You obviously have enjoyed a high level of success in justifying the need for new SOF force structure during your tenure at USASOC and SOCOM. Based upon your own experience, once a new unit or units are authorized, what is the process of standing them up, and what sort of training and other infrastructure is needed?

The detailed work of building the unit’s requirements correctly, working through the DoD system, and then recruiting, assessing and selecting is very, very difficult. Additionally it takes years to acquire equipment, so starting from scratch to bring an unplanned unit into the ranks drives a lot of changes and priorities at the parent service level. We were lucky to get the great support we did. Training infrastructure is always a difficulty. For example, the U.S. Navy SEALS on the West Coast have been a specific problem when it comes to close-in training facilities. Any location where you have to share ranges with a much larger conventional force, like Fort Bragg [the home station for the 82nd Airborne Division and XVIII Airborne Corps], makes training facilities a problem.

In addition, the DoD processes are not built for rapidly fielding new units. It takes lots of hard work and continuing detailed planning. Think of it like this: first you need to find the soldier and get him trained, then every soldier in a new unit needs all his equipment, and nothing was in an existing program (we don’t build great warehouses of equipment just in case we decide to build new units). Then he needs SOF-unique equipment, again unprogrammed. He also needs a place to live and work, ranges and facilities to train, along with all the expendable training resources such as the right amount of ammunition, rations, and other things that go with training. It goes on and on … And, as I said earlier, it takes detailed planning, hard work, and dedicated people and cooperation.

You were a founding member of one of the most unique SOF units in the world, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the “Night Stalkers.” For the personnel who are given the mission of standing up new formations, what are the special challenges and rewards of being a “plankowner” for such a unit?

I could write a book about standing up the 160th. It grew from necessity. My advice would be, again, that the DoD processes won’t support rapid and unique unit growth well, and you have to power through the system. The good news for us was the units to build the 160th SOAR were already in being in the form of the 158th and 229th Aviation Battalions in the 101st Airborne Division [Air Assault]; it was just the mission that changed. You then have got to pick the right people to help stand it up. The type of work we were doing at that time – which was developing the TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures] to fly with primitive NVGs – was not for everyone, and we had some people leave. There is never a more important time for strong leadership. People in the ranks are always important, but those that carry the load to do the detailed staff work to power through the system when a unit is standing up are real heroes. And if you have an advocate at the highest levels it helps.

We had a mandate because of the failure of Operation Eagle Claw at Desert One in 1980, so standing up the Night Stalkers was probably easier than some other examples, although its growth until the 2006 QDR and the wars following 9/11 had been difficult. Of course with any new capability, there are parochial interests and people at all levels that will try to put impediments in your way. That certainly happened with the 160th SOAR, but the need was too great, and their capability was too unique to be stopped.

In your experience, does the standing up of new units with different capabilities from those already in existence mandate a “zero sum gain” of demobilizing existing units?

No. … Again it takes great study and hard decisions, but we need a balanced force. There is always an edict of no growth in the top line, but there was a reason we built the unit that is being deactivated in the first place, and it is difficult for me to see any unit being unnecessary that quickly. Such action should not mandated by a policy that is based on resources instead of requirements. The environment changes daily, and so do the requirements. Rules that don’t allow flexibility in the structuring of a force are not helpful. I often think I see “kiddy soccer” in DoD today as everyone chases the hot topic of the day. For instance, today it is the Irregular Warfare ball that everyone is chasing down the field. In the end, it will be a balanced force across all the full spectrum of conflict that will best defend the USA.