Special Operations Medicine

Army Special Forces (Green Berets)

Army Special Forces (SF) are commonly referred to as "Green Berets.

They are strategic, multipurpose forces capable of rapid response to various contingencies throughout the world.

Their mission is to organize, train, equip, and direct indigenous forces in unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense. For this reason, they possess foreign language and area orientation skills.

Most SF soldiers work on a 12-man Operational Detachment "A" (SFODA) team, sometimes called an A Team. The team is typically organized with:

Commander (Captain, 0-3)
Assistant Detachment Commander (Warrant Officer)
Operations Sergeant (Team Sergeant) (Master Sergeant)
Assistant Operations and Intelligence Sergeant (Sergeant First Class)
Communications Sergeant (Sergeant First Class)
Communications Sergeant (Staff Sergeant)
Medical Sergeant (Sergeant First Class)
Medical Sergeant (Staff Sergeant)
Engineer Sergeant (Sergeant First Class)
Engineer Sergeant (Staff Sergeant)
Weapons Sergeant (Sergeant First Class)
Weapons Sergeant (Staff Sergeant)

Regional Orientation
Each SF soldier is assigned to one of five SF Groups. Each Group is responsible for several missions in a designated area of the world, or area of operations (AO). The SF soldier closely studies his Group's AO and trains to the unique demands of this area of the world.

Intercultural Communication
The SF soldier learns a foreign language and works closely with the indigenous people in his Group's AO. Unlike the conventional soldier, the SF soldier is often called upon to interact closely with, and live under the same conditions as, people of a foreign culture. Not only does he perform his job expertly, he also serves as a representative of the United States.

Missions and Collateral Activities
Soldiers in general purpose units train for conventional warfare; in contrast, SF soldiers are called upon to accomplish a wide variety of unconventional missions;l The SF soldier serves in the roles of teacher and helper, as well as warrior.

SF plan, conduct, and support special operations in all operational environments. The US Army organizes, trains, equips, and provides SF to perform seven primary missions:

1. Unconventional warfare

This represents a broad spectrum of military and paramilitary operations, normally of long duration, predominantly conducted by indigenous or surrogate forces who are organized, trained, equipped, supported, and directed in varying degrees by an external force.

It includes guerilla warfare and other direct offensive and low-visibility, covert, or clandestine operations, as well as the indirect activities of subversion, sabotage, intelligence collection and evasion.

2. Foreign internal defense

Foreign internal defense is the participation by civilian and military agencies of a government in any of the action programs taken by another government of free and protects its society from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency.

The primary SF mission in this interagency activity is to organize, train, advise, and assist host nation military and paramilitary forces.

3. Direct action

The operations are short-duration strikes and other small-scale offensive actions by special operations forces to seize, destroy, or inflict damage on a specified target or to destroy, capture, or recover designated personnel or material.

4. Special Reconnaissance

This is reconnaissance and surveillance conducted by SF to obtain or verify, by visual observation or other collection methods, information concerning the capabilities, intentions and activities of an actual or potential enemy.

SF may also use hydrographic or geographic characteristics of a particular area. It includes target acquisition, area assessment, and post-strike reconnaissance.

5. Counterproliferation

Counterproliferation is action taken to locate, identify, seize, destroy, render safe, transport, capture, or recover weapons of mass destruction.

6. Information warfare/command and control warfare

These are actions taken to achieve information superiority in support of national military strategy by affecting adversary information or information systems while leveraging and protecting US information and information systems.

7. Counterterrorism.

Offensive measures taken by civilian and military agencies of a government to prevent, deter, and respond to terrorism. The primary mission of SF in this interagency activity is to apply specialized capabilities to preclude, preempt, and resolve terrorist incidents abroad.

In addition to the seven primary missions, SF may participate in any of several collateral activities:

8. Security assistance

A group of programs authorized by the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act, or other related US statutes. The primary SF role is to provide mobile training teams and other training assistance. Public law prohibits personnel providing security assistance from performing combat duties.

9. Humanitarian assistance

Any military act or operation of a humanitarian nature, including disaster relief, noncombatant evacuation operations, and support to, and/or resettlement of, displaced civilians.

10. Coalition liaison

This and other security activities ensure the physical security of important persons, facilities, and events.

11. Counterdrug activities

Measures taken to disrupt, interdict, and destroy illicit drug activities.

12. Personnel recovery

Activities designed to locate, recover, and restore to friendly control selected persons or materiel that are isolated and threatened in sensitive, denied, or contested areas.

13. Countermine activities

These activities attempt to reduce or eliminate the threat to noncombatants and friendly military forces posed by mines, booby traps, and other explosive devices.

The SF Soldier

The SF soldier spends a great deal of time preparing for missions and training exercises. He studies to maintain his MOS and language skills and analyzes his Group's AO. When he does deploy, he may find himself living in conditions that most Americans would consider austere at best. The work is physically and mentally demanding and frequently extends for long periods of time.

Team members work closely together and rely on each other for long periods of time, both during deployments and in garrison, developing close interpersonal ties, team cohesion, and esprit de corps. The sense of community and support among soldiers and their families is generally considered higher in SF than in the Army as a whole.

Selection

Those seeking to become a SF first attend a 3-week SFAS (Special Forces Assessment and Selection) program at Fort Bragg, NC. The first phase of this rigorous program assesses physical fitness, motivation and the ability to cope with stress. The second phase assesses leadership and teamwork skills. Fewer than 50% are selected for SF.

Training

Those seeking to become Medical Sergeants come from diverse backgrounds. Some have medic, corpsman, or paramedic skills. Others have no previous medical background.

Medical Sergeants in the SF undergo about 8 months of training in the general SF skills of weapons, communication, engineering, and language training, plus an additional 10 months of medical training.

The medical training is divided into two sections: SOCM (Special Operations Combat Medic) course, and SFMS (Special Forces Medical Sergeant) course. Together, they last 44 weeks. Most of this time is spent at the JSOMTC (Joint Special Operations Medical Training Command) at Fort Bragg, NC.

Medical sergeants are specialists in many different areas of human and animal physiology. Medical sergeants specialize in trauma management, infections diseases, cardiac life support, and surgical procedures and learn the basics of veterinary medicine. Both general health care and emergency health care are stressed in training. Medical sergeants provide emergency, routine, and long-term medical care for detachment members and associated allied members and host nation personnel. They train, advise, and direct detachment routine, emergency, and preventive medical care. They establish field medical facilities to support detachment operations. They provide veterinary care. They prepare the medical portion of area studies, briefbacks, and operation plans and orders. They can train, advise, or lead indigenous combat forces up to company size.

A Team