Perishable Skills in SF
When I was in 1/10th SFG(A) back in the 90s, we had a month dedicated every year to teaching, developing and practicing winter warfare skills and techniques. This was important because all three battalions of our Special Forces Group was regionally aligned to operate in all of Europe and that meant we had to be prepared to operate in mountainous regions such as the Alps or the Fjords of Scandinavia. For that reason we had to learn not only how to survive in snowy conditions but also how to fight and win. Much of this training was just down right fun, be it learning how to cross country ski or travel via snow mobiles, but there was also a very important tactical component to it that required training and practice to develop.
Since the GWOT began, all of the SF Groups have been very busy operating in Afghanistan and Iraq – a region that only 5th Group is regionally aligned and trained for. This has required every team that rotates through the region to learn new skills, culture and languages that they normally aren’t trained for, and this has been going on for over eight years now. Unfortunately, many of those regional specialty skills are quite perishable, especially language skills. So it made me happy to see members of my old SF Group out in the snowy Rocky Mountains training hard in winter warfare between rotations. Even though these winter skills apply to certain parts of Afghanistan and northern Iraq, it’s very easy to see how over the years they could be ignored in favor of focusing Central Asia-oriented skills.
Read more at the USASOC PA blog…