Dev Blog 10: Getting to Know Bax, EoE Excerpt Pt. 2

I also felt fortunate to be where I was during the era that “the Pope” was running the show. General Stanley McChrystal took charge of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in ‘03. JSOC is the nation’s lead organization for combating terrorism. And as such, Delta and a handful of other classified units -- SEAL Team Six for one -- fall directly under its command.

“The Pope,” “Stan the Man,” whatever you wanted to call him, General McChrystal proved to be the right man, in the right place, at the right time. With September 11th still a festering wound in the collective military and intelligence communities, McChrystal managed to do the impossible and unite the countless disparate entities strewn across them.

While you might expect that such collaboration existed by design -- and it does in terms of complementary capabilities -- the nature of secretive, elite units is to carefully guard their secrets because that’s the prime source of power. They jealously defend their turf and are predisposed to compete with one another rather than cooperate. However, it was those territorial rivalries that were to blame for the catastrophic negligence that allowed 9/11 to take place.

And yet it was still an uphill climb to get the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, and literally dozens of lesser-known intelligence agencies all pointed in the same direction and in synch with our nation’s special operators, unified by a common goal.

One of McChrystal’s most important allies in successfully executing that vision was his “J2” -- intelligence chief -- General Michael Flynn. Flynn championed an unprecedented fusion of ops and intel based around the F3EAD concept -- Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyze, Disseminate. Repeat.

A massive influx of networked intelligence fed into our ops. We in turn secured new intelligence with each subsequent hit, which was rapidly processed to pinpoint new targets and initiate a wave of follow-up raids. It was an endless cycle designed to relentlessly dismantle al-Qaeda in Iraq. After all, the only way we could eradicate the nebulous AQI network was by building a better, even more nimble network of our own.

24/7 drone and satellite coverage provided us with an “unblinking eye” in the skies above. This allowed, for example, footage of a car bomb to be rewound like a DVR, back to its point of origin. Intel could track a high-value individual by their observed movements, through their cellular communications, or by any other patterns that could be recorded and mapped out onto a web of relationships. Each node on that web could be similarly charted, and eventually highly detailed diagrams of various regional cells -- and their relationships up through the chain -- could be constructed. Once these webs had been found and their nodes fixed, they were actively deconstructed by the finishers. That was our role, and it was one the Unit relished.

Besides enabling us with the support and intelligence we needed, perhaps the best thing Gen. McChrystal did was hand that info off to Delta and then get the fuck out of our way and let us go to work. We were finally let off the chain and unleashed on our enemy.

The Unit constantly innovated, refined, and adapted our tactics. We actively incorporated and developed new technology. We consistently stayed one step ahead of our quarry. We hit them hard and fast. And then when they attempted to react to that by setting traps in hopes of using our speed and aggressiveness against us, we slipped in slowly and stealthily and caught them in their sleep. It was our pleasure to interrupt their nightmares with something even worse. Regardless of the specific approach, we always seized the initiative and finished decisively.

It was easily the most ambitious and audacious special operations campaign ever attempted. Easily. We’re talking night after night of brutal, ferocious combat, often waged at distances of just a few feet, for years on end. The kinetic intensity was nearly inconceivable.

We were the terrorists’ terrorists. We whacked hordes of those AQ shitbags. Eventually, the machine became so efficient that we put them in the ground quicker than they could dig up replacements. You heard about the “Sunni Awakening” and the troop surge, but JSOC is what really turned the tide in Iraq.

It all just became commonplace -- mundane even. Comical at times. Eight more EKIA (enemy killed in action) on any random Thursday night? We were just mowing the lawn. That’s industrial-scale counterterrorism, Holmes.

It was like Groundhog Day, only swap out the piano playing and French lessons for helicopter infils, explosive breaches, and repeated visits to the two-way range. Seriously, when I put my head down on my pillow each morning and closed my eyes, I couldn’t see anything but a constant scroll of brown, grey, and night-vision green. It was always the same mental imagery -- a montage of rectangular two and three-story buildings as viewed from the outrigger bench seat of a MH-6 Little Bird helicopter or a stream of tight, dingy rooms scrutinized on the move, scanning for hands and AK-47s.

Back in the days before September 11th, Delta was considered a shit-hot outfit that rarely got to play. Former Delta commander General Pete Schoomaker famously once said, “It was like having a brand-new Ferrari in the garage, and nobody wants to race it because you might dent the fender.”

Those days were barely even a distant memory in Iraq. By ‘05 we were conducting more direct action missions per week than some bona fide Unit legends had taken part in during the entirety of their storied careers in the ’80s and ‘90s. Back then, it was pretty standard for the Unit to rehearse some hostage rescue mission for weeks and weeks, only to never get a green light. The trigger wasn’t pulled, and that was usually down to political cowardice. Now we were pulling the triggers ourselves -- both figuratively and literally -- on ops multiple times per night.

Needless to say, we were totally committed to the cause. The squadrons rotated in and out in three-month stints in an attempt to keep us fresh. But guys looked for excuses to stick around in country even longer than that, just to help ease the transition and make sure the killing machine kept humming along.

And just as needless to say, the families paid the price. Relationships back home took a beating. First, we were risking our lives on a daily basis and not around. And then we weren’t around even when we should have been. And then when we were actually back in the States, we were usually either off training or holed up at the Unit’s sprawling state-of-the-art complex we simply referred to as “the compound.”

Even when we were at home, rarely we were at home. The mission consumed us. It ate up all of our capacity -- physically, mentally, and emotionally.

It wasn’t fair to the Unit wives and girlfriends, our children, our parents, or our friends. Relationships were dismantled just as decisively as terrorist cells. It certainly wasn’t easy for Jen, but unlike some of the other guys who couldn’t be bothered, I made it a point to make an effort.

Meanwhile, back at “work,” lifelong friendships were forged and became even closer under the stress of constant combat. My teammates came to feel like a second family. Tighter than family in truth. What else would you expect? I put my life in their hands every single night-- nothing figurative about it.

When we operated out of Baghdad -- which was a rather significant portion of the time -- we based out of one of Saddam’s former palaces. Located downtown inside the Green Zone, the fortress was transformed into a sort of black ops village dubbed “Mission Support Station Fernandez,” named after C Squadron Master Sergeant George Andy Fernandez, the first Unit operator killed in the Iraq War. We were bunked right next door to the Brits -- Special Air Service and Special Boat Service commandos and some of their support units. We even knocked down a shared wall and instead shared intel, stories, BBQ, and beer. MSS Fernandez was also home to a collection of Rangers, an Army Special Force CIF Company, and various OGA elements (“OGA” meaning ‘other government agency,’ which is downrange parlance for CIA spooks and the like).

In a fucked up way, it was actually a lot like some kick-ass SOF summer camp. We attempted to claw out some sense of normality in our extreme existence. After a night spent taking down buildings and balling up high-value targets (HVTs) to bring back for interrogation, we’d sleep till midafternoon. Then we’d get up, play Xbox, grab some chow, and shoot pistols on a makeshift range we set up. After that, team leaders would assemble to run through the latest intel and identify the night’s targets. We’d quickly hash through plans with the rest of the troop and then jump back on the helicopters and Hummers to set out for another multi-takedown evening.

When I could, I also liked to tag along with the Brits of Task Force Black to observe (and offer another carbine if they managed to find themselves a shootout). I got to know some of the SAS guys pretty well. I respected how they managed to operate at the level they did despite lacking some of the high-tech toys we had. They were a pretty cagey lot -- real adept at improvising. We had a healthy but (largely) friendly rivalry with the Brits. I mean, we were better than they were and they knew it, but they were damn good too.

There was one guy in particular -- we’ll call him “Epsilon” -- who was a bit of legend over there. Epsilon was from Blackburn and had this wicked, dry sense of humor. I always enjoyed having a pint with him to hear his latest story. I’d crack up trying to decipher fact from bullshit. At least what I could understand. He was from the north and was so English he barely spoke English, if you know what I mean. “Come on bloke! Speak ‘Merican!”

He kind of floated in and out of MSS Fernandez as his mission set was a bit different than ours as well as the bulk of the SAS forces. He was assigned to E-Squadron (aka “the Increment”), and in that role he generally worked alongside MI6 operatives (you know, MI6 -- British intelligence. James Bond and all that). The way he told it, the guy could disappear in a crowd -- just melt away into the local populace. How much of this was exaggeration, I have no idea, but he did always make it back with a new tale of supercharged secret agent shit with which to regale us. Like I said, at the very least, good for a laugh.

***

But you didn’t have to go looking to find extraordinary individuals at MSS Fernandez. Honestly, I never considered myself particularly “special,” at least not in that crowd. Yeah, I had something of a knack for this line of work and managed to keep up just fine, but occasionally I’d sit back and just marvel at the heroism that surrounded me on a daily basis.

Delta’s selection and training tends to seek out a certain type of individual -- iconoclasts who are both bright and fearless. Almost without exception, Unit operators are natural problem solvers... experts at becoming experts who can quickly pick up new skills and then master them. There’s also a hell of a lot of maturity compared to most infantry units, with the bulk of the men in their thirties and a significant number in their forties. Yeah, it’s a heavyweight crew of B.A.M.Fs for sure.

When you join the Unit, you willingly take on a job that is considered inherently glamorous due to its sheer pucker factor. It’s the type of thing Hollywood stars get paid millions to pretend to do, and what people back home shell out their hard-earned dollars to simulate in video games. And then you strip away all of that glamour. When we signed up for this gig, we not only accepted that most of what we did would never be acknowledged -- let alone celebrated -- we embraced that fact.

It was humbling to be in the presence of such rare patriots. And there was none finer than Michael Vincent Garriga.

Garriga -- “Castor” -- was rather quiet and unassuming, yet always quick with a smile and endlessly compassionate. He was no pushover -- he enjoyed a good debate -- but he somehow managed to tactfully inform you just how wrong you were. He had a way of making everyone feel like he was their best friend, and actively sought ways to make connections with those in his presence. That was the same for the officers, operators, and support staff in the Unit, as well as the privates in the conventional forces we occasionally teamed with. Hell, even the locals in whatever dark hole we were stuck in were Garriga’s people. We’re talking rare empathy.

While on deployment, most of us ate, slept, trained, and operated, and that’s about it. I began to notice that Mikey was slacking on our daily sessions at the range. I wanted to check in with him and make sure everything was okay -- because it was real easy for things to not be okay over there. But when I finally tracked him down, I found him laughing it up, playing soccer with a group of homeless kids who had moved into some nearby abandoned buildings in the Green Zone. He effortlessly held onto his humanity. That probably made him the rarest breed of warrior of all.

During this time, Delta was direct action-centric, to put it mildly. And its composition was slowly changing to reflect that focus, with more and more Rangers like myself coming into the fold. Mikey was with the 5th Special Forces Group before earning a slot into the Unit. He was also drafted by C Squadron and assigned to my troop one OTC class behind me. His Green Beret background showed; I have no doubt he excelled at unconventional warfare, building rapport with indigenous forces and generally “winning hearts and minds” -- the bread and butter of SF. But like the rest of us, he put his game face on when we got to the breach and it was time to live up to Delta’s motto of “speed, surprise, and violence of action.”

He had a dark complexion and straight black hair. And while extremely fit, he didn’t cast an imposing figure. He was probably 5’8” or 5’9”, 170 pounds at most. All of that tallied up as an advantage for him. His, uh, “ethnic” appearance allowed him operate more freely without drawing attention to himself in Central America -- and even the Middle East -- than was the case for the majority of the Unit’s operators, myself very much included.

Of course, his look and last name almost always led to an assumption that he was Latino. In actuality, Mikey’s dad was Spanish, which I guess makes him Hispanic, but any good-natured (or otherwise) ribbing relating to burritos or Speedy Gonzales or whatever other lazy Mexican stereotypes thrown his way were universally wide of the mark. (By the way, just how racist of a caricature was Speedy Gonzales? It never occurred to me as a kid. I guess it was a product of the times, but man, that shit don’t fly in 2013...)

Anyway, Garriga never got worked up about it and was generally too friendly or unconcerned to correct them. I always got a kick out of it. I guess it was just the fact that he never bothered to set the record straight, which led to more and more people making the erroneous assumption. I certainly derived more than my fair of pleasure helping to cement the misconception.

We were back in the States on a training rotation in early 2006. A young assaulter who had just joined our team felt immediately at ease with us due to Mikey’s welcoming nature. That lent him the confidence to do some probing while we were out on the range.

“So Castor -- what’s the deal with your code name anyway? ‘Castor’ -- isn’t that like a shopping cart wheel or something? I’m not sure that exactly redlines the intimidation factor gauge.”

Mikey just put on a bemused grin, nodded his head once, and immediately returned his sights to the target. I wasn’t going to let it die this easily. I was committed to furthering this myth.

“Yeah, you can blame me for that one. And for the record, it actually maxes out in terms of sheer bad-assery...”

The new guy pushed -- as I’d hoped he would: “Oh yeah? So come on, what’s the story?”

“Look at that dead-eyed commando,” I replied as Mikey was pouring rounds of lead into target plates in rapid fashion. “Dude is lethal as ricin. Castor here is the deadliest bean in the world.”

Which, I suppose on further reflection isn’t any less offensive than Speedy Gonzales. Another product of the times I suppose. But let’s get this straight -- the Unit is an admirably colorblind organization. It’s the ultimate meritocracy. Lame jokes aside, the only thing anyone really cares is that you can do the job. And if you can, you’re going to be valued and utilized.

As for that young assaulter -- well, he’s not so green anymore. He’s since matured into a hardened warrior with his own long list of achievements. He’s still with the Unit, so I’m not going to name any names. However, let’s just say that more than a few terrorists over the past decade have met their demise due to the exploits of budding Delta legend “Cartwheel.”

***

Okay, burdening more than one outstanding operator with an unfortunate nickname may have been somewhat juvenile, but it gave me a good laugh at the time. And that was something that had been happening less and less frequently around that time.

Following years of unremitting onslaught, Delta had most certainly left its mark on Iraq. But it was undeniably true that Iraq had left its mark on Delta as well. Here too I was no exception. Those Ferraris General Schoomaker had referred to had not only been taken out of the garage, the toll of the war had effectively totaled a whole fleet of F40s.

We had AQI -- and anyone else in our way -- hopelessly overmatched. In terms of everything that mattered on the battlefield -- skill, equipment, discipline, and strategy -- it was no contest. Ninety-nine out of a hundred times, everything went precisely to plan. And when it didn’t, we could generally adapt and improvise to force things back to plan.

Ninety-nine out of one hundred sounds like damn good odds, at least until your operations start to be counted in the thousands. At that point those one percents start to stack up really quickly. There’s nothing you can do about sheer chance -- the stray bullet with your name on it or the one bad guy who by random luck happened to be waiting in just the wrong spot at just the wrong time.

I saw far too many genuine American heroes maimed or killed and it slowly beat me down. There were far too many occasions where we assembled at dusk on the concrete patch near the JSOC headquarters at Balad Air Base to memorialize a fallen comrade. Too often I heard the bagpipes say our final goodbyes.

It might sound counterintuitive, but this didn’t make it any easier to go back to the States. My relationship with Jen and Katelyn was only further strained as I became more and more distant. I didn’t want to be there... and I didn’t want to be here. You do your best to compartmentalize everything, but there’s no preventing it from spilling over. What comforts you also kills you -- emotionally, even if not physically for the “lucky” ones like me.

I continued to do my job and held up my end, but I slowly became more and more disenchanted and withdrawn. Not so much with our mission -- although I’ll admit I did occasionally wonder about the non-stop game of whack-a-mole we were playing with no end in sight -- but simply by having to endure the constant loss of people I admired, respected, and loved like brothers. It turns out there’s a double-edged sword to being viewed as an “emotional compass.” Even if I remained tactically sound and wasn’t actively acting out or whining or anything, the tone I now set only served to deflate my squadron mates.

***

Once our deployment ended in mid ‘06, I was called back in for another office visit at the compound. I was scheduled for a meeting with not only the troop commander and sergeant major, but also the squadron commander and sergeant major. I certainly wasn’t expecting any sort of promotion this time around, nor was I in the mood for partaking in any repartee.

I fully expected to be issued my walking papers, turn in my STI .40 S&W service pistol and HK416 carbine, and be sent to some shitty post to finish out my enlistment. Selection never ends in the Unit. No matter what you’ve done in the past, if you’re no longer an asset, you’re no longer welcome. Honestly, I was not only mentally prepared for that outcome, I practically welcomed it.

As I entered the compound and started the long walk down “the Spine,” I actually took some time to study the glass-encased trophy cases that lined the corridor. Plaques, dioramas, weapons, and other memorials marked significant operations. And that collection was expanding fast. Visiting dignitaries ate that shit up. I don’t think I had even given it a second look since shortly after OTC, but I took a few minutes to admire it now, thinking it might be my last chance to do so. Even if my career in the Unit ended that day, I was convinced it was destined to be the proudest, most defining period of my life.

When I entered the squadron commander’s office, I quickly took note of not four figures but five. And despite the expected four being some of the most world’s accomplished soldiers, the fifth man dominated the room with his sheer presence. Of course, it would have been difficult to miss the mammoth 6’5”, 260lb frame and impressive mane of “tactical beard” sported by our guest speaker.

“Boy, you ready to step up to the next level?” he said in an impossibly low register. Without giving me a chance to respond, the enormous figure continued, “Well, you better be, new guy, because we ain’t fucking ‘round in the recce troop.”

Boy? New guy? For a moment I focused in on the irrelevant parts of that last sentence. New guy? At that point, I had been with Delta for nearly six years, including selection and OTC, and I’d been in special ops for over a decade.

Finally, the more pressing information jarred into my consciousness. Recce? Rather than see my career snuffed as anticipated, it turned out I had just been drafted into the Unit sniper ranks. A couple years earlier, I probably would have been disappointed. I preferred to be in the mix, not on overwatch on some roof across the street. In my head, Delta’s placement atop the warfighter pecking order had been earned through the split-second decisions of its assaulters -- decisions made while rampaging through rooms, dominating opponents as they met our gaze.

But more recently, I had taken a serious interest in the extreme-risk close-target reconnaissance work of the Unit’s snipers, funnily enough, due to my discussions with “Epsilon” of the SAS back at MSS Fernandez. It also became obvious over time that Delta’s snipers were not removed from the mix or absent from CQB either. Not by any stretch. In fact, they had all started off as assaulters and were among the most accomplished combat marksmen on the planet. And those skills were put to use so often that they -- rather, we -- were alternately referred to as “advanced assaulters.”

The thought of a new mission set, new training, new skills... it was enough to inject a bit of new life in me. In about ten seconds I had gone from mentally checked out and ready to be subjected to the slow death of a desk job to at least a scant reminder of the invigoration I had felt in OTC and our earlier days in Iraq, back when we first began to ramp up operations to the industrial scale.

There were a lot of unknowns, but none bigger -- literally -- than Boris “Bo” Berg, the man who had just informed me of my new position. Of course I knew who Berg was. Everyone in the Unit knew who Berg was. The massive C Squadron recce troop sergeant major was a towering figure in more ways than one. He was nothing short of a living folk hero inside Delta. An intensely intimidating man of Russian-Jewish heritage, Berg had a reputation for being borderline unapproachable, perpetually pissed off, and a rampant narcissist -- although I’m not sure it counts as narcissism when it’s all comprehensibly backed up and based in fact.

The guy had the technical proficiency of a magician. Everyone I knew in the assault troops admired him but most kept their distance. And we’re talking about a collection of A-types to end all A-types here, men who rushed toward the sound of machine gun fire whenever it registered.

As for the “new guy” thing, man, Berg was old school. Seriously old school. He’d been with the Unit since the late ‘80s and was closing in on his twenty years in the service -- the vast majority of which had been spent as an operator with Delta.

Back before I was with the Unit, Boris was referred to as “the Bear.” As in Boris “the Bear” Berg. You know, for the big Russian guy. With the alliterative “Bs” in his name. Yeah, it seems that trademark Unit imagination was sometimes reserved for the battlefield, and “Super Jew” had already been taken.

The boys got a bit more clever when they upgraded his moniker to “Ursa” upon his promotion to sergeant major. Get it? “Ursa Major.” Bear. Yep.

As the years clicked by, all of the senior men he looked up to when he first joined Delta had long since moved on, and few of his contemporaries were left either. And Bo had a way -- either deliberate or unintentional, innocently or with pure intended malice -- of making everyone else feel like a rank amateur. Over time, his irritation at the bumbling mistakes of the “fucking new guys” expanded until the Unit was comprised of nothing but FNGs in his eyes. And by process of elimination, that made him the resident old guy. The “FOG.”

Now that was a code name I get behind. Third time’s the charm.

I had no choice but to dive right into my new career path. In the Unit, if you’re not on deployment, you’re constantly being sent through a battery of advanced training schools to either acquire new skills or refresh old ones. But this was extreme even compared to that.

Obviously, I was immediately sent to SOTIC (Special Operations Target Interdiction Course) to quickly bring me up to the SOF standard with a long gun. And there’s a lot more to being an effective sniper than most would imagine. You don’t just put a target in the crosshairs and pull the trigger like they show in the movies. The sheer number of variables is mind-boggling; body mechanics, recoil management, muzzle velocity, ballistic coefficients (mass, diameter, and drag coefficient), distance, gravity, altitude, temperature, humidity, density altitude, barometric pressure, and wind (both the velocity and the angle -- at each and every point between where the round was fired and the intended target) all play a role.

When I say sniper, you probably think of a death dealer rather than a quick-thinking mathematician, although the latter is the reality. You need to be able to rapidly solve trigonometric equations to determine a firing solution. There are ballistic calculators to help with all of the above, but you still need to understand the concepts and be able to either instantly or instinctively run the numbers. Targets aren’t usually so agreeable as to just stand around and wait for you to do your math homework. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind back at Schaumburg High School when I decided that the Army sounded more fun than community college.

And there was a lot more to SOTIC than just math and shooting rifles, but the really advanced training didn’t begin until I returned to the recce troop. That’s where the true master class sessions take place.

Sophisticated body and location positioning, climbing techniques that would put most competition climbers to shame... I was instructed on any and every bit of black magic the Unit’s snipers had innovated over the past quarter-century that allowed us to better get into position and take out targets without revealing our location. Everything was timed, videoed, and studied. I bet we did more film work than the Chicago Bears (which might not be saying much these days, but you get my intent). And honestly, the sniping was just a relatively minor aspect of the broader recce reeducation I received under Foggy’s scowling tutelage.

While we constantly honed our long gun skills and maintained our edge in CBQ, the most intensive facet of my schooling could probably be guessed by the name of the troop. “Recce” is Brit-speak for reconnaissance, which serves as a reminder of Delta’s heritage. The Unit was founded by “Chargin’” Charlie Beckwith, a Special Forces officer and Vietnam legend who had done an exchange tour with Britain’s SAS. When he finally got the green light to build his new unit in the late ‘70s, he closely patterned Delta after the SAS and brought along much of its jargon, from “sabre squadron” to “troop” to “recce.”

There’s a reason Delta only drafts experienced assaulters into the recce ranks. Besides being expected to have world-class skills in close and long-range combat, there’s a certain maturity required to pull off the sort of borderline impossible close-target recce work that got tossed our way. I’m talking about remaining undetected while operating deep in the heart of enemy territory, whether by disguise or by stealth. It’s the sort of stuff you’d probably associate more closely with Hollywood spy flicks than real-world special operations. Occasionally, this means “singleton” assignments -- as in all by your lonesome. That’s as advanced and demanding as spec-ops works gets.