Mike
13 October 2000, 17:52
Army Times 10/16/2000
LONG-RANGE RECON
FORT BENNING, Ga. — Staff Sgt. Chad Johnson and his surveillance team member lie as still as snipers as they watch for enemy traffic on a nearby bridge.
Hidden beneath a lightweight camouflage netting, the two soldiers melt into the thick Georgia wilderness.
About 500 meters away, the other four members of Team 3 hunker down, waiting for reports of enemy strength from Johnson and his partner which will then be transmitted back to headquarters.
Johnson and Staff Sgt. Bill Shivler rely on the sounds of twigs snapping and brush breaking to alert them to enemy patrols approaching from their rear.
Similarly, a dried-up creek bed separating them from a nearby road would slow an advancing enemy enough for them to make a quick escape if they were spotted.
But, as useful as terrain is to a long-range surveillance team, it can also be equally unforgiving.
The night before, Johnson, the patrol leader, had to pull the position back more than 100 meters, because the dense thicket around the bridge they were scouting made it impossible to get as close as they wanted and still avoid detection. As a compromise, the team chose to settle for observing traffic as it crosses a clearing just before the bridge.
“The only thing is, if there is anything on the bridge protecting it, they wouldn’t see it,” said Staff Sgt. David Henry, an instructor at the Long-range Surveillance Leaders Course. Henry was tagging along with Johnson’s team, evaluating their performance on the final student-led field-training exercise. “This is a hard puppy to recon.”
For Johnson, the lessons he has learned here far surpass those he has learned while serving in a long-range surveillance team in the 25th Infantry Division for the past year.
Like the long-range reconnaissance patrols common during the Vietnam War, soldiers in these specialized units operate in six-man teams deep behind enemy lines with little or no support for their five- to seven-day missions.
“It’s a lot of pressure because you are on your own. You have a lot of responsibility,” Johnson said.
The 33-day Leader’s Course focuses on detailed mission planning, land navigation, high-frequency communications and vehicle identification — skills that are crucial for surviving such high-risk operations.
And while there is no tab or badge given upon graduation, many experienced soldiers consider this course one of the Army’s best combat schools.
“You just can’t beat it,” said Master Sgt. Carey Smith, a member of 7th Special Forces Group and the student first sergeant. “A lot of guys don’t like it because you don’t get an award for it. It’s not a sexy course — you’re out here, you’re in a bag, you’re humping. … There are only a few schools out there that are teaching combat skills.”
Soldiers in LRS units are often the only sure way a division or corps commander can know what the enemy is doing behind their lines. Such critical information often can be the difference between success or failure in combat.
The little-known course takes small-unit leadership beyond what most noncommissioned officers typically receive. It also hones individual soldier skills to unprecedented degrees.
Many of the students attending the course are Ranger-qualified, but few are experienced in the level of mission planning that goes into both the cadre-assisted and student-led field training exercises. For example, each member of the six-man team helps draft and present a detailed plan of the surveillance mission to an instructor who acts as a corps or division commander.
Nothing is left to chance. In addition to covering terrain, enemy situation and communications, students map out the easily-forgettable details such as how rally points will be selected and how they plan to cross danger areas.
“We make them write it out in excruciating detail every step of the way,” said instructor Staff Sgt. Robert Braddock.
During the evaluation of Team 3’s briefing, Maj. Doug Flohr, who played the role of a corps commander, said it’s essential that each member of the team be able to recite the mission details by heart.
“It’s real easy for me to write it and you to read it, but the six members of this team have got to know it because out there on the ground, you are not going to have anything written down,” said Flohr, the operations officer for the 4th Ranger Training Battalion, which supports the course.
Incorporating this much detail is often new to even experienced NCOs who come from infantry backgrounds where much of the planning is left up to commissioned officers.
“This course, overall, is pretty challenging,” Johnson said. “The whole planning process is a big deal. It’s not like that in normal line companies.”
Such a focus on planning, officials say, is worthwhile to any soldier involved in reconnaissance work.
“There are probably a lot of officers that can’t give the level of planning that these NCOs can after they have gone through this course,” Flohr said.
But planning isn’t the only part of the school that doesn’t tolerate poor attention to detail.
Every combat soldier is familiar with vehicle identification, but to LRS troops, it’s a skill that calls for deadly accuracy.
Sgt. 1st Class Clinton Yates, a scout platoon sergeant in the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division, learned this the hard way after failing that portion of the course. It kept him from officially graduating from the school.
Students must master 120 different vehicle types, covered in four days of instruction.
“What makes it so challenging is, you have one vehicle another one can look just like it, but one antenna can make it a totally different nomenclature,” said Staff Sgt. Carlie Bridgers, who teaches vehicle I.D.
Land navigation was what prevented Sgt. Ashley Moss of the 3rd Infantry Division from successfully graduating.
This section features both written and practical exams that school officials say are as challenging as any in the Army.
“I did well on the practical, but on the written exercise, small details are what got me,” said Moss.
Despite the setbacks, both Yates and Moss agreed they are better trained infantrymen even if they took the option of completing the course without officially graduating.
“I’m glad I got the option to stay,” Moss said, despite not earning a diploma. “For any infantry soldier, it’s a real good course to come to.”
Field exercise the real test
The real test of the course, however, comes during the graded field exercise where each team must accomplish their mission in “hostile” territory.
Opposing force units hunt for the teams from the time they hit the ground until they are extracted four days later.
As in a real operation, engaging the enemy is not an option on these missions since team members carry little more than M4 carbines and “drop-kick” Claymore mines that can be detonated with time-delayed fuses.
To avoid detection, LRS units may spend days living in cramped, cave-like holes in the ground.
These sub-surface hide sites usually provide enough room for three to four team members but only in the seated position.
Team 2 chose to dig their hide site in an eroded gully at the base of a tree.
The site required minimal digging and proved easy to camouflage once overhead cover was in place.
A smoldering mosquito coil helped to keep the bugs at bay inside the poorly lit hideout.
As they wait and watch, everything — from weapons checks to personal hygiene — is done inside the hide site. And everything is taken with them when they leave, including the special bags they carry to hold human waste. If they buried the bags, they could be detected by tracking dogs.
While in their hides, team members busy themselves with planning and transmitting tactical information. It helps keep them from thinking about claustrophobia and aching joints.
Despite such conditions, all agreed that this site was far better than the one they constructed during the cadre-assisted field training exercise a week earlier.
“We thought we were getting eaten up by mosquitoes, but the next day we saw we had dug into the side of an anthill,” Smith recalled.
The ability to hide from enemy patrols, however, means nothing if a team is unable to transmit data back to headquarters.
The course includes a heavy emphasis on long-range, high-frequency communications.
Students train on different high-frequency radios and study antenna theory and electronic warfare to learn how a signal can be detected by the enemy.
Students also are taught how to construct field-expedient antennas as well as how to trouble- shoot when problems arise.
“It’s the whole purpose that they are there,” said Staff Sgt. John Middleton, communications instructor. “It does you no good to see if you can’t tell anyone else about it.”
This is one aspect of the school that attracted Staff. Sgt. Greg Hankel, a member of the 7th Special Forces Group.
“The communications part is real good. I learned stuff in there I wasn’t familiar with,” he said, adding that regular infantrymen rarely get the chance to use high-frequency radios.
Most soldiers come to the course for the same reasons that drew them to the high-risk world of long-range surveillance in the first place. They are soldiers of the highest caliber who are drawn to jobs that involve extreme challenge and demand absolute professionalism.
“It’s not the Rambo movie. It’s not the ‘John Wayne Green Beret mission.’ It’s what I joined the Army for,” said the school’s commander, Capt. Tony Turpin, who became a commissioned officer in 1991 after spending a decade in the Army as an enlisted soldier. His assignments include service on A Team in the 12th Special Forces Group and senior observer-controller at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La.
“You find a better quality of man, one that wants to excel, one that wants to learn … who will take on that mission … they will find anything.”
To Sgt. Andy Lang, a student and a member of an LRS unit in the 101st, it’s a chance for a team smaller than a squad to make a difference in how thousands of soldiers go to war.
“It’s a big accomplishment when you do a mission for a brigade, and you get back and the commander has changed his entire plan because of what you have sent back,” he said.
LONG-RANGE RECON
FORT BENNING, Ga. — Staff Sgt. Chad Johnson and his surveillance team member lie as still as snipers as they watch for enemy traffic on a nearby bridge.
Hidden beneath a lightweight camouflage netting, the two soldiers melt into the thick Georgia wilderness.
About 500 meters away, the other four members of Team 3 hunker down, waiting for reports of enemy strength from Johnson and his partner which will then be transmitted back to headquarters.
Johnson and Staff Sgt. Bill Shivler rely on the sounds of twigs snapping and brush breaking to alert them to enemy patrols approaching from their rear.
Similarly, a dried-up creek bed separating them from a nearby road would slow an advancing enemy enough for them to make a quick escape if they were spotted.
But, as useful as terrain is to a long-range surveillance team, it can also be equally unforgiving.
The night before, Johnson, the patrol leader, had to pull the position back more than 100 meters, because the dense thicket around the bridge they were scouting made it impossible to get as close as they wanted and still avoid detection. As a compromise, the team chose to settle for observing traffic as it crosses a clearing just before the bridge.
“The only thing is, if there is anything on the bridge protecting it, they wouldn’t see it,” said Staff Sgt. David Henry, an instructor at the Long-range Surveillance Leaders Course. Henry was tagging along with Johnson’s team, evaluating their performance on the final student-led field-training exercise. “This is a hard puppy to recon.”
For Johnson, the lessons he has learned here far surpass those he has learned while serving in a long-range surveillance team in the 25th Infantry Division for the past year.
Like the long-range reconnaissance patrols common during the Vietnam War, soldiers in these specialized units operate in six-man teams deep behind enemy lines with little or no support for their five- to seven-day missions.
“It’s a lot of pressure because you are on your own. You have a lot of responsibility,” Johnson said.
The 33-day Leader’s Course focuses on detailed mission planning, land navigation, high-frequency communications and vehicle identification — skills that are crucial for surviving such high-risk operations.
And while there is no tab or badge given upon graduation, many experienced soldiers consider this course one of the Army’s best combat schools.
“You just can’t beat it,” said Master Sgt. Carey Smith, a member of 7th Special Forces Group and the student first sergeant. “A lot of guys don’t like it because you don’t get an award for it. It’s not a sexy course — you’re out here, you’re in a bag, you’re humping. … There are only a few schools out there that are teaching combat skills.”
Soldiers in LRS units are often the only sure way a division or corps commander can know what the enemy is doing behind their lines. Such critical information often can be the difference between success or failure in combat.
The little-known course takes small-unit leadership beyond what most noncommissioned officers typically receive. It also hones individual soldier skills to unprecedented degrees.
Many of the students attending the course are Ranger-qualified, but few are experienced in the level of mission planning that goes into both the cadre-assisted and student-led field training exercises. For example, each member of the six-man team helps draft and present a detailed plan of the surveillance mission to an instructor who acts as a corps or division commander.
Nothing is left to chance. In addition to covering terrain, enemy situation and communications, students map out the easily-forgettable details such as how rally points will be selected and how they plan to cross danger areas.
“We make them write it out in excruciating detail every step of the way,” said instructor Staff Sgt. Robert Braddock.
During the evaluation of Team 3’s briefing, Maj. Doug Flohr, who played the role of a corps commander, said it’s essential that each member of the team be able to recite the mission details by heart.
“It’s real easy for me to write it and you to read it, but the six members of this team have got to know it because out there on the ground, you are not going to have anything written down,” said Flohr, the operations officer for the 4th Ranger Training Battalion, which supports the course.
Incorporating this much detail is often new to even experienced NCOs who come from infantry backgrounds where much of the planning is left up to commissioned officers.
“This course, overall, is pretty challenging,” Johnson said. “The whole planning process is a big deal. It’s not like that in normal line companies.”
Such a focus on planning, officials say, is worthwhile to any soldier involved in reconnaissance work.
“There are probably a lot of officers that can’t give the level of planning that these NCOs can after they have gone through this course,” Flohr said.
But planning isn’t the only part of the school that doesn’t tolerate poor attention to detail.
Every combat soldier is familiar with vehicle identification, but to LRS troops, it’s a skill that calls for deadly accuracy.
Sgt. 1st Class Clinton Yates, a scout platoon sergeant in the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division, learned this the hard way after failing that portion of the course. It kept him from officially graduating from the school.
Students must master 120 different vehicle types, covered in four days of instruction.
“What makes it so challenging is, you have one vehicle another one can look just like it, but one antenna can make it a totally different nomenclature,” said Staff Sgt. Carlie Bridgers, who teaches vehicle I.D.
Land navigation was what prevented Sgt. Ashley Moss of the 3rd Infantry Division from successfully graduating.
This section features both written and practical exams that school officials say are as challenging as any in the Army.
“I did well on the practical, but on the written exercise, small details are what got me,” said Moss.
Despite the setbacks, both Yates and Moss agreed they are better trained infantrymen even if they took the option of completing the course without officially graduating.
“I’m glad I got the option to stay,” Moss said, despite not earning a diploma. “For any infantry soldier, it’s a real good course to come to.”
Field exercise the real test
The real test of the course, however, comes during the graded field exercise where each team must accomplish their mission in “hostile” territory.
Opposing force units hunt for the teams from the time they hit the ground until they are extracted four days later.
As in a real operation, engaging the enemy is not an option on these missions since team members carry little more than M4 carbines and “drop-kick” Claymore mines that can be detonated with time-delayed fuses.
To avoid detection, LRS units may spend days living in cramped, cave-like holes in the ground.
These sub-surface hide sites usually provide enough room for three to four team members but only in the seated position.
Team 2 chose to dig their hide site in an eroded gully at the base of a tree.
The site required minimal digging and proved easy to camouflage once overhead cover was in place.
A smoldering mosquito coil helped to keep the bugs at bay inside the poorly lit hideout.
As they wait and watch, everything — from weapons checks to personal hygiene — is done inside the hide site. And everything is taken with them when they leave, including the special bags they carry to hold human waste. If they buried the bags, they could be detected by tracking dogs.
While in their hides, team members busy themselves with planning and transmitting tactical information. It helps keep them from thinking about claustrophobia and aching joints.
Despite such conditions, all agreed that this site was far better than the one they constructed during the cadre-assisted field training exercise a week earlier.
“We thought we were getting eaten up by mosquitoes, but the next day we saw we had dug into the side of an anthill,” Smith recalled.
The ability to hide from enemy patrols, however, means nothing if a team is unable to transmit data back to headquarters.
The course includes a heavy emphasis on long-range, high-frequency communications.
Students train on different high-frequency radios and study antenna theory and electronic warfare to learn how a signal can be detected by the enemy.
Students also are taught how to construct field-expedient antennas as well as how to trouble- shoot when problems arise.
“It’s the whole purpose that they are there,” said Staff Sgt. John Middleton, communications instructor. “It does you no good to see if you can’t tell anyone else about it.”
This is one aspect of the school that attracted Staff. Sgt. Greg Hankel, a member of the 7th Special Forces Group.
“The communications part is real good. I learned stuff in there I wasn’t familiar with,” he said, adding that regular infantrymen rarely get the chance to use high-frequency radios.
Most soldiers come to the course for the same reasons that drew them to the high-risk world of long-range surveillance in the first place. They are soldiers of the highest caliber who are drawn to jobs that involve extreme challenge and demand absolute professionalism.
“It’s not the Rambo movie. It’s not the ‘John Wayne Green Beret mission.’ It’s what I joined the Army for,” said the school’s commander, Capt. Tony Turpin, who became a commissioned officer in 1991 after spending a decade in the Army as an enlisted soldier. His assignments include service on A Team in the 12th Special Forces Group and senior observer-controller at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La.
“You find a better quality of man, one that wants to excel, one that wants to learn … who will take on that mission … they will find anything.”
To Sgt. Andy Lang, a student and a member of an LRS unit in the 101st, it’s a chance for a team smaller than a squad to make a difference in how thousands of soldiers go to war.
“It’s a big accomplishment when you do a mission for a brigade, and you get back and the commander has changed his entire plan because of what you have sent back,” he said.