Reclining on the mountain slope in a battered Toyota Land Cruiser, instructor James Asti chats idly with the Gunny behind the wheel about war, politics and what the Marines ahead are doing to get up this damned hill.
Hurtling downhill earlier in the morning—bouncing over rocks and violently swerving to dodge trees—had been easy by comparison.
The ground had been so frozen overnight that to Asti’s surprise, the trail’s ice puddles barely cracked
under the weight of the Toyota convoy. “I’d imagine these guys in front of us would’ve busted ‘em up by now,” he said. Instead, the tires just punched shallow craters like the puddles were made of shatterproof glass.
But that was two hours ago, and the rising sun has thawed the ice, turning the slope into a muddy lesson on the pitfalls of navigating harsh terrain. Winching a 4x4 truck uphill, tree-to-tree, 20 yards at a time, is not something a special operator wants to be doing while being pursued by enemy forces.
Pointing with his walkie-talkie, Asti explained that the Marines ahead are letting some air out of their tires to overcome an especially large clump of rocks. “They’re gonna drop pressure to improve the contact patch, to give the rubber much more grip with the rocks.”
“We teach people to take out about a third on average if they don’t have an air compressor with them ... otherwise, if you take too much out then you can’t go more than about 15 mph [when you’re back on a paved road].” Again, the specter of being pursued. The MARSOC team on this western Virginia hill was getting ready for operations in Africa, and that’s about as specific as they asked SOTECH to be with regard to their unit and destination.
At this point, Asti—a mustachioed Navy veteran and co-founder of the offroading Back Country Driving School (BCDS)—shared his opinions on mixing cheap air compressors with GWOT, and in the process pretty well summed up why SOF is contracting with niche-market trainers like BCDS.
“... and you wind up with $45 compressors and they’re not even worth the space to ship ‘em to Africa. We live in a very technical society and we seem to think big money or high technology is the answer to everything,” Asti said. “I don’t know how else to say it, but for God’s sake, our enemy is fighting us from horseback! And what we’re finding out is the most effective way to fight today’s enemy is these small, 12- to 15-man teams.”
The Gunny fits the archetype for a leader of one of those elite teams: handsome, laconic and wearing wraparound sunglasses. He stood out earlier as the only guy carefully taking notes with a camera as Asti demonstrated the rollover, recovery and field repair of a rollbar-equipped pickup truck. Contemplating his return to Africa, the Gunny spoke of the bigger picture. “The stuff my guys are doing, we’re fighting the war that’s five or ten years out. We’re keeping another Afghanistan or Iraq from happening when my kids are wearing the uniform I’m wearing.”
Precision Training
BCDS is just one of a variety of boutique training companies supporting USSOCOM’s expanded role in the GWOT. Other sought-after skills training spans tactical radio communications, tactical breaching, combat trauma medical training, aggressive driving, and foreign language and cultural awareness training, according to recent contract awards and solicitations.
USSOCOM’s solicitations often contain explicit requirements to be met. The breaching solicitation, for example, stipulated vendor-provided concrete block training houses and support for mechanical, thermal, ballistic and explosive breaching methods. For its Special Forces Qualification Course, USASOC required “communications support, role players, guerilla chiefs, opposing forces, and observers and controllers. Many of the roles will require personnel with highly specialized training and SF qualifications.” USASOC also solicited “tactical high desert predeployment training” on a site within 50 miles of the Army depot in Hawthorne, Nev., because “the terrain there most closely resembles southern Afghanistan.” Skills to be learned included “ATV driving and horse-back mobility; shooting at moving targets and shoot-on-the-move instruction; door breacher training; training in recovery of vehicles from water; IED simulation and scenarios.”
Asked about the specificity of these contracts, a USSOCOM spokesman told SOTECH that its goal is to tailor the training to the mission. “The special operator executes missions around core tasks such as counterterrorism, special reconnaissance and civil affairs operations, to name a few, and therefore must train to these unique missions,” the spokesman said. “The extent to which we are aware of companies capable of fulfilling our requirements comes from the market research we do combined with responses we receive to an open synopsis of our requirements on the FBO [Federal Business Opportunities] Web site.
“If there is only one or a few companies that can provide the products or services required ... noncompetitive actions are permitted if the situation warrants it and a noncompete is justified to the satisfaction of the command’s senior leadership and competition advocate in accordance with [FAR and other] regulations.”
Put less formally, USSOCOM explained, one of the key values of SOF is that they’re adaptable to any terrain, environment or culture. SOF can get into any area and work by, with and through the local people. Where precision-level training for uncommon skills may not exist within DoD, specialized contractors or training companies often exist to teach those skills. Private enterprise seeks to make money by identifying and meeting these emerging needs, so they often build custom courses quickly or on-the-fly in order to market them to SOF.
Blackwater USA is one of the largest such companies, and its Moyock, N.C., site offerings include 38 ranges, three driving tracks, 500 training vehicles, four shoot houses, lodging, dinning and a full service armory. In 2006, the company instructed as many as 1,500 SOF personnel, according to Jim Sierawski, Blackwater’s vice president of training. “Few of the courses offered to the SOF community are on the GSA schedule, mainly because they are custom courses that are built specifically to the needs of the customer,” he said. Courses offered include advanced marksmanship training with pistol and M4 rifle, fire and movement, vehicle bail out drills, force protection, protective services detail, counter assault team, military operations in urban terrain, motorcade procedures, convoy operations, beyond normal limits and evasive driving techniques.
“The majority of the training performed is live fire. However, portions of the training utilize Simmunitions’ FX marking system and live role players. The force protection course has become the standard for SOF in supporting roles with close quarters battle, small unit tactics in an urban environment, PSD and vehicle counter-ambush training being on the increase for operators,” Sierawski said. “With a full time contingent of instructors from special operations communities around the globe, we have an experienced pool of subject matter experts from which to draw and apply knowledge, develop first class tactical training schedules and create realistic and demanding classes that impart knowledge through practical application.”
Pony Up
The USSOCOM spokesman said the decision to outsource training comes from the components, often at the unit level.
A USASOC training official—interviewed on background only for SOTECH—illustrated how special training needs are funded. Because of the mountainous terrain, special operators in Afghanistan often ride horses or pack mules instead of driving Humvees. Doing so requires a level of training that those special operators don’t normally have, because the qualification course at their school didn’t include becoming expert horsemen.
To acquire the capability quickly, USASOC might turn to a private contractor to provide training in horse handling and riding. Such a case would be considered an unfunded requirement because it wasn’t identified a couple of years in advance and put in the program budget. The funding then would come from USASOC’s own training budget. If the component doesn’t have the funds for that specific training, they’ll bump the request up to USSOCOM. In most cases, USSOCOM said, if the component’s unit say, “We need to be able to do this,” and the request has merit, then they will likely “pony up” the funding.
Word of Mouth
Few training contractors out there have the media exposure of a Blackwater-sized company. Many of them, especially the smaller businesses, say they mainly rely on referrals from satisfied SOF customers.
Ivor Wigham, president of the European Rally School of Florida, said his company got its start with SF from Fort Bragg in 1999. “They came down to see the site before we opened, so we’d already got courses booked in and basically started training special operations guys from day one.”
Wigham said the school’s driving courses are listed on the GSA schedule for DoD’s contracting convenience. “They can go on GSA and pick up our courses and all our prices are pre-approved so we don’t have to bid it. It takes about nine months to get [GSA listing], a lot of jumping through hoops and responding to paperwork but once you’ve got it, it’s like a feather in your cap for credibility.”
Yet Wigham insists that most of his business comes from word of mouth, not GSA. “One unit passes it onto another unit, or it comes from somebody in charge of mobility training who wants to put all his guys through the year, as is what’s happening with SEAL teams,” he said. “They like what we do.”
According to Wigham, the school won a five-year contract after two SEALs secretly audited his courses. “We didn’t know [they were SEALs]. Two of the people in the group turned out to be a master chief and a chief who were in charge of mobility training, one from WARCOM and one from the teams, and they attempted to vet us and had a meeting with us at the end of the course.”
Up High
Like many veterans who own small businesses, Air Force pararescueman Rod Alne put his own proven military capabilities to good use upon retiring from active duty. In 2003, Alne founded The Peak in Butte, Mont., as a place to train special operators how to cope with the environmental stresses of austere, high-altitude, mountainous theaters like Afghanistan.
Alne had served in Afghanistan and had seen firsthand the needs there. “I know the special ops mission and the type of requirements and equipment needed for success.”
Though The Peak isn’t on the GSA schedule, Alne said it is listed with the Central Contractor Registration (CCR), the database of basic business information for contractors that want to do business with DoD. Alne said besides word of mouth, The Peak’s Website is its main way of getting information out. “We train mostly with the Air Force’s pararescue and combat control teams. Our biggest challenge now is breaking through to the Army, Navy and Marines,” he said.
BCDS President William Leaman said his company is still exploring how best to effectively market to the government. “We started active marketing and making the calls and searching through the command structure at the various bases to identify groups that would need this sort of training and be interested in it. But we’re happy to announce that as of February, BCDS is now on the GSA schedule.”
Regarding the benefits of word of mouth versus GSA schedules, USSOCOM officials said that any methods of publicizing capabilities or services can be successful. “SOCOM contracting officers are bound to ensure a company that seeks to do business with the command is registered in the CCR; aside from this Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requirement, SOCOM does not mandate or encourage industry to follow a specific venue or approach. SOCOM utilizes the acquisition strategy that best fits the requirement.” Pat Goodale, owner of PFT Consulting LLC, said good connections within the often insular SOF community are helpful both to DoD and its contractors. With a 110-acre site in Lewisburg, W. Va., PFT has offered firearms and specialized tactical training to SOF since 1992. The site has three primary ranges and a live fire, 360-degree shoot house.
BCDS and PFT have formed a joint venture to offer combined driving and shooting package. BCDS owns a 100 acre training facility adjacent to the PFT site described. This facility features classroom space, an engineered obstacle course, and driving terrain that ranges from gravel road to unimproved road, to rugged rocky trails.
Goodale, a retired Marine officer who headed a special operations unit, said he makes use of lifelong contacts he established within SOF.
“Requests come from my former associates who continued through the career progression and came into positions of authority. They’ve worked with you, they trust your judgment and your abilities,” Goodale said. “They will contact me commonly by phone, occasionally by e-mail, and they’ll say, ‘We’ve got this requirement, are you available and can you accommodate us?’”
Special Operations Capable
BCDS’ Leaman said the current OPTEMPO makes it difficult for SOF both to sustain training and to maintain its own well-trained instructors.
“Right now, I think they need all hands on deck performing the mission. Committing that number of people to stay here and be trained up ... is part of the driving force [behind outsourced training],” Leaman said. “We keep a continuity of the information in the training program that’s not subject to being redeployed or transferred to other bases, plus we’re incorporating the lessons learned from the program and using that to revise our instruction.”
PFT’s Goodale described experienced contractors as a valuable resource to help SOF meet its critical needs. “If you take a look at the way the current war is being conducted, contractors have a real role to play. Sometimes that role gets misinterpreted in the media, but the active force structure is small and tightly focused. There are a lot of talented people who are formerly active in the force structure who are out there and there’s no reason to not use that significant national asset.”
“My instructors get a lot more contact time with the training than the customer typically gets. [Operators] get to a certain plateau and they’re so busy doing missions that there’s nobody to assign as a training officer that can teach them [on that level],” Goodale said. “We can offer a compact timeline of leading edge stuff to an operator who’s just rotated back from a tour somewhere, who’s had his face in the dirt and hasn’t had a chance to be exposed to some of this stuff. Wigham echoed Goodale’s views, and said the Navy SEALs who audited his rally driving course were quickly convinced. “At the first day, they abandoned the idea of going back and training their own people. It’s hard to teach it because you can’t come here for two days or even a week and then go back and teach it like we can teach it. Wigham’s school’s 430-acre site features 22 miles of all-surface, obstacle tracks for all manner of vehicle. “A normal [weeklong] SOCOM course would be Monday for front wheel drive, Tuesday would be pickups, Wednesday would be rear wheel drive, Thursday would be SUVs, and Friday would be all wheel drive cars. Then Thursday night we do night vision on all tracks with all vehicles. We get Army Rangers in as well and they’ll maybe do a four-day course with three days of driving and one day of ATVs.”
Wigham said the school is partnered with Polaris Industries to use its Sportsman 700 and 800 ATVs, as well as the specialized military version, the MV 700.
Though many of the limits The Peak pushes are physiological, Alne said Butte’s unique terrain also offers ideal mountain driving conditions for SOF training with ATVs and motorcycles. “It’s wicked; it fits right into where they’ll be operating. A lot of them just get to train on a track, or up and down the runway or basic stuff around bases like [Fort] Bragg. Here, you’ve got the elevation, the rocks and the steepness to really put alternative transportation skills to the test.”
Alne said The Peak teaches how to deal with high altitude and its effects, but also a variety of movement techniques in that environment. “We’ve got three drop zones: one at the airport at 5,600 feet, one at a ranch at 6,500 feet, and another at 8,000 feet. Training is customized to the group based on their needs. So typically we’ll do some jump training with the SOV-3 high altitude parachute, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, two days of pack animal training, three days of snowmobiling, then four days ice climbing and mountaineering at 10,000 feet—mixed in with that a lot of classes on avalanches, environmental thermal injuries, altitude illnesses, techniques for acclimatization and high-altitude nutrition.”
The mountain elevation of Afghanistan averages about 10,000 to 14,000 feet high, Alne said, but special forces have been known to go as high as 18,000 feet on some missions.
The Peak partners with the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Army, among others, to research prevention and solutions for high altitude sicknesses. “Our special forces are mostly at sea level or on the coast and have a short span of time that they’re alerted [for deployment], so they have problems with acclimatization,” Alne said. “It takes time and that’s something they don’t always have with the sensitivity of some of these missions and they can get acute mountain sickness or, even worse, high altitude pulmonary edema or cerebral edema. All of those take the effectiveness of the team away. Cognitive skills, decision-making, things like that all deteriorate because of not being acclimatized to that altitude.”
Alne said The Peak and Colorado Altitude Training have developed mobile field hypoxia rooms special forces can use to help rapidly deployed teams acclimatize during predeployment and later the deployment site or the FOB to maintain acclimatization. “By using the hypoxia rooms, we’re able to fit their schedule and use their base location as a predeployment staging area for high altitude operations to train before they go.
Though high altitude training is The Peak’s primary focus, Butte is also a mining town with caves and tunnels not unlike Afghanistan. Alne’s company offers tactical confined space and structural collapse rescue training through its subcontractor The Roco Corporation.
“We’re able to use the mine shafts and tunnels to learn the threats—which fits right in with OEF—and to teach SOF how to use various rope systems to work in confined spaces, how to fight close-quarters battles and how to retrieve a casualty.”
USSOCOM recently announced on the FBO site its intent to award a sole source, firm fixed-price contract to The Roco Corporation.
Contractor Comms
Though overcoming formidable terrain in Afghanistan is a big focus for SOF, a recent announcement by a U.K. contractor illustrates how Iraq presents a different set of challenges.
The U.K.-based Pilgrims Group recently disclosed that its instructors—former SAS Signal Squadron members—have been training U.S. tactical communications specialists in Iraq to operate Harris Communications high frequency radio systems.
“[They provided] technical support and training in high risk regions,” said Mark Whyte, director of operational planning. “Under normal circumstances you would have civilian technical personnel to do this, but due to the demanding aspects of working in Iraq they needed to have people who were not only highly trained but who could look after themselves in extreme conditions. The main challenge is the extreme operational environment, the heat, and working in a place where you’re getting mortared, can’t travel around easily, basically working in one of the most dangerous military environments there is.”
Civilian or military, the field expedient vehicle repair taught by BCDS could save lives and missions in Iraq or elsewhere.
“We put together a program that would appeal to anybody who’s lived on pavement all their lives and is going to be operating a vehicle overseas in harsh and remote terrain,” Leaman said. “[Special operations] teams are traveling without a lot of logistical ‘tail.’ They’re heavily dependent on vehicles, and breakdowns and field failures are a serious issue. We have a large component of basic vehicle systems, the type of failures they’re likely to see, and the emergency repairs they can make with a minimal set of tools. A good example of that would be fixing brush damage or holes in a radiator. With brush damage or fluids leaking out of the radiator, you’re not going to go far. We teach a technique for using just basic hand tools, patching off the damaged part, sealing it up with even something you might find in an MRE.”
The Gunny’s convoy back at BCDS’s site near Winchester, Va., eventually succeeded in climbing the muddy hill and completing its mission, as well.
“Man! I have never driven anything like that in my life,” said the Gunny, looking back down the steep slope. “But you just have to put your trust in your instructor. If he thinks you can do it, you just say, ‘Roger that,’ and go.”
Brave words, considering he’d be driving that same slope again a few hours later, only with night vision goggles.
