Good luck, good cheer, may you live one hundred years!
Posted on 11/07/2004 1:47:35 PM PST by risk
The Weekly Standard
The GROM Factor: Haven't heard of Poland's Special Forces? They're real, they're serious, and they're here to save the day.
by Victorino Matus 05/08/2003 2:40:00 PM
Victorino Matus, assistant managing editor
IT CAME AS A SURPRISE to many when the U.S. postwar plans for Iraq were finally revealed. Like Gaul, Iraq would be divided into three parts: an American zone, a British zone, and a Polish zone. But what role did Poland play during the war? It turns out a very important one--albeit one that was kept mostly secret.
One of the primary objectives during the early stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom was the port at Umm Qasr. Without it, delivering adequate humanitarian aid to the rest of Iraq would have been nearly impossible for the coalition. Not long after the start of the war, the port was secured--in large part thanks to GROM, Poland's elite commandos.
Who even knew Poland had special forces? For a while, not many. The Polish government waited three years before publicly disclosing GROM's existence. Standing for Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno Mobilnego (Operational Mobile Response Group), the name actually stems from a special-forces commander, Gromoslaw Czempinski, who, during the first Gulf War, led a Polish unit into Western Iraq to rescue a group of CIA operatives. One of the other men on that secret mission was Slawomir Petelicki--the father of GROM.
"GROM was my idea," General Petelicki says in his husky, accented voice. "I presented it to the new democratic government" in 1991 "and because I liked to give honor to the commander of my unit, I named it after Gromoslaw." (Grom also means thunder in Polish.) Petelicki, now retired from the military, spoke from Warsaw where he is now an independent consultant for, among others, Ernst & Young. It's quite a change of pace for a man once described in Jane's Intelligence Review as "his country's James Bond and Rambo wrapped neatly into one daunting package." (Petelicki also serves as chairman of the Special Forces Foundation. "I try to help former commandos and discourage them from going into organized crime--where there are many lucrative offers for work.")
Petelicki tried selling his idea of an elite Polish commando group much earlier, "but those Russians didn't like to have real special forces operating in Poland--they feared we could start training in guerrilla warfare against them." But the need did arise in 1990, following Operation Bridge, in which Poland helped Soviet Jews enter Israel. Intelligence reports indicated that Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were planning reprisals inside the Polish border. Then-Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki recognized the threat and approved of Petelicki's plan for a new counter-terror force.
"I had a lot of candidates at first" says the general. "That first team I assembled from people I knew well. They were all in their 30s. Now the age of recruits is about 26." According to Jane's Intelligence Review, "GROM candidates were first subjected to a grueling psychological examination meant to search for confident and innovative soldiers as well as those who, though they might be lacking in physical strength, possessed the rare gift of internal iron will." The candidates then undergo back-breaking training deep in the Carpathian Mountains.
Only 1 to 5 percent of these candidates actually get into GROM. But once they are in, the real training begins: GROM operators practice "killing house" entries (with commanders often serving as hostages), storm hijacked commercial airliners complete with mannequin terrorists and bullet traps, and lead raids onto ships and offshore platforms. All of this is done with live ammunition. The commandos are trained in paramedics and demolitions and many are SCUBA experts. They mostly work in four to six-man assault teams except for the snipers who are separate because, as Petelicki explains, "that is a job for special people and they are very hard to replace."
Radek Sikorski, Poland's former deputy minister of defense and now executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative, recently told me he witnessed the snipers at their best during a training exercise in 1999. "The GROM operators were working alongside the Delta Force and were tasked with rescuing the chairman of the National Bank of Poland. He was being held hostage by terrorists in possession of a nuclear device." Sikorski says the snipers waited for days in complete disguise. "They just followed the terrorists' routines and then started to pick them off one by one."
GROM operators are said to be martial arts experts and capable of "cold killing." "We created our own style of martial arts," says Petelicki. "I have an old friend who is a master of karate and jujitsu and is a sixth degree black belt. He created the style with other specialists--it is most similar to what the Israelis do."
And what about "cold killing"? Asked if the ominous term refers to garrotes or piano wire, Petelicki replies "Yes." Pausing to choose his words carefully, he explains, "Many things. For instance, we can create a weapon from . . . well . . . many things." The weapon used most by GROM is the MP5 submachine gun. They also get to choose their own sidearm--most choose either the Glock Model 19 or the SIG-Sauer P228.
PETELICKI says that GROM is a mixture of the Delta Force, SAS, and the Navy SEALs. "We took what we found best from each group." (GROM trainers have been to Fort Bragg as well as Hereford--home of the SAS.)
For the past twelve years, GROM operators have engaged in numerous operations, including peacekeeping in the Balkans and Haiti. In 1997, they successfully captured Slavko Dokmanovic, aka, "the Butcher of Vukovar" who was held responsible for the murder of 260 Croats. Despite being well-protected by Serb commandos, Dokmanovic was successfully captured alive (his bodyguards didn't fare so well).
So what was the significance in having 56 commandos from the 300-member GROM take part in Operation Iraqi Freedom? "This war saved GROM," says Petelicki. "Without it, it would have been broken up between the army and navy. But now everyone knows about GROM in Poland and they are proud of them."
Radek Sikorski observes that "It was wise for the United States to show countries who backed it in this war that they are appreciated. This will probably pave the way for more 'coalitions of the willing.' Poland took a lot of risks supporting America. It also took a beating from some of its European friends." Sikorski thinks this could be the beginning of a special relationship with the United States, akin to the one shared by Great Britain, but warns "it is still in the very early stages and much will also depend on America's staying power in the region, its willingness to remain interested in Central Europe. One thing the Americans could do is move their bases out of Germany and into Poland, which has less population density and greater space to conduct exercises."
Since GROM's creation 12 years ago, only 4 commandos have been killed in operations. I asked General Petelicki if, during those years, there is one mission that stands out. "Although 70 percent of our operations are still top secret, the one operation I liked best was this last one at Umm Qasr. That was definitely my favorite. [He sighs.] I was jealous I could not be there instead of Colonel Polko [the current commander of GROM]. Umm Qasr was a very risky operation--a lot of explosives were used--but there were no casualties for us." He adds, "I liked it because we were able to help our friends, the Americans, who helped us create GROM. It was a real masterpiece."
Victorino Matus is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
It looks like "Grom" has been "captured" by the Poles and is now being used against the forces of Mordor ;-)
Thanks for the historic perspective, archy!
God bless our Polish allies.
Give 'em hell, GROM!
I am very proud to be of Polish ancestry: my Grandparents came into Ellis Island after the turn of the century. It makes my heart feel good to learn of the "thunderers". Also, many people are not aware of the fact that it was the Poles that broke the enigma code during World War II. Prince Charles announced it a few years back. Huaaa!! "Sto lat" to all of these Polish forces.
Thank you
some idiot is calling my government acommunist pery government. it is true that both the president and the prime minister comes from left wing party. i dont like them too much because of that but i still respect them for the right decision they made sending polish troops to iraq. major right wing parties in poland are in favor of polish troops staying in iraq. he must be samoobrona(sel defence) minority party in poland led by andrzej lepper, pesant lover idiot, ot from liga polskich rodzin (the league of polisg families party) another idiotic party which base its approval on pesants and people who are not happy with the transormation in poland in recent years.
he talks that our constitution is being brokken because we sent our troops to iraq. he doesnt mention that the soldiers who went to iraq volounteered to go there. there was no draft. people like that just confuse others.
Thank you so much for your detailed comments in #28. European politics are complicated to many of us Americans, but your insight makes Poland's current situation a bit clearer. Please keep us updated (and welcome to FR - this was a great first post).
We can hope that Poland stays in the coalition. I think we have much more work to do. I also think that this experience is invaluable for Polish troops and their commanding officer corps, despite the casualties.
thanks. sorry for all the mistakes i made. it was 2 am central european time i was using my laptop lying in the bad in the dark. anyway nowadays there are plenty of people who try to confuse others in order to stir up the political scene in Poland. with coming next year both, presidential and polish parliament campaign we may hear more from people like that. oh by the way I am a Polak and I am proud of it. i got a Polak tatoo on my left arm. Got it in Dallas when i lived in Tulsa Oklahoma. you should have seen the look on the guys face who gave me that tatoo.
dumb people are everywhere in the USA too. getting that tatoo wanted to make sure that there is no mistake about who I am (Polak means Polish male in Polish and Polka means Polish female, who by the way are goodlooking)
now some dumbass french jokes:
Do you know how many French soldiers is needed to defend Paris?
Nobody knows it has never been tried.
Do you know why French soldiers should actually go to Iraq?
To show al zarkavi how to capitulate.
Do yuo know why there are trees on Champs Elysees (the biggest street in Paris)?
So the German army can march in shade
Around 1,357,800 French troops died in WW1 "defending Paris."
The Manginot line and a lot of hand-wringing in the Anglosphere led to the fall of Paris in 1940.
France is in a difficult location to defend. Poland is, too.
In this current world war, which I see as an extension of the first two, France has the same problems we have defending the Anglosphere and Poland: our cultures are open and naive. Where we think we are superior to France, look again. If France falls, we can all fall.
In this war, I only care about patriots for modern civilization. You can't tell your enemy by his race or his location.
Give me one Frenchman who loves his country over any number of leftist Americans, blue state or red.
With America, it's easy to know about winning. For anyone born after 1940, it's not so easy to know about giving it all for a cause that no one knows can be won.
A lot of French and Poles knew.
Thank you!!!! THAT IS GOOD!!!
You shouldn't use any ethnic jokes.
I met Miller when he was still the Premier. I have never met another man who could lie so smoothly. I did a little "test" on him, which only confirmed what I knew before: Miller doesn't give a damn about anything but looking good to other people, especially those outside of Poland. Kwasniewski seems to be an alright president, doing much more good than harm, but he seems afraid of Miller.
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