Original subtitles

[gunshots]

- Hey, get one of your guys to run down

and reset the plate rack.

[dramatic music]

♪

- Yeah, I think that’s better, three.

- Finish on the blue target.

♪

Good on the right? Good left?

♪

- Shooters, are you ready?

[air horn blasts]

- The United States military is legendary,

a powerful presence throughout the world.

But what do civilians truly know

about the people, places, and history

behind this institution?

All right, let’s rock it.

My name is Remi Adeleke.

As a Navy veteran, I’ve had the honor to serve my country

in ways I never expected.

- Stand by.

- Now I want to take you on a journey across America

to discover what lies

beyond the battlefield.

♪

[upbeat music]

♪

Special Ops, or Special Operations,

is a secretive realm of the US military.

These elite units operate outside of

conventional warfare all around the world.

The Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force

each have a Special Operations Command.

Fort Liberty in North Carolina

is the home of Army Special Operations,

the famous Green Berets.

Army Special Operations Command directs

over 32,000 military personnel,

and many call Fort Liberty home.

The base is also where the best of the best try out--

and then train-- to become a Green Beret.

Today, I’m at Fort liberty to go deep with the Green Berets

and learn about the role special forces have played

in the United States military history.

- Hey, Remi, very nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you, General. - Welcome to Fort Liberty.

- My first stop is to meet with

Major General Patrick Roberson,

the deputy commanding general

of US Army Special Operations Command,

to get the lay of the land.

Tell me about the history of Fort Liberty.

Was it always Fort Liberty?

- No, it was Fort Bragg and became Fort Liberty.

This has been a base since World War I.

And then, in the 1950s, that is when the Army decided,

hey, special forces, this is something that we need.

They built special forces here. This is the origin point.

- The Special Forces have many missions,

but what makes this group unique in the military

is working with people around the world on the ground,

to support them in ways that benefit both those countries

and the United States.

And this mission dates back to one of the biggest

inflection points in history.

- US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets,

they can trace their history back to World War II

and something called the OSS,

or Office of Strategic Services.

♪

In 1941, we’re on the verge of entering World War II,

but we’re very unprepared for the war.

♪

- December 7th, 1941,

a date which will live in infamy.

- The major powers are warring.

Germany at this point has utilized

special operations forces very successfully,

and incorporated them into their blitzkrieg tactics,

and have overrun most of Europe,

and they’re pressing into Russia.

Things are very, very grim for the Allies in 1941.

US special operations forces don’t exist at all.

President Roosevelt designates

William J. Donovan to become the director of something

called the Coordinator of Information.

Donovan is one of the most decorated soldiers

in World War I.

He really sees the need for another way of war.

And what he is doing is tapping into something

that is in American DNA,

and that is unconventional warfare.

♪

Going all the way back to the origins of the United States,

it’s something that follows through

with Francis Marion in the Revolutionary War,

the light infantry in Washington’s army.

Donovan understands that we have a past

of unconventional warfare, and wants to tap into that.

The ideal candidate for an OSS person

would be a PhD that could win a bar fight.

Somebody that was uber smart, but incredibly tough.

They took people from all walks of life--

American life as well as foreigners.

Remarkable individuals that changed the course

of World War II.

[explosions and gunfire]

- [speaking German]

- In 1944, it’s a titanic struggle across the globe.

160,000-plus troops,

large numbers of planes, paratroopers

are all directed at Normandy.

This is the greatest invasion in history, D-Day.

♪

But a critical component to this

is the OSS’s Operation Jedburgh.

- The Jedburghs were very small teams,

two, three, or four in each team,

who were parachuted into occupied Europe

on the eve of D-Day

to link up with the resistance fighters in France

and in the low countries.

♪

Each team had maybe three nationalities--

an OSS member from the United States,

a British member of the Special Operations Executive,

and then a member of the French or the Dutch

or the Belgian resistance.

♪

Their mission was basically to

attack German lines of communication,

drawing a large number of German troops

to try to find them and eliminate them,

which meant that those German forces were

not available on the front line.

- And they are causing chaos behind the lines,

derailing trains,

providing intelligence,

tying up large numbers of German forces.

[twangy apprehensive music]

- It was an important mission, but it was carried out

by very few people.

The total number of Jedburghs was, I think, about 300.

♪

Their mission was essentially over within three months

because all of the territory in which they were operating

had been overrun by the Allied Invasion Force.

♪

- After the war, these men are the heart of

what becomes the Central Intelligence Agency

as well as Special Forces.

♪

- You know, after World War II,

a lot of these units like the OSS

kind of divided, became part of the CIA.

Then during Korea, during the Cold War,

noted that, hey, we need a force that’s capable of

doing unconventional things, deep raids,

direct action missions.

We need to build back

a permanent Army Special Operations Force.

And we’re out there competing every day with our adversaries

around the world.

At any given time, in this command,

probably between 3,000 and 5,000 members of the command

are deployed forward, 70 to 80 different countries.

- Yeah.

- Remi, I hear you’re a Navy man.

I know this. A Seal, even. - Yes, sir.

- But Army-Navy game, Boston this year, coming up.

Are you ready? - Ah, Navy’s gonna take it.

- Navy? I don’t know about that.

- How about we warm ’em up for it?

- Let’s do it. Let’s do this.

OK. - Oh, that was a bad one.

No spiral on that. - There we go.

- Basketball was my sport. [laughter]

I don’t think Peyton would be pleased with this.

[laughs]

- The path to becoming an Army Special Forces soldier

starts at the John F. Kennedy

Special Warfare Center and School

at Camp Mackall, part of Fort Liberty.

People from all parts of the military,

and even some people with no military experience,

go through a grueling physical and mental assessment,

with only the best of the best selected to move on.

The school is named after President Kennedy

because he recognized the need and potential

for Army Special Forces at a pivotal time.

♪

- John F. Kennedy had been a real proponent of

the Special Forces.

He is the one that made their green beret

their official headgear.

He gave speeches saying, this is the wave of the future,

to learn how to fight unconventionally.

- This division is performing a most vital function.

The United States of America has obligations and alliances

which stretch around the world.

- Many people at that time were expecting

nuclear World War III to break out.

And so, this was seen as an alternative form of warfare

that the US should learn how to fight.

- Training to be a Green Beret is a long way off

for those who are just starting out.

There are a couple of hurdles to get through first.

- So we’re coming up to the first gateway

into the pipeline.

The Nasty Nick is one of the series of events.

And the purpose is to assess and select candidates

to entry into the Special Forces Qualification Course.

- So most candidates pass this course?

Or what would you say the attrition rate is on it?

- Throughout the entirety of the course,

we’re looking at about a 30% select rate.

♪

So it’s common, when we have distinguished visitors,

to invite them to run the Nasty Nick.

So it’s our gift to you in your experience here.

We have a cadre of men here.

They will run the course with you

and challenge you to keep up.

- All right, let’s rock it.

[intense rock music]

♪

Why you guys wear helmets?

At our old course, we don’t wear helmets.

If we die, we die. [laughter]

[upbeat music]

♪

Good job, fellas. Gave me a run for my money.

- Welcome to Camp Mackall. - Thank you, sir.

- The home of Army Special Operations Forces.

I know this must blow your mind as a former Navy Seal, right?

Where the real magic happens, right?

- Brigadier General Will Beaurpere oversees

the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.

Green Berets’ assessment and selection includes

the Nasty Nick I got to experience for myself.

There are two other paths for Special Operations hopefuls:

civil affairs and psychological operations.

- We’re looking at the physical capability,

their ability to assimilate and demonstrate a skill.

And then, finally, we measure their ability

to work as a team.

So every one of our special operators,

whether they’re gonna be a Green Beret,

a Civil Affairs soldier, or a PsyOp soldier,

will go through a language

and regional and cultural expertise program.

Because our job, ultimately,

is about working with Indigenous partners overseas.

- Let’s talk about PsyOps. - Yep.

- Let’s talk about Civil Affairs,

and how they play a role in what SF does

and what the guys do as far as training partner forces.

- So Civil Affairs soldiers, we’re really looking

more at cognitive skills and their ability to interact

with a partner or the interagency, right?

Because Civil Affairs fundamentally

are about civil military relations.

Psychological Operations are a little bit different, right?

This is about influence.

- Yes, some jobs require a hammer,

some jobs require a scalpel.

And they’re the scalpel.

- The Special Forces, they are unique in the US military

in that they’re intensively trained to understand

countries, cultures, speak their languages,

and really learn how to operate within

whatever environment of conflict or unrest may exist.

♪

In 1989, the relationship between the United States

and Panama was as bad as it had ever been.

Manuel Noriega was playing both sides.

On the one hand, he was helping supply the US

with intelligence about

the South American drug trafficking cartels,

but he was actually helping to facilitate drug trafficking

and profiting from it.

On December 16th, 1989,

Noriega’s troops killed a US Marine at a roadblock.

And that was the trigger for Operation Just Cause.

- I will protect the lives of Americans in Panama,

whether they’re military or civilian.

♪

- It was the largest US combat operation since Vietnam.

- I was assigned to 3rd Battalion PsyOps

Special Forces group, which was in Panama.

The challenge was going to be finding Noriega.

- The goal was also to try to prevent

the Panamanian defense forces from

coming to the aid of Noriega.

- 50 or 60 guys were able to interdict that movement

across the Pacora River Bridge.

Those guys were studs.

♪

- Noriega holed up in the Vatican embassy for a week.

And they began broadcasting rock music.

Many of us considered it a psychological operation

because it was known that he hated rock music.

And this, it was really deafening, 24/7.

It worked in the end. He surrendered

and then was later convicted on the drug charges.

- In the aftermath of that,

every day we were getting on helicopters

and going out to these villages

and kind of trying to take their pulse to see,

were they supportive?

Kind of figure out what was needed,

whether it was water, or food, or construction materials.

Civil Affairs can be that conduit

between the US government and the local populace.

The PsyOps component of Just Cause

was creating that message for the Panamanian people

that the military was here to help.

Things like leaflet drops

and people with loudspeakers on vehicles

going through the streets.

That’s what existed, as opposed to today,

where we have social media platforms and PsyOps has

a thousand more subtle ways to message

than they did in 1989.

- This combination of Civil Affairs, Special Forces,

and Psychological Operations,

they really accomplished a lot of missions in Panama,

and were seen after that as

a valuable tool in the tool kit.

- Now that I’ve got a taste of

what it takes to become a Green Beret,

it’s time to see where newly minted Special Forces land

in the Special Forces group.

Thank you so much for having me, Colonel.

- Remi, great to host you here at 3rd Special Forces Group.

- Absolutely, this is awesome.

There are seven Special Forces groups:

five active duty and two reserves.

Each group is responsible for a different part of the world

and works directly with the people of those countries.

Colonel John Bishop is head of 3rd Special Forces Group,

based here at Fort Liberty.

- 3rd Special Forces Group is

about 2,400 United States Army soldiers.

For 3rd Special Forces Group,

we support Special Operations Command Africa.

And so we focus primarily in Africa,

but we also conduct operations quite often in the Middle East.

♪

- The core element of a Special Forces group

is called an Operational Detachment Alpha,

better known as an ODA or an A-team.

♪

Each team has 12 members

that train in a particular specialty.

Their job is to go into a combat zone,

find a guerrilla force or even willing civilians,

and train, supply, and support them in a mission.

- Each one of those teams have specialty skill sets

regarding military freefall capability

or combat dive capability, maritime capability,

mountain capability.

- So if a job needs to be done in a specific place,

that ODA will be able to get that job done

because they have everything that they need.

- Absolutely.

- There are five jobs within each ODA:

weapons, engineering, communication,

medical, and intelligence.

These jobs, known as military occupational specialties,

are divided among the 12-person teams

which can run as a self-sufficient unit

downrange.

♪

- We’ll start over here.

The Weapons Sergeant are responsible for

all the weaponeering of the team,

from our M4s, the basic 5.56 rifle,

our Glock 19s, 9 millimeter pistol.

Then we have our Mossberg here, our shotgun.

- That’s for door entry.

- Yeah, this is-- our main use is for door entry.

You know, unless you’re rolling around the bushes of Vietnam,

guys don’t generally just use this as their primary weapon.

- Yeah, yeah. [chuckles]

- This is one of our blood-carrying kits.

Our medical sergeants carry it on target.

- So with all of this gear that we just went through,

and I’m sure there’s more that a team carries,

how long can that sustain a team in the field?

- The team can operate for, you know,

long, extended periods of time

just living off your host nation relationships.

That’s really what Special Forces is big on.

So yeah, we carry out a limited amount of supply.

You can only carry what you got in your ruck.

But living off those networks that you’ve created,

living off those relationships,

that’s kind of our bread and butter.

- Those relationships with people on the ground

can be the difference between life and death

for a Green Beret,

as Colonel Paris Davis and his ODA learned

in the jungles of Vietnam.

♪

- I was one of the first people

to go into a Special Forces unit.

For me, it was the 5th Special Forces,

which was located at Fort Bragg.

♪

- The 5th Special Forces Group was formed in September 1961.

And just one year later, they were in Vietnam

to train resistance forces against the Viet Cong

and against the invading North Vietnamese.

♪

The Viet Cong were ferocious insurgents,

the North Vietnamese a formidable army.

[gunfire]

It was a very brutal, bloody guerrilla war.

[gunfire]

♪

- Our main mission was, and still is today,

to train the Indigenous

so that they can fight at our side.

- And the essence of it was really

gaining the trust of the villagers.

And this was where the Special Forces ability

to integrate into a very foreign culture paid off

and became their hallmark.

Over time, this grew,

and a total of 42,000 Vietnamese

formed into these local defense groups.

[helicopter blades whirring]

- Where we were, we were in Dien Bien province,

and it was noted to have more Viet Cong in it

than anywhere else.

♪

The Viet Cong, they had built a camp

about 30 klicks from us.

We took about 100 men, four Americans.

We’re taking machine guns, we’re taking ammunition,

with the idea that we’re going to have a big battle.

We went in, and we just sort of cleaned house.

We were out there really, really happy

that we had caught them like that.

And then we heard the bugles.

We heard the bugles.

♪

All of a sudden, the Viet Cong started coming out

in waves of people from every which way.

[machine gun firing]

The Vietnamese soldiers that we had trained,

none of them ran.

The battle lasted for two days.

My hand, you can see it’s all messed up here,

I was shooting with this finger here.

This was the only finger that wasn’t messed up,

didn’t have blood or whatever.

- During the brutal battle, Colonel Davis single-handedly

rescued several wounded Green Berets

while Vietnamese allies kept up the fight.

- Captain Davis directed the helicopter extraction of

his wounded colleague,

not leaving the battlefield himself

until after all friendly forces

were recovered or medically evacuated.

- Through the course of the Vietnam War,

the 5th Special Forces Group

gained kind of a reputation of

being on the front lines of the hottest conflicts.

And there were 20 Medal of Honor recipients

out of the 5th Special Forces group.

The Special Forces expanded dramatically

during the Vietnam War.

And then, once that war was over,

there was a contraction.

The contraction was partly natural

because the war was over,

but there was also a reaction

because it was the first war the United States had lost.

There was a period of backlash,

saying, we don’t need these forces,

we’re going to draw them down.

And that was the low point of their existence, frankly,

until the next conflict came along.

- An A-team’s work of preparing for the mission

is never finished.

I’m headed to the firing range at Fort Liberty

to dive deeper into one particular ODA specialty,

which happens to be my favorite, weapons.

[gunshots]

And brush up on my skills and get up to speed with

the latest tactical training methods

with a Master Sergeant here at Fort Liberty,

one of the best shooters in the country.

- Back here, you’re going to get a little bit more wobble.

But once you get kind of further out,

slight bend in your elbow.

Still roll that shoulder forward.

- I haven’t shot in two years.

So I’m not up to speed on this new stuff.

- Took me a long time to learn.

[gunshots]

- The Master Sergeant’s favorite way

of training his troops is to put them through their paces

in a competition of speed and accuracy.

- Usually the guys, the teams, they’ll come through here.

We start them off the first couple of days very baseline,

but then it gets a lot more advanced,

a lot of shooting and moving,

quick target acquisition, transitions.

Keeps morale kind of high, too.

And gives them something fun to do with their day,

doing some hard line training. - Banter.

- We call ’em beer shoots. - Yeah, yeah.

- But I think there’s still a lot to be learned from it.

You know, gets the heart rates going.

Gets them going against each other.

Competition breeds excellence. - Yep.

Speaking of competition, it’s time for us to face off--

best two out of three.

- All right, bro. - All right. man.

- Stand by.

[air horn blasts]

[upbeat rock music]

♪

- [chuckles]

- Good run, man. Good run.

We all know how shooting is, man.

It’s a perishable skill. - Yep.

- This is what I’m doing every day

for like, the past two years.

- Makes it easy for you to train other guys,

to get them down. - It does.

As far as shooting and moving,

I think that’s one of the biggest takeaways.

It allows guys to explore their skill sets.

- And just get better.

- All right, here we go.

- Stand by.

[air horn blasts]

[intense rock music]

♪

- Good one. [chuckles] - Good run.

- Good run, man. Good run. - Yeah, man.

It’s just taking some getting used to.

But hey, that’s why training is important.

- Yeah. I tell guys all the time when they come out here,

like, no matter how good you are at something,

you can always become better. - Absolutely.

So I’m assuming all this training has

a big impact on what happens out there in the field.

- Oh, definitely.

The stakes are higher, you know, when we go downrange.

We should make all our mistakes here,

so when we go downrange we’ve made our mistakes

and we don’t pay for it in blood.

- Yes. - Training is paramount.

- Paramount, yep.

Practice makes perfect when you get downrange

or deployed overseas, potentially to a war zone.

And no mission exemplifies that more than

the Son Tay raid in Vietnam,

one of the most famous POW rescue missions in history.

- The Vietnam War,

just one of the many struggles in a Cold War

that the Americans are fighting

against the Soviet Union as well as Communist China.

But by 1970, the war is changing.

The United States is turning the war over

to the South Vietnamese.

But American prisoners are languishing

in camps in North Vietnam.

They are suffering horrendous conditions;

torture, beatings, starvation.

There’s a desire to free these men.

- At age of 18, I volunteered for the draft.

In walks this guy with a Green Beret on.

He was about four ax handles across the shoulders,

and he was looking for volunteers.

And I thought, "You know what? If I’m gonna go to Vietnam,

I’m gonna go with the best."

So I stuck my paw up,

and that started my career in Special Forces.

♪

My buddies were telling me, "Hey, Bull Simons is

looking for volunteers."

We knew it was a rescue mission,

but we didn’t know where and who.

- Bull Simons is a key member of the planning staff

to plan this raid out.

And it’s because of his World War II training.

In World War II, Bull Simons is part of something called

the 6th Ranger Battalion.

They have to go deep behind Japanese lines

to free nearly 500 American POWs.

It’s the precursor to the Son Tay Raid.

♪

- The training was very intense.

- Almost 170 times, they trained on a POW camp

that was an exact replica of what they were going into.

- We trained with live fire.

It was at a point where

you knew the guy to your left and right,

what he was supposed to do,

and what you were supposed to do.

And you had that in your sleep.

They came in and told us to pack our bags,

we were leaving.

Bull Simons said, "Gentlemen,

"we’re gonna rescue 60 to 70 POWs.

"Chances of coming back are about 50/50,

"so if you feel like this is not for you,

then now’s the time to step forward."

And nobody did.

- The mission involves going deep behind the lines

in North Vietnam,

about 23 miles northwest of Hanoi,

where there are 12,000 enemy troops surrounding this camp

within about a 15-minute drive.

So they have mission impossible here.

They have to go in and free the prisoners,

but they have to do it within 26 minutes

because they know that within a half an hour,

thousands of reinforcements will arrive

and they will all be dead.

- We were going into the hornet’s nest

and we were gonna stir the pot.

- They travel three hours by helicopter

to this remote area.

They crash land one of the helicopters.

They breach some of the walls.

They attack the guards.

- Dick Meadows is on a bullhorn,

shouting that this was--

we’re Americans, were here to save you.

Stay down and we’ll be in.

Well, we heard nothing in return.

And that’s when I heard, "negative items."

"Items" was code word for POWs.

- The planning is exceptional.

The intelligence, for the most part, is quite good.

But the prisoners had been moved.

- It was heartbreaking for us.

- Tragically, there are no prisoners there,

but everything else goes off

exactly as they were planning it.

Excellent training had direct results.

It’s a textbook example of a Special Operations mission.

- The raid had more of an impact than Terry realized.

Years later, at a reunion,

he was able to speak to some of the POWs.

- The day after the raid,

they brought all the POWs from 13 camps

in North Vietnam into Hanoi Hilton.

And these were guys that some of them had

been in solitary, you know, three or four years.

And they were actually now having the opportunity

to help one another.

And if you talk to any POW today from that era,

they’ll tell you the best thing that happened to them

was the Son Tay raid.

[gunshots]

- We are at the range on Fort Liberty,

pretty much dedicated to training

3rd Special Forces Group.

So we have one of our shoot houses here

that we can go live in.

- While each member of a Special Forces ODA

is responsible for their specialty,

the full team must work as a tight, cohesive unit

to ensure a successful mission.

Training in a shoot house like this one

hones these skills in a high-pressure setting.

- Once every two years, we’ll do a six-week train-up,

just focusing on Close Quarters Battle, or CQB.

All right, so here’s just a general three-room set of

a live shoot house.

There are bullet traps to protect any ricochets

or any outside fragmentation.

Then, moving through here, we can go live in this house

as far as any explosive breaching,

any shotgun breaching, mechanical breaching,

anything like that.

So a common tool we’ll use is our shotgun here.

We’re focusing on the door and the lock with this.

- So why would you say it’s important to keep up on

this particular skill set?

- ’Cause, ultimately, it can save your life one day.

So you want to stay up on your tactics and techniques,

especially when you’re put in a high-stress situation.

Also, since we teach

our host nation partner forces CQB tactics,

it also helps them in their fight.

And then we’ll be alongside with them

on most of those cases.

So as long as we’re all on the same page

about how a CQB is conducted,

then we can accomplish the mission.

- Yeah.

This partnership with other nations

can be a high-wire balancing act,

clearly seen in the aftermath

of one of America’s darkest days.

[somber music]

♪

- The Special Forces, like all of us,

were watching the news

when the Twin Towers in New York were attacked.

And when al-Qaeda became known as

the perpetrators of the attack,

the Special Forces knew they were going to be deployed.

- Within days of the 9/11 attacks,

the Bush administration had decided to

go to war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan,

with whom al-Qaeda had found safe haven.

- Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda.

[applause]

- The objective of Operation Enduring Freedom,

first and foremost, was to go in and find bin Laden

and capture him.

In the process, of course,

that meant taking down the Taliban regime.

The options were launch a frontal conventional

military invasion

or use the Special Forces playbook

and link up with Indigenous forces

that had been fighting the Taliban for years.

And you had power-brokers or warlords.

The primary group was called the Northern Alliance.

Colonel John Mulholland,

who was the commander of the 5th Special Forces Group,

made a proposal that his group be sent into Afghanistan

to partner with those Northern Alliance elements.

Colonel Mulholland chose the term

TF Dagger, Task Force Dagger.

It is simply a term that represented

the Special Forces unit

that went into northern Afghanistan.

[helicopter blades whirring]

- The campaign with the Northern Alliance was

a classic unconventional warfare campaign.

The first US Special Operations Forces infiltrated

on October the 19th.

One of the most memorable episodes

in Task Force Dagger’s fight were

the missions conducted by ODA 595,

led by Captain Mark Nutsch, who linked up with

an Uzbek warlord called Abdul Rashid Dostum.

Dostum’s troops made fairly heavy use of cavalry.

And that meant that when ODA 595 arrived,

they had little choice but to mount up.

♪

Mark Nutsch was brought up on a cattle farm in Kansas

and was actually used to riding horses,

but only one other member of his team

had ever ridden a horse before.

But it all worked out fine.

- It was a further testament to their adaptability.

Overall, the operation went quite rapidly.

- Go, come on, come on, come on!

- By November, the Taliban had collapsed.

[gunfire]

- There’s really no way to view

the stunning initial successes of Task Force Dagger

as anything but a complete validation

of Special Forces training

and of unconventional warfare doctrine in general.

- The 5th Special Forces Group was actually pulled out

after these first few months.

They left Afghanistan, and they were told to prepare

for what became the invasion of Iraq.

3rd Group and 7th Group rotated

in and out of Afghanistan

as they undertook two very significant missions.

One was the building of Afghan commando forces.

♪

The second thing that the Special Forces did

was a massive effort called the Afghan Local Police

and Village Stability Operations.

And this was really a replica of the civilian defense groups

that were formed in Vietnam.

♪

- So much of the Special Forces’ work

is connecting with people and furthering a shared goal,

but it’s still important to keep up with

direct action training:

raid and ambush tactics that are the bedrock

of any boots on the ground mission.

- We’ll go outside, do a little demonstration for you.

- All right, man. Let’s do it, brother.

Appreciate it.

[intense music]

♪

- Going hot.

[gunshots]

- Going hot.

[gunshots]

[intense music]

♪

Clear. - Right there.

- All right, guys.

Let’s go and wrap up the range here.

Pick up, clean up all the targetry,

and let’s clean up the shoot house, all right?

♪

- We do a fine job of making operators here.

It takes a little bit of heart and some determination,

and you just got to know why you’re here.

- Yeah, I try to tell young people all the time,

you know, it’s not just about knowing your why.

But it’s also about having a deep-rooted emotional

reason as to why. - That’s right, yeah.

- After seeing the culmination of training,

I wanted to speak with someone who had put it into action

on a battlefield at the highest level,

Sergeant Major Matthew Williams.

- My goal had always been to do some sort of public service.

I’ve always kind of really believed that

that’s something everybody should do

in one way or the other.

You know, 9/11 obviously changed our generation, right?

It changed the way we saw the world, frankly.

And so, I found the 18 XRAY program,

which allows kids off the street

to come here and try their hand at

being a Special Forces soldier.

Our main goal is to go around the world,

help people fend for themselves

and make their lives better, and in turn, make ours better.

So I really liked the mission.

I was very fortunate

to get in 3rd Special Forces Group in 2007.

When it came to picking groups, everybody then knew

it was 5th Group and 3rd Group were

going to the war, basically. - Yeah, yeah.

- 5th group was going to Iraq.

3rd Group was going to Afghanistan.

And, you know, that’s why we were here.

So I chose 18 Bravo first.

And I ended up in 18 Bravo as a weapon specialist

right after graduating Q Course,

and ended up in Afghanistan about ten days later

on my first ODA, so that was it.

You know, walked in the team room.

Team said, hey, we’re going to Afghanistan in about a week.

And I was like, "all right." - Yeah.

- And we had the best mission in the country at the time.

We were partnered with the 1st Commando Kandak,

Afghan commandos.

Our sole purpose was to train them, right?

So as a 18 Bravo, it was immediate.

Small unit tactics, weapons handling, you know.

Everything I learned here

in the Q Course and at Camp Mackall

was immediately useful when I got downrange.

- We gather today to honor the spirit of a warrior.

He put the safety of others above his own,

ran toward danger, and met it face to face.

We thank you for Master Sergeant Matthew Williams,

an exemplar of heroism whose heart, soul,

and very life were tested in battle,

producing the stronger man we honor today.

[resonant music]

- You got the Medal of Honor. Much respect to you.

And thank you for your sacrifice and your dedication

to not just your team, but to this country.

- I mean, you too. Yeah.

It takes a lot just to get out there and do it.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- You know, I still look back on my first few trips

and the opportunities that we had

and the things we were able to do.

And I’m awestruck at how awesome it really was.

It’s kept me around this long.

’Cause I got the opportunity to come here to Swick

and teach at our combat marksmanship school,

in close quarters combat school.

Now I get to see these kids that are about to

start the journey that I went on.

And it’s motivating every day just to see them

and understand what it is they’re about to do.

- We’re going to go real nice and slow.

And I’m immediately closing the gap on him.

- William’s words prove how important the mission of

Army Special Forces is for our country and the world.

Since their founding,

Green Berets have taken on any fight,

no matter how unconventional.

♪

And I’ve seen up close

that there’s no better place than Fort Liberty

to select, train, and deploy these elite soldiers.

♪