed at one-second intervals.

This procedure was followed before every jump, and it is still followed by airborne units today, no matter how experienced they are.

All jumps were made from C-119 aircraft (the old twin-tail flying boxcars), and the guys were ready "almost to jump without a parachute," Stiner observes, "to get relief from rolling around in that sawdust pit and doing push-ups all day.

"The first jump was the easiest," he continues, "at least for me. But that 125-knot blast of wind was something that none of us had experienced. On the ground, Black Hats with bullhorns were yelling at the students who weren't doing it right; they gave strong personal critiques of each landing.

"We jumped four times that week, all during daylight. The fifth jump was with equipment, which included our load-bearing equipment and M-1 rifle.

"Saturday was a big day. Graduation! Families and girlfriends were allowed to attend and to assist in pinning on our wings. Everyone in my group graduated, except a few who'd been injured. We all felt very proud and privileged to wear the jump wings.

"Some people claim to love jumping out of airplanes. That may be so. But not me. Though 1 spent most of my career in airborne units and made 189 jumps, practically all at night with combat equipment, I was never crazy about jumping out of airplanes. After I had gained the confidence afforded by Jumpmaster School, however, I got to where jumping didn't bother me.

"Airborne units are unique in the capability they provide — that is, 'forced entry' operations. It's not just the jumping, it's the type of people that comprise the ranks of airborne units which makes the assignment so special."

SWAMPS AND MOUNTAINS

Carl Stiner graduated from Jump School on Saturday and reported into Ranger School the next morning. That afternoon, he and his companions received orientations and drew equipment. They began training at daylight Monday morning.

Ranger School has two principal aims: to prepare small-unit leaders for the missions and situations they are likely to face in combat, and to teach skills that are necessary for survival in enemy-held territory. It is the most physically demanding school in the Army for non-Special Operations soldiers.

Though Ranger School is normally nine weeks long, for Stiner it lasted eight weeks — October to December 1958. (Nothing was deleted but the sleep.) It consisted of three phases: two weeks at Fort Benning, Georgia; three weeks in the Okefenokee Swamp at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida; and three weeks in the mountains at Dahlonega, Georgia.[7]

Carl Stiner continues:

Once a soldier has completed the Ranger Course, he knows down to the tips of his fingers what his capabilities and limitations are. He has not only mastered the skills required of a small-unit leader in combat, but he also has the confidence and skills necessary to survive there. I have always trusted a Ranger-qualified officer or NCO to lead patrols for me in combat or any other tough situation, because I knew he had the skills necessary to accomplish the mission and would "take care" of those entrusted to his leadership in the right way.

These experiences do not only apply to junior officers, they become the essential underpinnings of competence through all the ranks and assignments of an Army career-particularly command. They give an understanding of a man's capabilities and limitations that comes in no other way, and they develop self-confidence in ways not otherwise possible.

You have to be made of the right stuff to do it successfully. In practice it means that you go day and night; you get very little sleep; you are exhausted; you may get shin splints; you're strung out; you are in swamps; you're in mountains; you're cold; you're wet; you might be exposed to frostbite or hypothermia; or else you're hot; you're thirsty; you learn to live off the land and eat what's available. You learn to depend on each other. Although each man is expected to master individual skills, and in all field operations you usually operate in squad- and platform-size units, you take care of each other. From day one you are assigned a "Ranger buddy." In other words, if your buddy should fall out, you are expected to carry him — or fall out trying.

Under these conditions, there's no place for the limp-wristed or faint of heart.

THE FORT BENNING PHASE

The basic objective of the Benning phase was to learn the fundamentals of patrolling: the essentials of planning; opcrations orders; selecting primary and alternate routes, assembly areas, rallying points, passage of lines, actions at the objectives; and above all the value of rehearsals. You did it over and over until you got it right.

The first two weeks were focused on heavy-duty physical training — log drills, endurance runs, hand-to-hand combat, the bayonet assault course, and the obstacle course. It was also during this phase that we were introduced to a new form of PT—"rope football." We played this in a sawdust pit of not more than sixty feet in diameter. The class was divided into two teams of about fifty men, who'd go down in a football stance facing each other about three feet apart. In between the teams was dropped a knotted ball of cable rope that weighed something like fifty pounds. The object of the game was to move the ball to the other side of the pit. Anything went. There were no time-outs, no fouls or penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct. You scratched, clawed, climbed over, or did whatever else you had to do to win. The penalty for losing was seventy-five or a hundred push-ups.

We also did a lot of rope work — learning the different knots and how to build different kinds of rope bridges — and we did a lot of rope climbing. There were two objectives here: to learn the different ways to climb a rope, and to build upper-body strength.

Another important element was advanced land navigation. Soldiers have to be expert navigators — to be able to get to where they are going when they are not familiar with the territory — and they have to do it quickly under the worst circumstances. Nowadays we have global positioning systems to make navigating easier, and these do give us an enormous advantage, but there is no substitute for a map in the hands of a good map reader and a compass in the hands of a good navigator. If you have these, and if all the electronic wizardry fails, you still have all you need to find out where you are and to keep you on course.

Also critical to the team is a good pace man, who keeps an accurate count of how much distance you have covered. He has to be able to consistently step a yard or meter with each normal step. Then he keeps count of the pace. One way to do it is by moving a small stone from one pocket to another every time he has gone a hundred paces. Another technique is to tie a knot in a string for each hundred paces. There are any number of techniques, of course, but the point is the same: You have to have a system to ensure that the count is not lost (or forgotten) should the patrol be ambushed.

Finally, we were taught every fundamental about patrolling: the different kinds of patrols (reconnaissance, combat, raids, ambushes, etc.), the organizations of each type of patrol, the patrol order, selecting routes, actions at danger areas, and action upon reaching the objective. During the Benning phase, we rehearsed many times over our patrolling techniques.

THE FLORIDA PHASE

We left Fort Benning early on a Saturday morning in October on buses headed to the Florida Ranger Camp on Eglin Air Force Base. Few of us remembered much about the trip, which took most of the day, because we slept as much as we could.

Near the Florida state line, a member of the Ranger cadre woke us up to put us in the right frame of mind. He read us a "general situation": "The United States is at war," he told us. "And we have entered a mythical country" — I've forgotten its name—"as a replacement unit." From here on out, everything was to be a tactical simulation of real war—tactical twenty-four hours each and every day.

When we reached our Florida destination, our accommodations were austere — tents that accommodated twenty-four men each, canvas cots, no floors, a World War II-type mess hall, a small arms room, and a small aid station manned by a single medic. This didn't bother me; it was obvious that we wouldn't be spending much time there (and this would be luxury compared with where we were going).

About half an hour after we arrived, we were given an alert order to be prepared to move out within two hours on our first reconnaissance patrol. Our mission: to reconnoiter a possible enemy missile site. When we moved out, we moved directly into the swamps into water up to our waists. We were there for the next three days and nights.

This turned out to be the norm for the entire training — constant patrolling, constant raids, constant ambushes… and always wet and cold. You don't normally think of Florida as cold. But in October, that's what it can get if you are constantly wet, even in Florida.

As a part of the Florida phase, we were given special instructions on "survival": how to catch and prepare food; what to eat and what not to eat (which wild plants and berries were safe, which weren't): and we were given chickens, rabbits, alligators, opossums, raccoons, and snakes that we had to prepare for some day's "feast."

We learned a lot about snakes. They were all over the place, particularly coral snakes and water moccasins. One day the cadre brought out what seemed to be a wagonload of snakes (nonpoisonous!) and passed them among us (we were sitting on logs). They started with one or two at a time, but that soon turned into armloads of six or eight. We got familiarized with snakes in a hurry.

Another challenge was the confidence course — an inverted crawl on ropes hanging forty feet above murky, over-our-heads water, with explosives in the water going off constantly. At some point on the rope, we'd be told to drop into the water and swim to dry land about a hundred feet away — with the explosives still going off.

During the three weeks, we only saw base camp, our tent, and the mess hall about four or five times. At other times we ate food provided by "partisans" (that is, if we linked up with them at the designated place and time — we didn't always do that); and it was usually live chickens, rabbits, or even a goat.

We didn't get much sleep either. I was one of the designated "sleep keepers." That meant I had to keep a record of whatever sleep 1 was able to get that was more than thirty minutes. As I recall, at the end of seventeen days, my records indicated it totalled eight hours and ten minutes.

I've always loved the outdoors. I really enjoy the wilderness and its challenges. So, acute discomforts aside — the constant wet and cold and lack of steep — I really enjoyed the Florida phase. I had never been in a really big swamp, especially one as treacherous and challenging as the Okefenokee. The Yellow River runs right through it — very swift, deep, and dangerous. You can easily blunder into it, especially at night, without knowing it. That is, you can be wading up to your waist in standing swamp water, and then bam, you're in the river, swift, strong, and deep, cutting right through the still water. It's dangerous!

When the three weeks were over, most of us who'd started were still hanging in and looking forward to the next phase, though some had been eliminated — for attitude, lack of motivation, physical failure, or whatever: the rest of us never really knew why. You knew somebody'd been eliminated when you saw a student standing out at the end of Flight Strip Number 7, which was located near our base camp, with his bag packed, waiting for the plane from Fort Benning, which came about every three days. He stayed there by himself until the plane came. I can't imagine how humiliating this must have been. At least it would have been terrible for me.

THE MOUNTAIN PHASE

We came in from our last patrol in Florida at midafternoon on a Saturday, finished our patrol debriefings, and began to clean and turn in the weapons and equipment that would remain at the campsite. After a big meal in the mess hall we hit the sack somewhere around midnight — dry for a change — for much-needed sleep.

At about 0300 Sunday morning, the Ranger cadre came running through the camp yelling: "Formation in ten minutes. Fall out with all your gear, prepared to move out."

We jumped out of the sack (having slept in our fatigues), quickly put on our dry pair of boots, rolled up our sleeping bags (which stayed with the cot), put on our Ranger web gear (harness), and fell in at our appointed place in a company formation. The camp commander, a major, positioned himself before the formation and announced, "There has been a major enemy breakthrough in the northern part of the operational area." — northern Georgia—"You are to move out immediately as much-needed reinforcements in that sector of the combat zone." Buses arrived ten minutes later, and we set out for northern Georgia.

I don't remember much about that trip, because we slept most of the way. But I do remember that at about noon the buses pulled into a Howard Johnson's restaurant somewhere in central Georgia (no doubt arrangements had been made in advance), and an announcement was made: "We will be here one hour. This is your last chance to eat before arriving at the front."

I will never forget the surprised look of the families there, obviously just out of church services, when we stormed into the place wearing our camouflage paint and fatigues. It did not take them long, though, to recognize who we were, especially when the Ranger lieutenant accompanying us announced, "Rangers, you have fifty minutes until you go back on the buses."

I don't know how it was possible to serve so many in such a short time, but the restaurant staff managed it, and we were all well fed.

Back on the buses and back to sleep again.

At about 1600 hours, the buses pulled off the highway where a gravel road ran off into the woods and several empty two-and-a-half-ton trucks were parked. A Ranger captain was standing in the middle of the road. As soon as we'd dismounted and formed up in front of him, he advised that it was not safe to take the buses any farther because of enemy infiltration teams in the area. We would have to take the trucks. He also indicated that the beds of the trucks had been sandbagged and that we should be prepared for ambush. Since we didn't have any weapons, we were glad to see two armed guards with each truck. Even though we didn't have our individual weapons, we had rehearsed counteraimbush drills from a truck or convoy many times, so we knew what to do.

We had probably gone no more than five miles until we were ambushed by a platoon of dug-in "enemy." Of course, it was all explosives and blank fire, but they really shot us up good. We quickly dismounted and dived in a ditch alongside the road. When the smoke had cleared, we were assembled back on the road and told that our trucks had been destroyed and that we would have to run the rest of the way — about five miles and mostly uphill.

At the base camp (it was in a beautiful spot, as it happened), we were fed a great evening meal — all we could eat. Then we drew our weapons and individual equipment and squared away our sleeping tents. As in Florida, we wouldn't see much of them for the next three weeks.

The next morning started with rappelling instruction, which was conducted under Master Sergeant Stinchcomb, who knew more about rock climbing and rappelling, and about ropes and how to use them, than any man I have ever met.

First we learned how to tie every knot needed for Hanger-type operations. Then we trained in rappelling until we'd mastered all the rappelling techniques — first on the lower cliffs (thirty to fifty feet) and then on higher ones (sixty to eighty feet). Finally, we were required to rappel with our Ranger buddy hanging on our back.

After the rock work, there was instruction in the mountain adaptations to already learned skills, such as land navigation, wilderness survival, and operational survival.

Though the basic land navigation techniques still applied, keeping track of distances traveled in rugged mountainous terrain is more complex and challenging than on level ground. You can never be sure of the length of your pace, for example.

Then came instruction on wilderness survival. In the mountains, the snakes arc different than the ones in Florida — copperheads and rattlesnakes rather than water moccasins and coral snakes. And in the mountains you don't find the same edible plants and berries that you do in the swamps.

We also got instruction on avoiding detection. We were taught to stay away from danger areas, such as roads and built-up areas (towns, houses, etc.), and how to cross danger areas (open fields and roads) without being observed.

We also patrolled, day and night, just as in Florida. But the rough terrain and heavy loads (like machine guns) some patrol members had to carry made a big difference, requiring more careful planning of patrol routes and more time for reaching the objective.

As was the case throughout the entire Ranger instruction program, every patrol had to be planned and rehearsed in every detail to ensure that it would go right, and every student had to know every detail of the plan. Although a patrol leader and assistant patrol leader were designated in advance, you never knew when you may be called on to be the patrol leader — most usually in the most demanding situations, such as the middle of a firefight. A member of the Ranger cadre (called a lane grader) accompanied every patrol. This was usually a first lieutenant or a senior NCO, but sometimes both, depending on the size of the patrol. Their job was to evaluate the performance of every member of the patrol, and to be present in case of an emergency or life-threatening situation.

Meanwhile, the aggressors (the bad guys) were all over the place, knew the terrain better than we did, and had co-opted most of the civilians that lived in the area, which meant we could not trust anyone.

The weather became a major factor in early December.

Our last patrol was to be a long-range combat patrol to simulate the "blowup" of the Toccoa Dam, which was about fifty or sixty miles from our base area. Before we left there'd been reports of bad weather coming in — all the more reason to go.

Our platoon-size patrol (about forty men) was infiltrated late one evening by helicopter to a landing zone about three miles south of the Toccoa River and thirty miles upstream from the dam. As we moved quickly to the river, night was falling and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Because of the cold, the patrol leader decided that we would construct and cross on a three-rope bridge, and that way keep dry.

Though the water was up to his neck in some places and running pretty fast, the designated swimmer waded to the other side without incident, dragging the main rope as he went. He attached it to a tree and came back for the two smaller ropes that would serve as the handrails. Once he had dragged these over, it did not take us long to make the bridge ready to go, and we began to cross.

Maybe ten people had made it to the other side when we were ambushed by a squad-sized enemy element from the far side of the river (no doubt the aggressor had been given the location of our crossing site). This was the most vulnerable position we could possibly have been in. We had very little ability to defend ourselves.

The only safe thing the patrol leader could do was order everybody into the water and have them quickly wade to the other side.

The firefight didn't last long, but most of us were wet by then, and it was snowing — really coming down. As the patrol regrouped and we headed out on our route, the wind picked up, the temperature dropped even more, and somewhere around midnight, our clothing began to freeze. At this point, the Ranger lane grader (a staff sergeant) told the patrol leader to start running the patrol in order to minimize the possibility of hypothermia — a wise decision!

An hour or so later, the snow was maybe four inches deep, and a few of the students began to lose it, my buddy among them. He dropped down in the snow and started begging for someone to knock his brains out with an entrenching tool. He was a strong, determined officer, and I knew he didn't mean what he was saying. And besides, we weren't even carrying entrenching tools.

I had a notion to try to carry him, but 1 instantly realized that wouldn't work, because I already had the.30-caliber machine gun to lug. I slapped him to try to bring him back to his senses, and he came out of it enough to raise himself to his knees. But that wasn't enough. The patrol was running off and leaving us. I knew I had to get him moving somehow before they got too far ahead of us, so I gave him a good kick in the rear. He got up, staggered, mumbled something, started trotting, and then started running again. I kept him in front of me, prodding him, until daybreak, when he snapped out of it. Though he went down two or three more times, the same treatment worked each time. (Later he had no recollection of that night.)

Other students had similar problems, but the other buddies did what they had to do to keep going.

At daylight, it was still snowing hard, the ceiling was down to the treetops, and most of our compasses were too fogged up to read. Fortunately, enough of them worked to keep us on course.

All that day we trudged through the mountains, still on course. By midafternoon the snow had drifted so deep that the patrol had to rotate its strongest members to the "point man" position to break the trail.

At nightfall, we were supposed to rendezvous with a partisan band to get our supply of food. We arrived at the rendezvous point, set up security, and waited for an hour; but no partisans came, and of course there was no food.

At that point, the lane grader decided that since we were so deep in the enemy's rear and the weather was so bad, it might be safe enough to begin moving on roads. The road he brought us to was a welcome sight, and it was obvious that no one had traveled it since the snow had begun. So we were able to move more rapidly, to make up for lost time.

Around midnight 1 began to have problems of my own. I didn't exactly lose it, because I kept moving ahead — I kept walking and walking. But as I trudged along, I had no idea who I was or where I was going. I just knew I had to keep going, and stay with the other guys. I guess I was in this delirious state for three to four hours.

Come daylight, we left the road and continued moving about 500 yards into the woods and parallel to the road. But when night fell, we were back on the road again. Though the snow had stopped, what was on the ground was knee deep; and it was cold — I'd guess it was near zero. We hadn't eaten since we'd launched a couple of days back, and people were getting pretty hungry.

About 2200 hours, we came upon a farmhouse and heard some hogs. The word came back asking if anyone knew how to kill and dress a pig. "I can," I said, and went forward. But when I saw that the "pig" weighed about two hundred pounds, 1 knew I would have to have some help — three more men. One guy had to grab him by the snout to keep him from squealing. One guy had to grab him by the ears to steady his head. And one guy had to grab him by the tail and hold on, to keep him from swishing his body around and throwing the rest of us all over the hog lot.

Though no one else in the patrol had any experience with hogs, everyone was so hungry it didn't take long to scare up the three volunteers. I appointed each to his duties (snout man, cars man, and tail man), gave them a quick briefing about what to do (we all had to act simultaneously), and we entered the hog lot. This was going to be a challenge, I knew, but we had to accomplish the mission if we wanted to eat.

Meanwhile, the patrol leader went about establishing a security perimeter around the farmhouse.

We climbed over the fence into the hog lot, skirted another hog house, which contained a pair of hogs that were bigger than the one we'd picked, and jumped on our hog. At that point, the ears man did his part right and hung on; but the snout and tail men didn't do so well, and the hog started squealing and thrashing about. The only thing I could do was jump on him myself and stick him in the throat. He and I rolled around in the hog manure (which was not all frozen) for a couple of minutes, but after a time the hog went limp. Then I quickly gutted and quartered him so we could carry our dinner more easily.

Meanwhile, all this commotion had brought the farmer running out onto his snow-covered porch, but a machine gun opened up (not to hurt him, but to catch his attention), and he dropped flat on his back and did a "crab walk" back inside the house. I felt kind of bad taking his hog, but learned later that the Army had an agreement with the farmers to reimburse them for anything the Ranger students took for food.

Once I had the hog quartered, we grabbed our food and headed deep into the woods, then built a fire and had roasted pig. A welcome least!

We continued on the rest of the night and the next day.

At about 2200 hours that night, we arrived at our attack position, about a mile from the Toccoa Dam. A reconnaissance patrol sent out to scout for enemy positions returned around midnight and reported that an enemy position with a campfire was about 100 meters north of the dam and close to our planned route. For that reason, the patrol leader decided to change our route and send out a six-man patrol to neutralize the enemy position (I was on that team). We would do that when the rest of the patrol was in place to attack the dam.

II-hour was to be 0500 hours. After the attack, we were supposed to make it to a clearing about a mile away, and at 0600 hours, helicopters would extract us from there.

The entire patrol set out from the attack position at about 0300 hours — moving very cautiously. An hour later, my team split off and headed for the enemy position north of the dam. As we approached it, we could see the fire and at least two aggressor guards near the ditch line on the far side of the road. They were in a cut, and the bank behind them was about ten feet high. We crossed the road and circled behind them, using the bank as cover, then crawled the last couple hundred yards until we were directly above them.

At 0555 hours, the message came over the radio that the rest of the patrol was in position to launch the attack. Moments later, four of us jumped off the bank, right on top of the bad guys, and slammed them to the ground. Before they knew what happened, we had them bound and gagged.

About that time, we heard the rest of the patrol launch the attack on the dam — although there wasn't much shooting, maybe ten rounds or less. This sounded a little strange (we normally put out a great volume of fire), but we had been using our weapons as pikes in order to climb the steep, ice-frozen slopes, and the end of most of our rifle barrels had been too plugged with ice to fire.

Meanwhile I took advantage of the fire the bad guys had built and turned my back to it. I stood that way for what couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes — but that was long enough for me to doze off and fall over backwards into the fire, igniting my field jacket. Thank goodness for the snow. Needless to say, I woke up in a hurry, and managed to roll over and put it out — though the entire back of my jacket was burned out.

I didn't have much time to reflect on that. It would soon be daylight, and we had to get over to our pickup zone before dawn.

We began to run.

By then the weather had begun to clear, and although the weather had delayed the completion of our mission a couple of days, the helicopters were coming for us. And as we approached the clearing, we could hear the roar as they approached. Then snow was blowing everywhere as they set down — the most beautiful sight I had seen in seven weeks.

We flew back to the Ranger Base Camp at Dahlonega, where we were met by quite a reception. The Ranger department commander, a colonel, was there, along with a team of doctors and a chaplain. The docs checked us all, but found nothing major (there was a little frostbite — ears, fingers, and toes). Next came a hot meal-all we could cat. Then we were put on the buses and sent back to Fort Benning.

On the way back, I learned from one of the Ranger instructors that the two men we had pounced on by the fire had actually been civilian members of the waterworks fixing a busted water main. They had not been "bad guys" at all.

The next morning we had a company formation to find out who had earned the Ranger Tab. No guests were invited. When your name was called, you stepped forward. When the calling was done, approximately twenty men were left behind who'd gone all the way through the training, but for some reason had failed to earn the tab. 1 felt sorry for them, but that's the way it is. The standard has to be met.

TRAINING

Carl Stiner has always been known in the Army as an expert trainer, and many of his Army assignments directly involved training. Here are some of his thoughts on that experience:

Early in my career, I realized that military training offers a unique opportunity — not only for preparing men for combat, but for preparing them for the most important of life's values: personal attributes, principles, ethics, motivation for the right reasons, love of country, and seff-respect — in other words, the values that should be manifested in every citizen of our great nation. No other institution in our society can possibly provide the same kind of environment, together with the caring and dedicated leadership, for molding and shaping the young men and women who elect to serve their country. Not every soldier will turn out as we hope, but the great majority certainly will, and they will always be grateful for the opportunity and the caring that gave them a greater perspective on life.

In my judgment, training is the essential element for the readiness of any unit in any service. The very best equipment is great to have, and I'll never turn any down, but well-trained people win wars. No impersonal piece of equipment or technology can ever replace a well-trained soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, or Coast Guardsman.

In our army, the objective of training must be to maximize the competency and proficiency of every individual and unit.

To that end, a commander must be personally involved in the development and structuring of his unit's training program. This must be based on a detailed analysis of the unit's mission requirements. From this is derived the Mission Essential Task List (METL); and then from this METL, all subordinate units at every level develop a METL of their own.

Next comes an analysis to determine the specific tasks inherent in the METL for successfully accomplishing their respective mission, and under what "conditions" and to what "standards" each must be performed successfully.

These critical elements, "METL, tasks, conditions, and standards," are the "core" element of the training program. This is the Army system, and 1 know of no better system in any army in the world.

Once the training program has been determined, we must turn to the way training is conducted. That is what makes the ultimate difference between soldiers who will survive and win in combat and those who don't.

I, myself, have always enjoyed tough, realistic training, and have made it my number-one priority in all the units I have commanded. Of course, "taking care of your people" ranks equally; the two are inseparable and synonymous. I have never had a soldier complain about too much tough, realistic training. Soldiers understand its value when it comes time to lay their life on the line.

Each soldier, therefore, should be required to fully perform every task to the standard expected of him for success in combat. This kind of training builds confidence at the individual and unit level — the kind of confidence and teamwork between the soldiers and within the unit that allows them to fully perform their mission without fear of being killed by friendly fire. No "simulation" or technology can ever take the place of this.

Realistic scenarios developed from unit war plans and other contingency requirements should serve as the basis for all training. Training should then always be conducted under the most demanding and realistic conditions possible — simulating nothing except for the safety of the participants. In other words, all training, particularly at the small-unit and combined-arms levels (battalion and below), should be live fire, and conducted at night. If this is not possible, then MILES devices, which are lasers, accompanied by receiving devices on each soldier, should be used to let soldiers know when they have screwed up and been hit.

Here are a few training principles that I have tried to live by:

• A commander should always have his unit ready to go to war, without any required train-up period. If he has been given the resources he needs, there is no reason why his unit should not be ready at all times. If some reason is beyond his control, he should have identified it a long while back and brought it to the attention of his commanders, so something could be done about the problem.

• A commander must be in the field personally supervising and evaluating training. Otherwise, he will never know the true status of the training readiness of his unit, and how to structure future training for correcting both unit and individual weaknesses.Neither can a commander make an honest judgment on what his unit can or cannot do unless he knows the unit's training readiness — inside and out.

• Time is a commander's most crucial asset, and it should never be wasted — not a single minute.A training opportunity exists in everything a unit is required to do — no matter if it is mission-related or not — and it is the leader's responsibility to look ahead and identify these opportunities and take advantage of them. It could be guard duty, police call, burial details, or many other administrative activities. These should be performed by squads and conducted in a way that allows each individual and the unit itself to emerge better-trained and feeling good about their performance.For example, if transportation is scarce, many training opportunities — such as counterambush drills — are available during tactical foot marches to the designated training areas.Every officer and NCO in the chain of command must always have "hip-pocket training" ready for his unit in order to take advantage of unprogrammed and unanticipated time that could become available for training. For example: "The trucks that were supposed to show up will arrive thirty minutes late. Let's get in some mortar practice." Oftentimes, small-unit leaders fail to recognize and plan appropriately for these opportunities — a situation that requires leader training by the commander.Time lost can never be recovered.

• If a unit fails to meet the standard for a given training event, then the commander should adjust the schedule to keep the unit in the field until they get it right — no matter how long it takes. Don't ever say, "We'll correct the deficiency next time out." There may not be a next time before they are committed to battle.

• The responsible commander (brigade, battalion) should never be satisfied with "just" meeting the standard. He should keep "raising the bar," with an ultimate goal of maximizing the technical and tactical proficiency of every individual. For example: Every soldier in an infantry squad should qualify for the Expert infantry Badge, every medic should qualify for the Expert Field Medical Badge, every mortar crew member as Master Gunner, and so on. A great ancillary benefit also comes from this — unit pride, cohesion, and individual early promotions.

• Cross-training between skills is also very important, especially within crews of crew-served weapons that are vital to unit effectiveness in combat. Replacements are not always readily available on the battlefield.

Nothing I have said is new to any successful commander. We have lived by these principles and tenets in fulfilling our responsibilities for preparing those entrusted to us — the cream of America's youth — for success in battle. This responsibility is a sacred trust, directed not only toward success in battle, but also to the lives of the men and women we command. This includes bringing them safely back to their families, and having them feel good about themselves for what they have done for our nation.

Soldiers will unhesitatingly lay their lives on the line because of this trust in their commander and their fellow soldiers. They have no one else to look to.

This means, finally, that a commander's unit, no matter what kind it is, will be only as good as he is, a direct reflection of his principles and values, and of his dedication, his motivation, and his love and respect for his troops. A commander must therefore give it whatever it takes. No one else will do it for him.

During most of my Army career, I have been fortunate to serve in combat units where training and preparedness for no-notice contingency operations were an imperative — and for having had this opportunity I indeed feel privileged.