Page 28 - Bugle Issue 19 Spring 2022

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Exchange with the US Green Berets
Capt Unwin prepares for a dawn raid with the Green Berets
Between April and October 2021, Serjeant Francis and Captain Unwin from Team 6, B Company spent 6 months on an exchange with the US Green Berets in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. We spent time with one of the five regionally aligned groups that make up the famed Green Berets.
Upon arrival in the US, we got stuck into working alongside our US counterparts,
who welcomed us with typical Southern hospitality. When not enjoying Budweiser, barbeques and country music, the Green Berets were keen to train us to be US
Special Forces. The first big test came on the Special Forces Advanced Urban Operations Combat course (SFAUC). This course is a gruelling four-week programme taking Green Berets from basic shooting up to advanced raids, at night while using circular saws
and explosives to enter buildings. Having survived the first week on the flat range where the 35˚C heat, black widow spiders and incredibly impressive American shooting served to turn up the pressure, we spent
the following two weeks in the shoot house. From there we moved to a training village where we spent a final week conducting increasingly difficult raids.
Having completed SFAUC, we deployed on Ex SAGE EAGLE, the American name for an unconventional warfare exercise, where
A Company joined a Green Beret Battalion
as their third company. We embedded into an Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA), a 12-soldier team. With the ODA we received a contingent of the New Mexico National Guard as a partner force, simulating a host nation security force, whom we set about training in skills from vehicle tactics to close quarter battle. Following an intensive week training in the heat of the desert, we began a series
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of strikes onto complex objectives around the vast training area. We used Black Hawk helicopters and HMVEEs to conduct raids by day and night onto compounds and buildings against a realistic enemy.
With the exercise complete, we returned to Fort Campbell to attend the two-week Low Visibility course which focuses on operating in a civilian profile. Best described as the Jason Bourne course, it taught us everything from hand-to-hand combat up to live pistol scenarios in the shoot house. A fantastic experience and an opportunity to fulfil all our Bond aspirations!
Having received our replacement pair from A Company we returned to the UK in October. As we transfer into the Rangers, we look forward to further opportunities to work with the Green Berets in training and on operations.
Sjt Alex Francis and Capt Daniel Unwin, Team 6
The Jason Bourne course – it taught us everything from hand- to-hand combat
Capt Unwin on the Low Visibility Course
up to live pistol scenarios
Sjt Francis fires a US Carl-Gustaf recoilless rifle with our US Green Beret counterparts