Don’t be late, light, or out of uniform.
– DELTA SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT CADREMEMBER, SPRING 1998
I am an army brat. My father served two tours in Vietnam, including time with the 173rd Airborne Combat Brigade, and spent months hospitalized in a body cast while his wounds healed. In the early 1970s, he was assigned to a new post in Frankfurt, Germany, and I attended a military community elementary school, played baseball, shot marbles, traded comic books and bubblegum baseball cards, and fought a thousand G.I. Joe battles. For cheap thrills, I enjoyed playing combat dodge ball behind the three-story whitewashed apartment building with my twin brother and the other kids.
It was there that I gained my first recollection of terror. The violent, left-wing Baader-Meinhof gang terrorized Germany in those days. In 1972, radical members of the group operating beneath the banner of the Red Army Faction bombed an American military headquarters building in Frankfurt, killing an American officer and wounding a dozen other people. I remember my mother coming around the corner of the apartment building to interrupt our sandbox battle and save the G.I. Joe with his lifelike hair from being crushed by a flying Big Bertha marble.
“Get inside,” she said. “The radio just announced some of the Baader-Meinhof gang have escaped from prison and may be in our neighborhood.” Terrorists were nearby, she said, and I, at eight years old, wondered “What’s a terrorist?” I begged her to let me stay outside, hoping that I might see one of those mysterious gang members skulking about, perhaps wearing a long, dark trench coat. No chance.
Dad was reassigned back to the States a short time later and we settled in a townhouse in Alexandria, Virginia, while he held assignments at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and the Pentagon. My adolescent love of G.I. Joe dolls waned, but my hunger for adventure accelerated as I grew older and I craved the excitement of competition, particularly the victory side of things,
We rode bicycles with banana seats and monkey handlebars, replayed Super Bowls with neighborhood buddies using Nerf footballs, rode skateboards around the lake in the summer and skated on it in the winter, and swam in the community pool. In a few years, we graduated to tunneling around the large labyrinth of an underground sewer system from one side of the neighborhood to the next, where old Playboy magazines were tucked away in a dry crack.
It was another magazine that had a critical impact on my young brain. I had always considered the U.S. Army to be just my father’s employer, and was too young to understand what it was really about. Like many who grew up after the Vietnam era, I viewed the military as a deadend profession. The army was the path taken by the rejects, the last guys chosen during neighborhood pickup games, or by deviants who were “encouraged” to sign up by small-town judges offering a venue other than jail, and by those uncertain of where they would fit into corporate society.
That attitude had begun to slowly change along with my weird affection for risk taking. One day as I browsed the magazine rack of a local 7-Eleven while sucking on a cherry-flavored Slurpie through a curly straw, I saw the cover of a Gung Ho magazine that featured a full-color picture of retired U.S. Army colonel James “Bo” Gritz. His dress uniform, heavily adorned with the shiny medals and colorful ribbons of a modern warrior, was propped on a chair near him.
After leafing through the periodical, I bought it, went home, and read how Colonel Gritz was in the fight of his life as he tried to explain a botched attempt to rescue American prisoners of war believed to have been left behind in Laos after the American withdrawal from Southeast Asia in 1975.
The journey that took Gritz and his small team of former commandos and adventurists through oceans of bureaucratic red tape and over administrative walls had ended without success. Regardless of one’s personal opinion of those raiders, their personal sacrifice and commitment were intoxicating.
The magazine remained in my small personal library over the years, unofficially filed under What I Want to Be When I Grow Up. But I was only about thirteen years old, and my career choices also still included professional football and baseball.
Before seeing that magazine, I honestly had not paid much attention to what my father did for a living. But now, when I occasionally looked into Dad’s closet, I noticed that some of his honor ribbons looked the same as those that Gritz had: Purple Heart, the Vietnam ribbons, and a Bronze Star with a V for valor. Still, that was not enough to make the military seem attractive to me as a profession.
I was not talented enough to be any sort of professional athlete, but I loved sports and, like all kids, dreamed of making the all-star team, scoring the winning goal, or sinking the buzzer shot. When I was fourteen, I returned a kickoff for a touchdown, and when I hit the end zone, I launched into a flamboyant dance like the pro wide receiver Billy “White Shoes” Johnson. My hips gyrated like a cheap pop star as I repeatedly thrust the ball into the air. My dad, who had volunteered to work the chains on the sidelines for that game, watched the whole pathetic display and was not amused.
His disappointment in my self-serving actions frustrated and confused me. C’mon Dad, lighten up a little. I just scored a touchdown here. What harm can a little victory dance do? His reaction and comments seared me to the core, but it would take a few more years for the lessons to fully register. Teamwork was more important than individualism, and selflessness was better than selfishness. The greatest lesson my father taught me was of humility.
In high school, my teammates voted me captain of the football team, and I thought it would be pretty cool to walk to midfield for a coin toss each Friday night. Other than that, how hard could this team captain stuff be? Again, my dad was there to puncture the selfish bubble. Being team captain meant that I was a leader, he said, so simply playing hard and fair, basic blocking and tackling, no mental mistakes, and enjoying the game were no longer good enough. More is expected of a leader. I didn’t understand that lesson for a while, either.
It was not until well into my army career that I realized that my personal success hinged much more on the performance of my fellow soldiers than on my own. If one hopes to be considered a leader in deed more than in just a word, he or she had better learn to deliberately and consciously shun the spotlight and embrace the humility of selfless service. After a while, learning to turn credit outward rather than inward begins to feel natural.
I entered college, but quickly determined that it was not for me. I dropped College Physics 102 and turned in my ROTC pickle suit after barely three months’ use. Armed with my Dad’s critical lessons in humility and teamwork, knowing a little bit about leadership, and having the distant memories of West German terrorism and Bo Gritz’s selfless adventures, I joined the army. Under no pressure at all, I simply chose to serve. I was not drawn to duty to defend Mom, the flag, and apple pie, but the lure of the risks involved, the possibility of going into harm’s way, was intoxicating. It was 1983 and I was nineteen years old.
I had found a home, and would serve for twenty years.
By the middle of October of that same year, just a week before the United States invaded the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, Pvt. Dalton Fury found himself packed with about fifty other Airborne Rangers in the back of an MC-130 Talon aircraft, running an exercise.
I was part of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 75th Infantry (Ranger) and making the space even tighter was a pair of modified M-115 black gun jeeps strapped bumper to bumper along the centerline of the aircraft’s floor. Four 125cc olive drab green motorcycles were strapped near the tail ramp of the aircraft.
As we waited at the departure airfield, I looked out the back of the plane and watched two late 1970s pickup trucks hurrying toward us. The men in the trucks were strikingly different than the uniformed Rangers all around me. Some were much older, some had short, well-groomed hair, while a few had very long hair that blew in the wind. Others wore long and thick mustaches or goatees.
I was curious, but resisted the urge to wake up my team leader, who was catching a quick nap next to me. I knew better.
One of the trucks pulled up to the ramp of our plane and four men deliberately stepped down onto the tarmac. All wore blue jeans, one had a dark sweatshirt, another a tight T-shirt, and the remaining two wore plaid western-style shirts with big collars. In their hands were.45-caliber grease guns.
The mystery men grabbed small black bags from the truck, walked on to the plane, and took seats on the cold metal flooring without a word, a gesture, or even a simple hello. They didn’t check in with anyone. No, they just went about their business and pulled out a small tube of black cream. A few dabs on their palms, they slathered it all over their faces, as if applying sunscreen lotion. Two of them work black balaclavas-skintight thug hats that hid their faces while showing only the eyes and lips.
It was my introduction to Delta.
The very existence of Delta is officially classified by the Department of Defense. No open discussions of the Unit’s existence are entertained with the media. Very few former operators have chosen to violate the unwritten code against speaking about the Unit publicly, and very few unofficial sources are available.
Ironically, the first member of Delta to break the code of silence was the man responsible for its birth, and its original commander, Col. Charlie Beckwith, in his book Delta Force, written in the early 1980s. It provides factual insight and describes in tremendous detail the exhausting selection process that is used to find the right guy for Delta. [5]
Although published just seven years after the unit was officially established, Beckwith’s comments about the extensive training program to mold an individual, to hone and maintain his war-fighting skills to a razor’s edge, and teach him “how to think” and not “what to think” are characteristics that have stood the test of time. Above all else, Beckwith told the country what can be expected from someone who earns the right to call himself a Delta operator.
Opinions still vary as to just how factual Beckwith’s story was. Did he reveal sensitive information that could heighten the danger of already high-risk operations? Did Beckwith unnecessarily endanger future unit members? Or did he inform terrorists worldwide of the phenomenal abilities of the unit and what it can do to protect America?
As an insider, I’m convinced that Beckwith revealed no important secrets and that the Delta operators fighting the ongoing war on terror today, many years after his book was published, are still of the high standards that Beckwith demanded.
In the spring of 1998, I found myself with 121 other officers and sergeants at a remote camp in the steep hills and mountains of the northeastern United States. We had been especially recruited and had already survived numerous pre-tryout physical and psychological tests. For the next month, we would be further assessed mentally, psychologically, and physically for “potential service with Delta.”
I was by then a captain in the Rangers, and had decided before arriving that my definition of success was to make it through the entire month without getting hurt or quitting. If I was not selected, then okay. It would be a blow to my ego, but simply representing the Rangers as best I could and returning with my head held high would be my bottom line. I think most of those around me harbored similar feelings, because the odds of being around at the end of tryouts, and actually being selected for Delta, were extremely slim. We knew it would be difficult. We had no idea.
By the time I reached the final event, after enduring twenty-five days of hell, I was happy that I had not gotten my hopes up too high, for my performance so far had been sketchy.
It had rained all day and showed little sign of letting up. Huddled in the back of the covered truck, unable to see outside, we waited for our assigned code name to be called. Once it was, we scrambled out as gracefully as possible with minds and bodies already at their limits from twenty-five days of hell, and moved toward a nearby area that was faintly lit.
That night, we individually faced what we hoped was the last land navigation event. The lucky ones would cover roughly forty miles of mountain trails, pock-marked asphalt roads, and densely vegetated terrain that covered the hundreds of meters of elevation change. The unlucky would cover more distance as they self-corrected their march after a sleepdeprived wrong turn or two. The really unfortunate would either move too slow or fail to recover from their error in time to finish within the unpublished time frame. I fell into the middle category, the unlucky.
For the past three and a half weeks, our individual assigned code consisted of a color and a number that was changed daily. This night, however, the smooth-talking Delta assault cadre member named Hoov barked at us from the back of the camouflaged truck. “There are only two colors left-Blood and Guts!” he said. I became Blood 36.
I was the fourth of six candidates in our truck, and was called out just past 2200 hours, taken to a small shelter tarp tied to the trees, and given a short, scripted set of instructions. As the officer spoke, my mind seemed incapable of registering what he was saying. I was too pumped up, or too exhausted, and ready for the entire nightmare to be over. When he finished his short brief, he turned me around and pointed me in the initial direction.
It was pitch-dark, no moon yet, and the ground was soaked. Had I not been steered in the right direction, I might easily have walked off the edge of the earth. Armed with a rubber M-16 rifle, eight different map sheets, and a compass, and toting a sixty-pound rucksack, I was away on the first of what would soon seem like a lifetime’s worth of steps.
Trying to jog the trails at night was stupid. After three weeks of assessment, this was not the time to twist an ankle or blow a knee, both easy to do in the blackness on an unknown trail. I maintained my own desired pace for an hour, maintaining a good pace count so as not to miss a turn in the trail. One wrong turn could spell the end.
Incessant pain in my upper back helped keep my mind off the weight of the rucksack digging into my shoulders during the hour that passed before I came into contact with any other humans. Four or five candidates were whispering to each other as they huddled around the white light of a candidate’s flashlight that illuminated a rain-soaked map case. The trail had gone cold because heavy rains had flooded the low areas and deep pools of rainwater hid what I thought was the desired footpath.
The discussion centered on whether to go through the water in hopes of picking up the trail when the terrain rose, or steer around it by taking some other trail that was not seen on the map. I had stopped for a breather close by and tried to listen in to the verbal logic train. Just then, a Ranger candidate stepped from the darkness, breathing heavily. He was soaked up to his chest, and his rucksack still dripped water. His compass dangled from around his neck as he held his map and flashlight in one hand and weapon in the other.
He silently signaled to the huddled group that trying to ford the flooded trail was not an option. The Ranger then approached me and said, “No way, man. It’s too deep.” I recognized him them. Nitro was a seasoned Ranger squad leader from Savannah, Georgia, home of the 1st Ranger Battalion.
We were under strict orders not to talk to anyone during the exercise, but taking risks is what this business is all about anyway. Delta was not looking for choirboys. “How far did you get?” I asked.
“About twenty meters or so. It’s hard to tell.”
I looked at my map again, my hand wiping rainwater off the plastic case, but preventing me from seeing the important fine brown contour lines telling elevation and the blue dotted lines that showed an intermittent stream.
“I’m going for it,” I said quietly. “Can’t afford to go around. It will take twice as long to get back on the right trail.”
“I don’t know, man. I don’t think you can make it.” Nitro’s opinion was not to be underestimated, but time was our enemy.
I glanced over at the group. Some were still debating the issue while others had already taken off to find an alternate route. Their flashlight beams could be seen faintly in the distance. We’re wasting time here, I thought.
“You can always go around if you want, or you can come with me,” I offered, “We’ll strike some high ground not too far past where you turned around.”
Nitro looked at me for a second, shifted his heavy rucksack around on his back and shoulders. “Alright, I’m with ya,” he said. Years later in Aghanistan, I saw Nitro’s courage firsthand in the face of enormous odds and ambiguous surroundings.
By now I was completely soaked, except for one area, and a few steps later, the icy water finally reached my groin, too, giving me a frigid reality check. I don’t exactly remember when Nitro and I eventually split up, but once we lost each other, another twenty-nine hours passed before I saw him again.
The rain worsened over the next few hours and my body temperature was dropping fast. I had only eaten a single bite of a chocolate Powerbar. I felt nauseous and lost my appetite, a sure sign that I needed to keep refueling my body, both with water and food. I ignored it. My rucksack was soaking up rain like a giant sponge, adding at least another five pounds to my load and making each step much more labored. To refill my Camelbak water container, I would have to take off the rucksack, but I was too cold and miserable to do so.
I was simply too focused on succeeding, too focused on moving forward one step at a time, and too stupid to stop for a few moments to refuel my body.
When the morning sun finally began to break over the horizon, about six hours into the march, I decided to get rid of the batteries in my flashlight to shed a few ounces of unneeded weight. The two D batteries were part of the load slowing me down, so I threw them into a fast-running creek, hoping I would finish the march before darkness fell again. It made some sort of fuzzy sense at the time.
I was continuing down the waterlogged trail that paralleled the creek when my mind told me I might have made a big mistake. Somewhere along the way I had allowed rain to seep into my clear plastic map case, probably when I had stopped to don my camouflage wet-weather jacket to prevent losing any more warmth in my body. I had waited until after I was thoroughly drenched from the rain to do it.
The map case is used to shield your map from inclement weather, and works well until you have to switch out map sheets as the trail leads you off of one sheet and picks up on a different map. My maps got soaked while I was swapping them, and from then on, with each slight tug inside the map case, the papers disintegrated. Figuring I was about thirty miles into the movement, with an assumed ten miles still to go, I knew I had big problems.
I crossed a footbridge that spanned a swift-running river to get to my next rendezvous point and saw another candidate, a blond and muscular Green Beret, standing beside a cadre vehicle. His map also had deteriorated from the rainwater, and he was piecing it back together like a child’s jigsaw puzzle. Luckily, the two portions of the map I needed to reach the next rendezvous point were still intact. I showed the cadre member sitting in the driver’s seat where I currently was on the map and the point to which I was going next. Those were the only two required pieces of information a candidate had to present before he could continue the exercise. Fortunately, we were not required to point out the exact route we planned to take, because that portion of my map had turned to mush. I also had a good hint because other candidates who had done a better job keeping their maps dry were moving in what I figured had to be the correct direction.
I set off again, physically and psychologically spent, moving one step at a time on some untapped fuel reserve that few men ever push themselves hard enough to experience. It’s so much easier just to quit.
Only a hundred meters along, I found myself staring at a massive hill. Without the details of the map to help me make a decision as to which way to go, or if an easier way existed, perhaps a small trail to get me to the top quickly, I just stepped off. Straight ahead.
Thick, intertwined, nearly impassable underbrush of wait-a-minute vines and trees slowed me to a snail’s pace. I worried, sniveled, and felt sorry for myself. I’m losing too much time. I will never make it in time. No, don’t quit, keep moving, the terrain can only get better. Maybe it’s less dense near the top. Fortunately, it was.
I broke free of the thick vegetation about ten yards from the crest of the mountain and a trail appeared, giving me a shot of adrenaline that I desperately needed. Maybe I can still make this. How long have I been walking? Twelve, thirteen hours? My pace quickened and my legs thanked me for finally stumbling onto flat land, and I was wondering if I had passed the rendezvous point or not. In fact, I was not even sure which direction to head on the trail but I soon found the answer.
To my amazement, someone was actually walking the same trail, but approaching me. He was in civilian clothes, and his blue rain jacket contrasted heavily with the dark browns and greens of the thick trees and bushes. Odd. Who in his right mind would be out here for a stroll in this weather? The answer hit me like a breath of fresh air: Only a Delta selection cadre member would be out here! That’s it! If I was correct then he must have just come from a rendezvous point somewhere up ahead. Then I hoped he was not moving toward a point that I might have missed.
As we neared each other, I tried to stand a little straighter and hide my physical and mental anguish. The hood was pulled over his head, but I recognized him. It was not just any cadre member; it was the longtime unit command sergeant major. As we passed each other I said, “Hello, sergeant major.” He responded only with a half grin, half smile, which was all I needed to pick up my pace.
The euphoria soon passed. It had been hours since I had seen another candidate and I was pretty much resigned to the belief that I wouldn’t make it. I was certain this would prove to be my last day, but there was no option other than to press on.
It began to rain harder and I was sure I was nearing hypothermia, and darkness was on me, a man who had disabled his own flashlight! I started looking for a dry place to stop for the night. I wanted to end it, but except for the sergeant major, way back, there was no one around to whom I could say, “I quit!” Any cadre member would have done, but I couldn’t find anybody at all.
I saw a small derelict cabin off the beaten trail, and I thought of building a fire to warm my tired bones and muscles and get some sleep before resuming my march in the morning. I was disappointed for failing. Lost in thought, the cabin was well behind me before I could decide whether to stop. Turn back? No, keep going. You can always find another spot to quit.
I reached another rendezvous point and my mind was arguing with itself-the devil telling me to jack it in and the angel whispering words of encouragement and strength. I pressed on.
Another hour and another rendezvous point. I had completely lost the ability to determine time or distance, even while wearing a perfectly good wristwatch and with a compass around my neck. My mind was numb to even kindergarten math.
As I went through the standard procedure of preparing to show the cadre member in the truck where I was and where I thought I was going next, the selection course commander, wearing bright and colorful civilian clothing, suddenly appeared from behind the truck. This is it. I’ll bet he enjoys seeing us at our most vulnerable and weakest state.
My camouflage Gore-Tex rain jacket was zipped all the way to the bottom of my chin, and a soaked black wool cap hung barely above my eyes, giving me the look of a tired and wet gangster. I was a pathetic sight for sure, and didn’t feel I deserved to call myself a soldier. My muscles, cramped as tight as a bear trap, screamed for mercy. Physically and mentally, I was finished.
The commander extended his right hand and said, very formally, “Captain Fury, congratulations on successfully completing the stress phase of selection and assessment. Your evaluation for potential service as an officer in Delta begins now. Good luck!”
I had made it.
The evaluation for potential service with Delta continued another four days before I finally found myself standing before the commanders’ board, wearing the best set of four torn and tattered camouflage uniforms I had and a pair of brush-shined and -scarred jungle boots.
I reported to the Delta commander, Col. Eldon Bargewell, a special ops legend. As an enlisted man during the Vietnam War, Bargewell served as a team leader in the Special Operations Group. Years later, having become an officer, he commanded Delta operators in Panama and was part of a handful of operators who rescued American citizen Kurt Muse from the Modelo prison. He led his squadron in Desert Storm, served as a key figure in the Balkans, and was a general officer in Iraq.
At his right was the unit command sergeant major, the same man I had passed on the mountain trail a few days earlier, and about fifteen other Delta senior officers and sergeants also were in the room. The “docs,” the unit psychologists, were in the back of the room, dissecting every candidate’s mannerisms and responses. They already had taken their pound of flesh when I spilled my guts to them and allowed the shrinks full access to my closet of skeletons.
For roughly an hour now it was open season on Dalton Fury. Nothing was off limits as the personal and professional questions came at me like darts. Tell us about your run-ins with the law. What were you thinking when you ordered your company out on a twelve-mile road march on Christmas Day in Korea? How do you explain this? Can you be trusted? Why should we select you, an average officer?
Any fear of personal embarrassment was subordinate to their desires in the brutal interrogation, and at the end of the hour, I was totally confused and mentally exhausted. Colonel Bargewell stood, stepped forward, and extended his hand. “Captain Fury, welcome to Delta,” he said.
Next only to my wedding day and the births of my two children, it was the proudest moment of my life.
Yet it would still be some time before I would be considered a full-fledged Delta operator. Soon after the commander’s board, the would-be Deltas attend the six-month Operator Training Course, a finishing school where finer points of killing are taught, along with other unique skills required of a covert commando.
Finally, I was declared ready, and was put to work.
With the required operator training behind me, I was fortunate to land in Lt. Col. Gus Murdock’s squadron. I had met him only once before, when he had appeared in the rain at the end of the endurance course, sizing up the candidates, but knew him by reputation, which could be the base for a multivolume nonfiction action series.
Murdock had been associated with Delta since the early 1990s, had been on the ground in Mogadishu, was a key player in running down Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, and had hunted war criminals in the Balkans. Twice wounded in action, he would give up his command just before 9/11, then to no one’s surprise, was one of the first special operations officers inside Afghanistan. He spent several years in Iraq commanding a Joint Special Operations Task Force, and was there when Saddam Hussein was captured. Murdock eventually became the overall commander of Delta Force, and was the most phenomenal officer I ever served under.
Gus took a personal interest in the mental and physical conditioning of his subordinate officers, and on Officer Day he took pleasure in pitting fellow officers Serpico, Bad Chadio, Super D, and me against each other in man-to-man, winner-take-all commando competitions. Of course, Gus never was a good spectator and would usually be found in front of the pack during these adventures.
I’m convinced that Murdock was hiding gold or moonshine down the hill at the Delta obstacle course because he was always there. At least once a week Gus would show up unannounced in our office wearing a dull green flight suit and grab all the officers to “run the O course.” We learned to make ourselves scarce around the squadron area just before lunch.
Not to be outdone, Sergeant Major Ironhead and my second troop sergeant major, Jim, dreamed up masochistic events of their own. The events had to be painful, unique, and involve some analyzing of a problem. Simply thinking wasn’t enough to be successful. Climb four flights of stairs at the sniper condo and come down carrying a 150-pound dummy over your shoulder; drag a wounded teammate one hundred yards as fast as possible; put on full fighting kit, close to forty pounds of gear, and use a long rope and simple snap link to get your team up an elevator shaft.
All these exercises were tailored after real-world expectations and designed to break up the monotony of the standard days of close quarters battle, running, shooting, lifting, and swimming. Guys in Delta typically possess type A personalities so each event was very competitive. Nobody liked to lose, including me, but I was just too average among these elite men to ever win. And I knew it.
In Delta, as in the most successful Fortune 500 companies like GE, Microsoft, and Cisco, the organization makes the individual its number-one priority. It teaches, nurtures, and implements bottom-up planning. That is the direct opposite of the U.S. Army’s structured and doctrinally rigid military decision-making process, which is too slow and inflexible for fastpaced, high-risk commando missions or minds, and one undeniably driven from the top down.
The Delta technique is a modification of the Delphi method of estimation or prediction that was developed by the RAND Corporation. In Delphi, groups of experts are elicited for combined judgments. We apply this method to planning complicated direct-action assaults.
The sergeants in Delta typically stay in the Unit for eight to twelve years, which provides a continuing institutional memory. Their collective longevity ensures that most good ideas have been proven as “best practice” methods and can be expected to serve the Unit well again. They also remember mistakes that must not be repeated. The senior officers in Delta have spent multiple tours in the Unit, some ten years and counting. The obvious experience base is priceless and it would be foolish to exclude any of those men from the process.
Still, there is no confusion that bottom-up planning also means bottom-up leadership. Leadership can’t be abdicated. But the practice of bringing in these quick minds on decisions is one of the greatest virtues of Delta. Shared knowledge and the cultivation of organizational strength must be fully understood and embraced by everyone selected for the service. Individuals are subordinate to the group.
I refer to this as the Delta problem-solving process, in which a group of experts, say fifteen operators and five experts in critical support skills (communications; nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare; medical; explosives; etc.), are presented with a problem (hostage rescue, kill-or-capture mission) and interact face-to-face in a combined session. After hearing the problem, the group breaks up into their respective assault or sniper teams to develop solutions. Unlike the normal Delphi method, Delta encourages an adversarial process and exploratory thinking.
My job as a subordinate commander was not to have all the answers but rather to guide the process, keep it moving, and as Gus Murdock consistently cautioned, prevent groupthink from taking over. Then, what the experts conclude needs to be cross-checked with the intent of the higher two commanders before the final decision is made.
My three troop sergeant majors had more than three decades in the commando business, which shored up my personal inexperience in the counterterrorist trade. Their knowledge and camaraderie, tested in battle, was an enormous combat multiplier. Who could blame me for wanting to work with men of such caliber? Together, we formatted and packaged the product at the end of the process, synched it with the other moving pieces in the big picture, then briefed it back to the experts as a group to allow for any changes of opinion and to ensure we all were in as we moved toward launch time. In Delta, egos need to be checked at the door.
Strangely, the greatest benefit of this bottom-up process is saving precious time. Conventional units doctrinally prepare three courses of action, then undergo a lockstep process to decide which course presents the most promise of success, based on what the enemy is believed likely to do in a given situation. A conventional staff scrutinizes each option and ultimately recommends the one most likely to succeed.
This can waste an enormous amount of time and it is unsuited to the fluid, ambiguous nature of the war on terror. Minutes count. By the time a conventional planning process has been completed, Delta is already typically “mission complete” and back in the chow tent for hot soup and crackers.
The positive value of our organizational culture and the uncommon sergeant-to-officer relationship cannot be overestimated or matched in any other military organization. By way of example, our squadron’s troop sergeant majors already were living legends inside the Delta community when the attacks of 9/11 took place.
Jim and Bryan were both decorated for valor for leading small teams in the Tora Bora Mountains in 2001, awards that were pinned next to the Bronze Stars for Valor they had won during a little-known firefight on a rocky outcrop in western Iraq in 1991. Jim eventually became the squadron sergeant major and retired from Delta after being wounded in Iraq and earning his third Bronze Star for Valor. His new job would be no less dangerous.
The third one, Pat, was wounded and decorated during Operation Acid Gambit, the rescue of hostage Kurt Muse at the beginning of the invasion of Panama. Pat survived three helicopter crashes during his time in Delta, and was again wounded during the first combat raid into Afghanistan before retiring several months later.
A fourth troop sergeant major, Larry, was also on the Muse rescue in Panama and is one of the best pistol shots in the world. Soon after retiring, Bryan, Pat, and Jim took their skills back to Iraq and Afghanistan, as part of an organization with the mission of protecting our troops from improvised explosive devices-IEDs. Résumés containing the words “Delta Force” rise to the top of the heap in a hurry in today’s security-conscious world. Dozens of former Delta operators have moved into the security industry, while others have taken their skills to the CIA, and they provide progressive leadership, organizational ingenuity, unique expert training, and unparalleled vision in helping protect the United States.
Having retired from the army, many of Delta’s world-class shooters have chosen to carry their skills to the civilian, law enforcement, and military markets where they teach the finer points of combat marksmanship and urban battlefield tactics. Delta Force legends like Paul Howe of Combat Shooting and Tactics Inc., Larry Vickers of Vickers Tactical Inc., Brian Searcy of Tiger Swan Inc., and Kyle Lamb of Viking Tactics Inc., can’t only teach you how to shoot a gnat off a bull’s ass at fifty yards while on the move but they will actually show you how it’s done first. And they will teach you the combat mind-set so important to develop to do this task while someone is trying to kill you first. If you truly want to see the best of the best in action and are serious about dropping the bad guy before he gets the drop on you, then give one of these guys a call.
What makes Delta so intriguing to the average American? Delta operators are intuitively winners, and although many folks openly cheer for the underdog, deep inside, we secretly prefer being with the winners. And there is something about Delta specifically, and special operations in general, that is very attractive to the typical male adult.
Many red-blooded American men want to be special operators, just as many young boys want to be professional ball players, because it is arguably the highest achievement in the military profession. Of course, just as in professional sports, only a relative handful of men possess the desire, commitment, or God-given ability to reach that pinnacle. I used to add luck to the equation as well, but I heard numerous times over the years that “Delta makes its own luck.”
It is gospel in the U.S. Army that noncommissioned officers, the sergeants, are the backbone of any outfit. Nowhere is that more true than inside the special operations community. They are remarkable men.
The typical Delta sergeant, from the youngest staff sergeant to the unit command sergeant major, possesses an incredible command of the English language. Most have little, if any, college training but own remarkable vocabularies. After having briefed you on the finer points of a sensitive situation, you usually have to grab a dictionary to look up a few words that they used. I’m not sure that the power brokers look for this quality during the assessment and selection process, but it is a common trait.
That hones them as polished and confident public speakers. These sergeants are equally at ease briefing congressmen, senators, general officers, ambassadors, and senior administration officials. A Delta sergeant is hard to intimidate and equally hard to impress.
When Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush visited the Unit compound after 9/11, they were briefed by Delta sergeants. That stands in sharp contrast to most conventional military units, where senior officers typically do the talking while the rank and file remains safely corralled in formation at a distance. Over the years, I observed these refined supersergeants frighten officers and officials of all types, time and time again. Present company included.
Another shared and rare quality is the care with which these men tackle tough problems. Regardless of the risk involved or the high-profile personality targeted, each problem is given the same attention as the next. It’s business, but business with a passion and a deep commitment to fellow man and teammate.
So, how does an organization fill itself with so many first-round draft picks? The credit certainly rests with the unique selection and assessment process, in which a candidate with Rubik’s Cube instincts might be more attractive than a marathon runner or bodybuilder.
I think retired U.S. Army colonel David Hunt summed up a Delta Force operator best in his book, They Just Don’t Get It:
Here is the recipe for Delta. You start with an already spectacular soldier who has a proven service record of, say, five years, usually as a part of Special Forces or as a Ranger. He volunteers to go to the mountains of West Virginia, where he must run forty kilometers over mountains with over sixty pounds on his back plus his weapon. He must pass a series of mental and physical tests. Only one in fifty will make it through this process. Once you make it through this “selection,” you then spend almost a year learning the “deadly arts” in a training program that is designed for masochists. And there you have it, a Delta warrior! These guys shoot 50,000 rounds of ammunition a year per man. They train attacking trains, planes, and automobiles. They train in tunnels, in sewers, on high wires, and even in trees. They actually run with 60 to 100 pounds on their backs. They jump from airplanes carrying more than 500 pounds. These super soldiers can do amazing things.
But such supersoldiers are a hard crop to grow, and because it takes a great deal of time to make them, a new threat has formed for the special operations community, an interior danger that might bring down the entire edifice.
Retired major general Sid Shachnow created the fundamental Special Operations Forces principles-“SOF Truths”-and former Special Ops four-star general Wayne Downing chiseled them in cement. The first rule is: Humans are more important than hardware.
Unfortunately, the “SOF Truths” seem to have been mislaid somewhere along the way since 9/11 and a sudden push developed to expand the entire special operations community. If these guys are so good, then let’s put more of them in the field! Congressional authorization to increase the manpower is one thing, but money alone is not a magic wand. Simply issuing conventional forces black commando gear covered with fastek buckles and Velcro will not transform them into special operators. The very idea is utterly naïve and dangerous.
Regardless of the spin, any widening of entrance prerequisites, changing grading systems, or “relooking” previous SOF failures is the same as lowering the standards. You still must find just the right type of American to meet the highest standards, not revised and lesser tests, before he can join the ranks, and another SOF truth remains unassailable: You cannot mass-produce commandos.
Within a few months of my joining the squadron, Gus Murdock sent me on a real-world mission to the Balkans, and there I had the opportunity to see the unique skill, talent, and commitment of a typical Delta sergeant. Again, it made me feel pretty average, for although I was qualified in every way as a Delta officer, I was still a rookie. Murdock would not team me up with anyone who did not know the ropes.
My partner was Jamie, a longtime clandestine operator who truly enjoyed stalking humans, and I knew enough to take my lead from him. Jamie had started off as an assaulter and was wounded in Somalia before moving on to more advanced stuff. I discovered that he had the mind of a criminal and the free spirit and awareness of a fugitive. Jamie could have made a fortune as a crook in the outside world.
He grew up in New Mexico, where he spent his time racing dirt bikes, four-wheelers, go-carts, and eventually professional BMX racing bicycles. His favorite toy was a Z-28 with a nitrous oxide kit, and he outran the local police more than fifty times with his bikes, trucks, and cars. But he was smart enough not to flee the authorities unless he was certain he could shake them.
When Jamie first arrived at Delta as a young assaulter, he took the initiative to check out all the squadron’s motorcycles, adjusting all the controls so they were ergonomic to the rider, replacing all the spark plugs, checking the wiring, and putting fresh gas in the tanks. Then he did the same thing to all the mechanical breaching tools. He was a master mechanic, meticulous about routine things, and fanatical about ensuring the little things were done well above standard. Okay was never good enough. He tuned those machines like fine concert pianos.
He took great pleasure in focusing on things like ensuring that our operational vehicles ran perfectly. It was a daily chore that the rest of us were happy to avoid, and it captured his attention like nothing else, almost to the point of being annoying, as he sought perfection. Watching him tinker with perfection was like listening to fingernails being scraped across the chalkboard.
Jamie was a serious driver, but aren’t we all? Only he was unique with his seriousness about driving under duress, at high speeds, on uneven terrain, in rain and snow, on sand and on gravel. Perfection was the goal. One day the unit brought in a professional motocross rider to upgrade their skills and Jamie skipped the first two days of training. He came on the third day after a teammate asked him to check the guy out.
It didn’t take long for Jamie to recognize the special instructor was not all he advertised, and he challenged the guest to a race. The guest hopped on the fancy and expensive race bike he brought with him while Jamie just picked one of the squadron bikes. Well, the guy was good, but Jamie kicked his ass.
Shortly after arriving in the Balkans, we took off for a downtown outdoor market to purchase several props and clothing to support our urban reconnaissance mission. We tried to buy a rusted bicycle with bald tires and a tattered seat for one hundred dollars cash from an old lady, but she wouldn’t let the bike go. A hundred bucks wasn’t enough? It was a sweet piece of junk, at least twenty-five years old and exactly what we needed, but we let it go. We found another one an hour later and threw it in the trunk.
We bought some fishing poles and tackle, buckets, street brooms, construction helmets, soccer balls, Adidas workout suits, and other gear that would provide us “cover for action” near a potential target site long enough to take some video or snap a photo.
Then we drove around checking the atmospherics of the cities and smaller townships, conducting route reconnaissance for future missions, and servicing safe houses that were scattered throughout the country. Jamie had been to the Balkans so much in the past few years that he didn’t need a map. Mine stayed in my lap and out of sight as I kept a forefinger on it to follow the roads.
On one summer day, we were conducting a low-visibility urban reconnaissance in a small, rundown city that had seen better days. We didn’t shower or shave for two days so we would match the unclean men who lived where running water was scarce, and we dressed in local mismatched and baggy soccer sweats. Our mission was to locate a specific casino restaurant that intelligence reports said was frequented by an indicted war criminal who often used it as a meeting place. This food joint, though, was different than most of the others, because it was floating on a river.
Driving a silver Volkswagen Jetta with all our props in the trunk, I dropped Jamie off several blocks from the restaurant and headed to a nearby park. Jamie set out on foot reconnaissance carrying his fishing pole, tackle box, and a bucket, while I settled in to reading the local paper, which might as well have been in Chinese or upside down, since I can’t read Serbo-Croatian. I chain-smoked locally made cigarettes to complete my midmorning masquerade. Both of us carried concealed M-1911 handguns.
Jamie turned the corner and headed down the street until the restaurant was a few hundred meters to his front. Crossing a bridge, he noticed some fishermen down on the riverbank, so he stepped over the wooden guardrail and descended the bank to the edge of the water with his own fishing gear. Just like that he was in a perfect position to observe the boat. If the fellow we were looking for showed up, Jamie was sure to make a positive identification. A guy fishing nearby with his daughter began shouting at him, and Jamie just stared straight ahead. If he ignored him, perhaps he would leave him alone. Unnecessary talking is a commando sin because it can alert locals that you are different. Jamie knew the language well enough, but his foreign accent would be a dead giveaway.
The other fisherman was persistent. He could see that Jamie wore a wristwatch and he wanted to know the time. Jamie frowned and gave some crude hand signals, tapping his hand with a closed fist several times, pointing at his ear, and cocking his head as if he wanted sympathy. He tried to make it so uncomfortable for the stranger that he would just leave him alone. It worked. The fisherman lowered his head, raised his hands, palms at waist level, and apologized to the deaf-mute before turning away with his daughter and heading up the riverbank.
After an hour and a half, Jamie approached the park and we made eye contact, the signal for me to depart and conduct another foot reconnaissance while he took over watching our car. My job was to see if I could spot the target’s vehicle and confirm it through the license plate number.
I took a different route, and as I turned a street corner in the bustling business district I found myself near a U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle, part of the Stabilization Forces (SFOR) that had been sent into the country. Several more were spread out at about hundred-meter intervals, but I had to brazen it out and continue walking. As I approached one, I noticed a soldier up in the turret and another sitting near him. I stopped and stared at them for a few seconds and they stared back. I took a puff on my cigarette, raised the folded newspaper that I could not read, and said, “Dobro SFOR!”
The young soldier in the turret asked the other, “What does that mean?”
“It means ‘SFOR is good,’ you dumb ass,” the second soldier responded with sarcasm. “How long have you been here, anyway?”
I walked away confident that my orange and blue sweat jacket, seventies-style sunglasses, and greasy hair obviously were appropriate for the mission. Fellow Americans had not recognized me.
Within an hour, Jamie and I linked up, loaded the car, and headed back to our safe house, stopping along the way for some fresh bread and fruit. It was Saturday and our intelligence people said the guy who was our target liked to party and hold meetings on the bottom deck of the boat. We decided to return to the restaurant that same night, when money was changing hands and the busy nightlife would provide perfect cover.
Trading our soccer rags for some stylish local clothing of black slacks, collarless shirts, and old black leather jackets, we headed out after dark for the forty-five-minute drive back to the city. It was a beautiful night, with a sky full of stars and a slight breeze off the river, and we parked and went into another restaurant believed to be frequented by the target.
Right away, we saw a small group of Green Berets at a nearby table, out partying for the evening themselves. They were part of the American commitment of Joint Commission Observer teams assigned to ensure that both the Serbs and the Bosnians upheld the Dayton Peace Accords and assist in the relocation of refugees. The Green Berets had no idea who we were and that we could understand every word they said. After nursing a beer apiece and with no sign of our target, we returned to the car and drove to the parking lot outside the casino boat restaurant.
We sat in the lot observing the place for several minutes. It was busy. The parking lot was full, too many vehicles to check for tag numbers, but after watching all the activity and hearing the live band, Jamie figured we could get inside for a closer look. If our target was a true party guy, he very likely was in there.
But how to get in? We watched the line of customers cross a long and rickety plank bridge with a rope handle rail on each side, then up an angled walkway to a second-floor bar entrance. Women were admitted without much more than a look and a smile from the two bouncers, but the guys handed over a couple of bucks for a cover charge, then were given a pat-down search. That meant we would have to leave our pistols, holsters, and spare magazines behind and venture inside with only Jamie’s Spyderco knife and a Surefire flashlight. Not a lot of weaponry when facing the Serbian Mafia.
Jamie looked more local than the locals as he walked up, paid the bouncers, calmly took the pat-down and slipped through the door. A few minutes later, I followed. We did not get any change back from the doorman.
The place was jam-packed on the upper level with young adult and middle-aged Serbians. The booming band was a perfect working atmosphere, since we would not be expected to talk. Jamie ordered two beers by sticking up two fingers, pointing at another beer bottle and flashing some money. We were inside, blending, perfectly camouflaged for the environment and hiding in plain sight.
Having a drink while on duty was an ironic part of doing the job professionally. In war-weary Bosnia, telling the bartender you are the designated driver and hoping to be given a Coca-Cola on the house would have been way too American. I enjoyed the excitement of the moment. We were on the target, but completely invisible. The experienced Delta operator, Jamie, was as comfortable as the other several hundred nightclubbers. The new guy, me, was a bit more amped.
In the farthest two corners of the club were some tables set up on a loft. Anyone of importance probably would like that location, so we left the bar and moved toward the back of the club. We tried not to bump into too many people as we edged closer to the band and the dance floor.
We stood around for a few minutes as the music blasted, trying to get a discreet look at all of the men who matched the general description of our target: dark hair, big beer belly. Lots of those were around.
Everything seemed cool, so Jamie headed for the pisser. Normally, leaving another operator alone was a violation of principle, but there are few hard-and-fast rules in this type of work. Every decision is based on what an operator thinks he can get away with. For Jamie, after taking stock of the situation, taking a quick trip to the pisser was no big risk. What could happen, anyway? It was just a nightclub full of people having fun and giving the finger to the rest of the world. A drunk in the crowd started yelling at the band’s lead singer, who was getting irritated but continued to strum his guitar.
After leaving the bathroom, Jamie went back to the bar for two more beers. So far, all was good. As he made his way back toward me, there was a sudden and thunderous rumble of human voices and pounding feet, and the crowded dance floor erupted in chaos. Within seconds, a wave of people were stampeding toward the door, giving the feeling that the party boat was capsizing.
Is our cover blown? If it is, these folks sure ain’t happy about it. Trying to avoid being trampled, I stood still and tried to make eye contact with Jamie. He was no longer blending in, since he was the only one moving upstream against the crowd, toward me. Jamie also thought it was the worst-case scenario. He wondered what could have happened to cause the panic and concluded: It must be Dalton.
In a few seconds, we linked up and found the real cause of the problem. One of the bouncers had just beaten the crap out of a uniformed Serbian police officer. The bouncer seemed seven feet tall and thick as a refrigerator and moved past us holding on to the cop as if he were carrying a lunch box home. The cop was out cold, his arms and head hanging limp and feet dragging behind on the floor.
Even in the Balkans, a bar fight is usually soon followed by police sirens, handcuffs, and paddy wagons, which also usually means trouble for unfortunate innocent bystanders-like us. But another immediate concern was that if these guys didn’t respect the local police, they sure as heck wouldn’t think twice about offing us. If the cops are scared of this place, maybe we should be, too.
Any chance of identifying our target that night slid to nothing in a hurry, and it was time, in military terms, to exfil the site immediately. In other words, we had to get the hell out of there.
We made our way through the door and into the outside air, only to find that police flashers had filled the parking lot and a few cops had already reached their roughed-up partner, who had regained some consciousness. Other cops were trading heated words with the bouncers while several more officers had men pressed up against the squad cars and private autos parked in the lot. Jamie and I could not risk being swept up with the crowd. Our car was only about thirty feet away, but getting there was not going to be easy.
We walked to the end of the boat as calmly as possible, attempting to not draw attention. Then we jumped over to the steep and soggy embankment and managed to flank the parking lot and approach our vehicle at a crouch before slipping inside. One of the first things a Delta operator does when handed the keys of an operational civilian vehicle is disable the interior lights that shine when a door is opened. That routine procedure allowed us to enter the car without alerting the nearby cops.
I was happy to let Jamie drive. He was back in his element as he cranked the engine, looked at me, and smiled, then calmly reversed out of the parking lot. He hit the gas and left the party in our rearview mirror.
We were going just over the speed limit on a major two-lane highway toward the safety of our house when we came upon an unexpected Republic of Serbska police checkpoint near the zone of separation, or ZOS, a mile-wide curvy line drawn on the ground to separate Bosnian Christians from Bosnian Muslims.
It was too late to turn around, and we had no choice but to approach the checkpoint and hope for the best. Police officers signaled Jamie to stop, and he put on the brakes and rolled down the window. Just as three uniformed policemen approached, flanking the car, Jamie hit the gas and burned rubber out of there.
After a hundred meters, we saw the police flashers come on behind us and several squad cars begin to chase. Jamie immediately found a cutback road a few hundred meters after rounding a small bend. He killed the headlights and simultaneously stepped on the brake, pressed down the clutch, and snapped the steering wheel hard left. The front tires grabbed the asphalt while the rear wheels slid around in a 180-degree arc, a perfect high-speed evasive maneuver executed in complete darkness and without night vision goggles. It scared the shit out of me.
Jamie gassed it and the car sped back toward the oncoming police, but with no overt lighting on our vehicle, which made it momentarily invisible to them. Once again at the turn, Jamie went sharp right, onto hard dirt and eased up about thirty meters before stopping. A few seconds that seemed like a lifetime crawled by before the police cars with their flashing lights came along and drove right past us.
I could tell our young hell-for-leather driver from New Mexico had done this kind of thing before. We were both smiling. “Damn, Jamie, that was scary shit but some excellent driving,” I told him, trying to regulate my heartbeat and not advertise my inexperience.
“Yeah,” he replied, already thinking of any errors he might have to admit in a hot-wash debriefing. “I think I gave it too much brake and not enough torque on the wheel, but it worked.”
The moment emphasized for me the importance of the Delta selection process in choosing the right kind of guys for the Unit and giving them unique training and skills. Delta operators know how to work in small teams, miles and miles away from any friendly American military unit… even when a routine mission turns to crap.
<a l:href="#_ftnref5">[5]</a> The history, importance, and uniqueness of Delta’s selection process is discussed in detail by both Colonel Beckwith in his book Delta Force and CSM(R) Eric Haney’s book Inside Delta Force.