And running throughout the story of this visit 50 years ago is the name of one very special Army officer: Maj. Gen. William Yarborough. Tell me a little bit about Bill Yarborough.

I wish I had the opportunity to spend some time with him. The transformation of special operations forces [SOF] – he was that guy. I think he had a vision for the forces.

Yarborough’s tenure as commander of the Special Warfare Center in the early 1960s is remembered with the SOF community today for its transformational ideas and events. During this period, he created “Uniteam,” which became the basis for the 12-man Operational Detachment-Alpha (ODA), which is the basic unit of the Special Forces. Can you talk a bit about this?

I think the concept is the same, though I think what he did [when he altered the ODA structure] was that he made it a bit bigger, he gave it more capability. And of course we can [still split the 12-man ODA into smaller elements] – we [often] run three to six teams [downrange].

For all of the potential and capability present in SF early in the 1960s, that wasn’t a friendly time or environment for them. Can you give us a sense of what the environment was like for special warfare personnel at that time?

It’s funny because [when] Sen. Robert F. Kennedy came to the Special Warfare School, he had been talking to Command Sgt. Maj. Sam Ruddy, and what Ruddy said was, and I’m paraphrasing, “Wars can be fought with large battles where there are a lot of dead enemy, but wars are won on days where no one dies, because if you do your job as a Special Forces soldier, you isolate the insurgent, cut him from his support, both logistically and from the people, and that’s how we win this war.” And when you look at the OSS Jedburgh teams [that dropped into occupied Europe after D-Day], they were collecting intelligence and doing direct-action kind of [things.] But I think [our] transformation came from the question of how do you promote security in governments at the lowest level? How do you build capacity? How do you have a host nation take ownership of their own security?

Not to mention making SF a “full spectrum” force able to support everything from peacekeeping to supporting “big war” operations … correct?

Exactly!

So, in your opinion, the early 1960s was not exactly the most pleasant environment for special warfare operations?

No, I don’t think it was. I was reading some papers the other night about Gen. Yarborough trying to get the Green Beret – which was a metaphor for SF – approved as the official headgear for the Army Special Forces. The story has it that Gen. Yarborough and one of President Kennedy’s aides, Brig. Gen. Chester Clifton (a West Point classmate of Gen. Yarborough’s) were talking about all the global conflicts of the time, and the global spread of communism. They thought it would be a good idea to have the president visit Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and part of his visit would be to the Special Warfare Center. It’s interesting, because Gen. Clifton and Gen. Yarborough [discussed], “Do we wear the green berets or not?” Gen. Yarborough commented that he had been unsuccessful in getting the Army to adopt the green beret as the official SF headgear. Yarborough said, “If I wear it, and the president is for it, who is going to be against it?” So on Oct. 12, 1961, when the president visited Fort Bragg and had a conversation with Gen. Yarborough, he asked him, “So how do you like those green berets?” And the general said, “We like them, we’ve been waiting to wear them for a long time.” Prior to [the president’s visit], [Clifton sent Yarborough] some kind of communication ahead of time and it said, “The president wants to see the green berets.” So that kind of greased the skids a little bit for Gen. Yarborough.

Sadly, John Kennedy only had one real visit to the facility that now bears his name, and sometimes that incident involving the Green Beret is confused with all the other things the president and the people around him did to help grow the special warfare community. As you look back on the 50th anniversary of that visit, what do you see that came from it, more than just a great looking hat?

I think it was the fact that the president, in a letter of gratitude [written] to Gen. Yarborough that afternoon, makes a comment that the green beret is, “a mark of distinction in the trying times ahead.” Six months later he writes a memorandum to the Department of the Army and he makes reference to the green beret being “a symbol of excellence, a badge of courage, a mark of distinction in the fight for freedom.” So what I think that visit did was pretty much solidify that the Army Special Forces, the Green Berets, were a very unique force to … execute unconventional warfare and also fight the global spread of communism.

It’s 50 years later now, and the revolutionary things that were done under Yarborough at the Special Warfare Center are still with us – things like the basic structure of the Special Forces A-Team, and the fact that there is an SF qualification course (the “Q-course”) with a culminating exercise (“Robin Sage”). What was it that translated and lasted into the 21st century?

As I said, I didn’t know Gen. Yarborough, but [from] everything I’ve read about him, I think his No. 1 priority was the SF soldier. I think the training of that SF soldier, the equipping of that SF soldier, the education of that SF soldier, is the same priority I have today. When I took command, people would ask, “What’s the difference between a Green Beret now and then?” and I would say, “He’s in a lot better physical condition, he’s faster, and he’s smarter.” But honestly, the more I talk, the more I go around and meet the Green Berets from Vietnam, the more I realize that we are picking the same guy. It is still the same man.