CONTENTS
Title Page
Foreword –
Chapter 1 – THE SPECIAL SOLDIER
Chapter 2 – DESERT WAR
Chapter 3 – ‘THE LEGION IS OUR COUNTRY’
Chapter 4 – CONFRONTING TERROR
Chapter 5 – RESCUED
Chapter 6 – HEROES OF THE SEA
Chapter 7 – 22 SAS
Chapter 8 – US SPECIAL FORCES
Chapter 9 – SCUD BUSTERS
Chapter 10 – AFRICAN INFERNO
Chapter 11 – THE SOVIETS’ GRAVEYARD
Chapter 12 – SPECIAL FORCES TRAINING
Appendix 1 – THE WORLD’S LEADING SPECIAL FORCES
Appendix 2 – SPECIAL FORCES WEAPONS
Select Bibliography –
Index –
Copyright
The Ten Commandments for Special Warfare by US Navy SEAL Richard Marcinko, 1970
1. I am the War Lord and the wrathful god of Combat and I will always lead you from the front.
2. I will treat you all alike – and like shit.
3. Thou shalt do nothing I shall not do first.
4. I shall punish thy bodies for the more thou sweatest in training, the less thou bleedest in combat.
5. Verily, if thou hurteth in thy efforts and suffer pain, thou are Doing It Right.
6. Thou hast not to like it – thou hast just to do it.
7. Thou shalt keep it simple, stupid.
8. Thou shalt never assume anything, thou wilt check it out.
9. Verily thou art paid not for thy methods but for thy results and thou wilt kill thy enemy before he killeth you, and by any means available.
10. Thou shalt bear in mind the Ultimate Commandment: There are no rules; thou shalt win at any price.
A book of this nature, revealing the inside story of so many missions undertaken by the world’s foremost Special Forces, could not have been written without a great deal of assistance, advice and expert knowledge from many people. Many of the operational details were kindly provided by those who took part but who were bound by allegiance to their colleagues not to reveal names. I readily agreed to abide by this code, for I wanted in no way to put them at risk.
I was also given great assistance by a number of defence officials and Special Force advisers working in London for governments around the world. They kindly furnished me with much of the detail of the operations in which their respective forces had been involved, and went to considerable trouble to find out, from their governments back home, the information I had requested.
In the Bibliography I have listed the many sources in which I was able to cross-check the facts of many of the operations. I owe a debt of gratitude to all of the authors.
I chose deliberately to write about some of the unsuccessful operations, even disasters, describing operational errors which too often put the lives of Special Forces soldiers in danger. Indeed in some instances men lost their lives as a result of such mistakes.
In consequence this is not simply another gung-ho epic underlining the heroism of the world’s elite forces but, I hope, a balanced account of many of the extremely demanding and dangerous circumstances in which such soldiers have found themselves. To them all, we owe more than we realise.
Nicholas Davies,
September 2002
SOLDIERS SPECIALLY TRAINED to complement the use of regular armed forces are not a new phenomenon. Military historians have come to realise that over hundreds and even thousands of years groups of highly skilled fighting men have carried out the same type of operations as are entrusted to today’s Special Forces. The Bible recounts how King David’s special soldiers carried out surprise night raids against the Philistines. In the twelfth century the Mongol leader Genghis Khan often sent bands of irregular horsemen on covert missions behind enemy lines.
During the past thirty or forty years, in response to the spread in many countries of terrorism, sedition and underground activities by disaffected groups, the tasks of the modern special soldier have become more demanding, yet his function has remained remarkably constant. Today’s Special Forces soldiers understand that the only ‘special’ part of their role are the particularly demanding tasks that their unit is ordered to carry out, the training necessary to undertake these and the character of the men performing them.
Throughout the world these soldiers are defined by the role they perform and the training they receive. Almost always they operate in small groups, frequently under cover of darkness and often behind enemy lines. They usually rely on the latest technology for both communication and subversive action. The Special Forces soldier therefore has to be skilled in the latest military techniques, which he uses mainly in reconnaissance, raiding missions and other irregular operations.
But Special Forces commanders agree that what is important above all else about this breed of soldier is the character, the quality of the man. Many of them believe that such soldiers are adventurers at heart, men who, having volunteered to take part in daring, front-line actions, can face the prospect of death or injury with equanimity. They look for men who have certain basic qualities – courage, intelligence, tenacity, common sense and, indispensably, a sense of humour.
Colonel Charlie Beckwith, the founder of America’s Delta Force, put it this way, ‘I had to articulate that before a soldier could become a good unconventional soldier he’d first have to be a good conventional soldier. He had to understand what a rifle squad was all about, what a platoon could do, what a rifle company needed to know. You can’t be unconventional until you are conventional first.’
Basic advice to American Special Forces soldiers was laid down in 1759 and remains much the same today. Indeed the original list of instructions is still displayed in some barracks of the US Rangers:
1. Don’t forget nothing.
2. Have your musket as clean as a whistle, hatchet scoured and sharp, sixty rounds of ball ready. Be ready to move at a minute’s notice.
3. When on the march, act as if you are hunting a deer. Get your shot in first.
4. Tell the truth on what you see and do. The army depends on us for information. Never lie to a Ranger officer.
5. Don’t take any chance you don’t have to.
6. When on the march go single file, far enough apart that one shot won’t kill two men.
7. On soft ground, spread out so it’s hard to track us.
8. When we march we keep moving until dark, so the enemy can’t get at us.
9. When we camp, half sleep while the other half watch.
10.