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US SPECIAL FORCES
(Click on the graphics below for links to sources)
PART I - THE GREEN BERETS
"I am sure that the Green Beret will be a mark of distinction in the trying times ahead." — President John F. Kennedy, 1961. WHO ARE THEY: The Army's elite, special forces units, known for extensive cross-training to conduct the most dangerous clandestine missions or to act as diplomats and teachers, training friendly, foreign forces.  NICKNAME: Warrior Diplomats
MOTTO: "De Opresso Liber" UNIFORM: Green berets ORIGIN: Their lineage goes back to "Rogers Rangers," the frontier soldiers who fought in the French and Indian Wars of the 1750s. Modern ties are to special forces of World War II, including the "Devil's Brigade," a joint American-Canadian force that fought in Italy and France, and "Merrill's Marauders," who fought in Southeast Asia. SPECIALTIES: Parachuting into hostile territory, surviving on their own for weeks at a time, hand-to-hand combat, learning regional languages and cultures, and using diplomatic skills to work with coalition forces. Each gets a specialty in weapons, engineering, medical care, communications or operations and intelligence. GEAR: M16 and M4 rifles, grenade launchers, M9 semi-automatic pistols, other weapons. Green Berets are trained in foreign or obsolete weapons that still are common in overseas areas where they might serve. EXTREME TRAINING: After grueling training, including sleep deprivation, they undergo a 14-day final exam known as "Robin Sage." It's a simulated setting where they have to interact with opposing armies, guerrilla forces, and local civilians. Sudden "ambushes" teach them never to let down their guard. WORKING GROUPS: Working in 12-man teams, some commando missions could be conducted by just a few Green Berets. EXPERIENCE: Southeast Asia, 1957-1975; Bolivia, 1967-68; Panama, 1989; Persian Gulf, 1990-91; Somalia, 1992; Haiti, 1994; Bosnia, 1994-present; Kosovo, 1999. HOME BASES: Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Lewis, Wash.; Fort Campbell, Ky; Fort Carson, Colo.; Camp Williams, Utah; Birmingham, Ala. HOLLYWOOD'S VERSION: "The Green Berets," 1968; "Rambo: First Blood Part II," 1985. BOOKS: "Inside the Green Berets," by Charles Simpson, 1983; "Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Asia 1956-1975," by Shelby L. Stanton, 1987; "The Company They Keep," by Anna Simons, 1997. — Scripps-Howard News Service. 
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Special Forces Prayer
__________________ Almighty GOD, Who art the Author of liberty and the Champion of the oppressed, hear our prayer. We, the men of Special Forces, acknowledge our dependence upon Thee in the preservation of human freedom. Go with us as we seek to defend the defenseless and to free the enslaved. May we ever remember that our nation, whose motto is “In God We Trust”, expects that we shall acquit ourselves with honor, that we may never bring shame upon our faith, our families, or our fellow men. Grant us wisdom from Thy mind, courage from Thine heart, strength from Thine arm, and protection by Thine hand. It is for Thee that we do battle, and to Thee belongs the victor’s crown. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever. AMEN
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The Special Forces Creed I am an American Special Forces soldier. A professional! I will do all that my nation requires of me. I am a volunteer, knowing well the hazards of my profession. I serve with the memory of those who have gone before me: Roger's Rangers, Francis Marion, Mosby's Rangers, the first Special Service Forces and Ranger Battalions of World War II, the Airborne Ranger Companies of Korea. I pledge to uphold the honor and integrity of all I am - in all I do. I am a professional soldier. I will teach and fight wherever my nation requires. I will strive always, to excel in every art and artifice of war. I know that I will be called upon to perform tasks in isolation, far from familiar faces and voices, with the help and guidance of my God. I will keep my mind and body clean, alert and strong, for this is my debt to those who depend upon me. I will not fail those with whom I serve. I will not bring shame upon myself or the forces. I will maintain myself, my arms, and my equipment in an immaculate state as befits a Special Forces soldier. I will never surrender though I be the last. If I am taken, I pray that I may have the strength to spit upon my enemy. My goal is to succeed in any mission - and live to succeed again. I am a member of my nation's chosen soldiery. God grant that I may not be found wanting, that I will not fail this sacred trust. "De Oppresso Liber"
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"Ballad Of the Green Berets"
Words and Music by Robin Moore and SSgt. Barry Sadler.
Fighting soldiers from the sky
Fearless men who jump and die
Men who mean just what they say
The brave men of the Green Beret.
Silver Wings upon their chest
These are men, America's best
One hundred men will test today
But only three win the Green Beret.
Trained to live off nature's land
Trained in combat, hand to hand
Men who fight by night and day
Courage picked from the Green Beret. Silver Wings upon their chest
These are men, America's best
One hundred men will test today
But only three win the Green Beret.
Back at home a young wife waits
Her Green Beret has met his fate
He has died for those oppressed
Leaving her his last request.
Put Silver Wings on my son's chest
Make him one of America's best
He'll be a man they'll test one day
Have him win the Green Beret. 
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(Click on graphic for link to source and read the first chapter)
About this book
“As the [al-Qaida terrorists] charged one wall, three Green Berets leaned over the parapets, oblivious to the enemy small-arms fire that was cracking by their heads and shoulders. “ ‘Focus, squeeze, focus, squeeze,’ they recited quietly. . . . Each time . . . the lifeless body [of an al-Qaida terrorist] would snap back through the desert air and drop onto the sandy courtyard.”
The war in Afghanistan was the most secret conflict since the CIA’s covert war in Laos; thousands of journalists covered it, yet, ironically, little is known about how it was waged or what really happened—until now. The Hunt for bin Laden plunges the reader into America’s War on Terror, from the first top-secret meetings of TASK FORCE DAGGER in Tampa on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, through the liberation of Kabul sixty-two days later and the tragedies of OPERATION ANACONDA. The book takes the reader into the heat of battle—as seen through the eyes of the Green Berets on the ground. This is the story of how only a few hundred men, operating from a secret Special Forces base, changed the course of history in Central Asia and destroyed a hundred-thousand-man terrorist army in less than ninety days. Action-packed and controversial, The Hunt for bin Laden is teeming with revelations and inside information: the truth about John Walker Lindh and Mike Spann; the failure of the “conventional” generals; the courage of the Northern Alliance; the wounding and murder of journalists; and the flaws and frustrations of the hunt for bin Laden himself. In mid-December 2001, Robin Moore arrived in Afghanistan, where he joined his old friends, whom he had celebrated thirty-five years earlier in his book The Green Berets and who were now calling in airstrikes and fighting alongside the armies of the Northern Alliance against the terrorist al-Qaida and Taliban. In less than three winter months, about a hundred Green Berets accounted for the deaths of perhaps as many as forty thousand terrorists and the winning of a war in Afghanistan—where the Soviets had found fighting a war all but impossible.
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Robin Moore dedicated his book to the following:
Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud,
who warned America and perished on September 9, 2001
the men, women and children
who perished on Septembr 11, 2001
the New York City firefighters and police officers
who perished trying to save them
and to the Green Berets who perished avenging them.....
"Apocalyptic terrorists, no matter their rhetoric, seek your destruction
and must be killed to the last man. The apt metaphor is cancer:
you cannot hope for success if you only cut out part of the tumor.....
For a superpower to think small, which has been our habit across
the last decade, at least, is self-defeating folly. Our responses
to terrorist acts should make the world gasp."
RALPH PETERS in When Devils Walk the Earth
"We're going to need the ring for this one."
unidentified Special Forces ground commander upon learning
that fewer than one hundred Green Berets would fight
the entire northern war
"I asked for a few Americans. They brought with them
the courage of a whole Army."
General Abdul Rashid Dostum
late November 2001
MSG Bolduc touched on the essence of the Green Berets in
Afghanistan in an eloquent statement:
"When we arrived, the area was crawling with Arabs, Pakistanis,
Chechens, and the al-Qaida. We knew they would fight to the
death rather than surrender. They did not expect that we would
do so well. You see, we were also prepared to give our lives."
Page 123-124, R. Moore, The Hunt for Bin Laden:
Task Force Dagger
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