Joan Lunden Behind Closed Doors: U.S. Army Special Forces

the army calls them the tip of the spear they are the original a-team the secret soldiers who stand ready 24/7 for covert missions behind enemy lines tonight we go behind closed doors and into the world of Special Forces to find out what it takes to wear the Green Beret they perform within the shadows their impact felt a world away they are part of America's covert forces sent to gather intelligence the saviors of those caught behind enemy lines teachers of local people in foreign countries in need of military skills the epitome of unconventional warriors their motto anytime anyplace anywhere to liberate the oppressed we're given a lot of responsibility we could be working in the jungles of Latin America one moment and working at the diplomatic level and embassies at the net the variety of missions that we perform are numerous and it there's never a dull moment Fort Bragg North Carolina headquarters for the US military's Special Operations Command their training area is highly classified few have ever been let inside for me it was an extraordinary journey into the hearts and minds of the men known as the US Army's Green Berets what makes a good Special Forces soldier you have to have the ability to handle stress both physical and mental you have to be comfortable with ambiguity you have to have a fair amount of self-confidence in your ability to do the right thing at the right time and make the proper decisions ambiguity the ability to deal with ambiguity and in what way it means not having to have people tell you what to do the instinct to sort through a large amount of often conflicting information which happens quite often a deployment in a foreign country where you're dealing with different factions and arrive at ground truth Special Forces is an all-male unit that dates back to 1952 in a dangerous world a gathering of volunteers was assembled to conduct guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines in small groups they distinguished themselves from other units by wearing Green Berets and in 1960 that one piece of headgear became the most legendary part of their uniform Winnicott the eye of President John F Kennedy during a visit to Fort Bragg President Kennedy called it a mark of distinction and a Badge of Courage for the remainder of the 20th century special forces earned a reputation as fearless warriors wherever whenever conflict erupted they were there they still are today's special forces numbered just over two thousand two men can successfully complete a mission but a traditional of operation detachment alpha or a team consists of 12 of the most well trained men in u.s. military we get to the point where not only do we know each other's likes and dislikes we also know each other's breathing rate step rate because when you go out into the woods you have to know these characteristics so that the team can work as one and move together undetected if that's what the situation calls for a lot of times as Special Forces team will find itself deployed downrange and they'll be the only American force in that country there's no support system like if the 82nd deployed where they come in with thousands of soldiers to take care of them and Special Forces 18 will have to depend on itself a lot of times and that's why a Special Forces team has to be so strong often Green Berets are the first ones into an area of conflict their invisibility is key to staying alive so we can't show you some of their faces but their words reveal why they are willing to do one of the most dangerous jobs in the military in Special Forces I'll get the opportunity to do things that most people only get to see in the movies or dream about there's a lot placed on us I like that responsibility you know defending the Constitution of the United States is not an easy thing not anyone can do it to really understand this exclusive community you have to start at a highly restricted area for the beginning of the selection process this is nasty Nick the army's most grueling obstacle course to earn a green beret a soldier must master this mile-long trail of terror there are 30 different obstacles designed to test every part of a soldier's physical and mental being what are you looking for in this selection process we want a guy who is physically fit because there are times when he'll be called upon to travel long distances move very fast carry heavy loads so ultimately a guy's core makeup has to be strong he has to be tough he has to be committed yes persistent at what he's doing some of the obstacles out here are just downright scary how do you help the guys conquer their fear everybody is afraid of something whether it's going through a tunnel going into water or being outside at night by yourself alone dealing with the animals we're all afraid of something that's not what we're looking for we're looking for the guy who can deal with his fears in a stressful situation to even qualify a soldier has already gone through basic training graduated from Airborne School and served one full tour of duty less than half survived the grueling 23 days of physical and mental testing and this is only phase one when we come back I get a taste of how Special Forces survive behind enemy lines and learn firsthand how they get out in a hurry behind closed doors will continue in a moment here on AME on any given day there are 1500 Special Forces soldiers deployed to as many as 50 countries how they enter an area is represented on the patch they wear on their uniform the 3 bolts of lightning symbolize air land and sea and they have mastered all methods of infiltration the images of these methods have rarely been seen outside the US military they plunge they swim they creep they drop they emerge and in one of their most dangerous maneuvers they fall from the sky they call it a halo a high altitude low opening entry into enemy territory the beauty with their infiltration is a lot of times we can exit the aircraft over a friendly country glide in under canopy over the bad country and land and because we're such a small signature in the air no one over there in a halo drop Special Forces soldiers strap on large parachutes weapons oxygen tanks and 130 pounds of gear then they plummet at speeds of a hundred and twenty miles an hour from 28,000 feet almost six miles above the earth in under two and a half minutes they open their chutes just 4,000 feet from the ground one sale and the mission begins a special forces a team consists of 12 specialists there's a captain a Warrant Officer a team sergeant and intelligence sergeant to medical sergeants to engineering sergeants to communications sergeants one light and one heavy weapon sergeant but each man is cross trained and his other teammates skills the reason is simple should a man be killed in action another can perform his role it's all about survival and a Fort Bragg I was given an exclusive lesson we're going to talk about making fire basically just want to bow that somewhere between two and three feet long any kind of a cord will work in this case I've got parachute cord which may be carried by soldiers in the woods and my stick of course is made out of yuca and that's going to be the drill what I'm going to do here is create a lot of friction by moving the drill back and forth and that's going to cause this you could to disintegrate then it's going to cause a coal to fall in here then if everything goes well then we should be able to get a spark in here you could see some smoke right there yeah look at that very cool very Wow you've got it going whoa there it is so once you've got that of course you can put that into your fire stack and you've got so far in the most primitive Matthew how long you'd survive out there knowing all this forever I went from soldier to soldier each showing me a different method for survival from making weapons out of found objects to purifying water to finding food in the wild it will actually go down here we'll start down at the bottom of the food chain with things that the big bugs things that will actually make your skin crawl but some of these things the insects that you can ingest are actually extremely high in a lot of vitamins nutrients and calories and those sorts protein even right these are worms that we've cooked up here that you can eat oh we always hear about this generally you want to break down your insects into hard shield and soft shelled insects so we're all Special Forces then have to learn to eat worms yes ma'am the reason we do that is just to try and get them over that mental fence to get over that mental edge to just to say that well I've eaten worms I've eaten bugs it can't be that bad I don't only get better from here well I know you don't let women in the Special Forces but I would be forever rag Don when I got back if I didn't try to eat a worm right little overcooked I'd say yeah we always want to overcook everything we always say there's no such thing as medium-rare in a survival situation the psychological effect of eating a worm was worse than the actual taste it just tasted burnt survival school prepares them for the worst case scenario and lost behind enemy lines but when operating in a foreign country they draw on a whole other set of skills that have taken months even years to master Nakata Enya ha ha brats evening enemy behind closed doors in a traditional classroom Special Forces soldiers study at least one of 20 languages noche para la Velma burrows o arian a mobile Oprah criminal news they usually come in with zero knowledge about the language they might have heard a few phrases here and there but basically I would say they don't speak the language at all huh so for them they would be stay out good work uh uh opposite when they leave they they can hold a basic conversation Yahoo Chu WH lon Oh Jonah Barrett Pierre gaveling professional nose poignancy never leaned up put'em though you know strands flow which means I like to work with professional soldiers and I like to travel to foreign countries I think five days a week six hours a day they learn lessons that can mean the difference between life and death but this is what they need to know when they're in a foreign country I learn firsthand what happens when they have to get out in a hurry they call it a helo extraction an emergency evacuation method the flexible form of taking soldiers out of harm's way it was developed over the jungles of Vietnam when helicopters unable to land had to quickly pluck soldiers from enemy territory the Special Forces allowed me the rare opportunity to be extracted with an 18 we begin with a matter-of-fact briefing as they tied thin ropes around my body I tried to get a feel for what was about to happen once the helicopter lifts soldiers up off the ground how high do you go well once they reach a safe height of about 250 feet that's when he's going to transition to a forward mode of travel and he can travel about 70 knots okay for Special Forces this was business as usual you ready let's go okay as we moved into position I could hear the helicopter in the distance we just wait for the helicopter when he comes in and drops the rope we'll run we're going to hit either top hook up I always look forward to a glimpse into other people's lives but when we drop to our knees my heart began beating a lot faster the level of adrenaline in my body really took off when the rope was dropped and the soldiers ran toward it I could barely stay on my feet because of the 120 mile per hour winds generated by the hovering Blackhawk helicopter we hooked on first in the top position of the five man team the Rope went taut we lifted off and within seconds we were flying hundreds of feet above the ground in Special Forces they say speed is light so as we flew high above Fort Bragg I tried to imagine what this would be like it this world real evacuation there would be no time to waste no place for a helicopter to land and there would most definitely the enemy fire aimed at the soldiers to get out of a bad situation the Special Forces soldier would most likely leave everything behind except for his weapon and while hanging in full view from this rope the dangling warrior would be firing into the trees hoping to keep the enemy at bay in this training mission I landed safely after only 15 minutes it was an experience I will remember for the rest of my life when we return I become part of one of the most dangerous training missions in Special Forces behind closed doors will continue in a moment here on AME behind closed doors with Joan Lunden continues here on AME after a few days with the Army's Special Forces at Fort Bragg I knew the basics they can speak foreign languages they can push themselves beyond ordinary human limits they can survive in enemy territory and they are ready for war for two months of the year this peaceful North Carolina forest becomes the fictitious war-torn country of pine LAN in a very realistic war game prospective Green Berets must infiltrate the country transform a guerrilla army into a fighting battalion and then destroy the rebels who have taken over Pineland short of war this is as real as it gets this is the final test for soldiers training to be Green Berets here they're required to use everything they've learned in an unconventional warfare exercise codenamed Robin sage in tonight's scenario Special Forces help the people of Pine land fight a hostile military who have taken over their government in these mock war exercises there are 150 local volunteers who play the part of the oppressed fine land residents 120 volunteers from the 82nd airborne who play the role of a hostile military 40 Special Forces instructors and 120 of the Army's newest batch of secret soldiers to get to this point it takes two difficult years of training those who have done it feel it was well worth the sacrifice the main thing you have to understand about us is we're extremely professional we're extremely patriotic we're not only killers we're primarily war fighters but peacetime we again like to win the hearts and minds of the people we in turn as much as possible because you never know when the call will come out to actually do this for real for weeks these trainees will perform mission after mission in pile and each more challenging than the last so that in the future when they engage a real enemy little is left a chance an a-team is well-versed in many areas but first and foremost they are warriors warriors who know weaponry we are in the top-secret arsenal the Special Forces we cannot show you where it is or what the outside of the building looks like for here weapons from all over the world are stored catalogued and repaired it is arguably the largest cache of firearms anywhere in the world ok that John this is a heavy machine gun made in Sweden this facility is so secure that even people in the military are not allowed behind these many closed doors without the right credentials there are walls and walls of weapons secured by locked screen doors in total there are over 7,000 different arms from 29 countries spanning more than a hundred years that's a checklist Lockean made of vz61 m12 beretta this is a m/45 bravo yam 50 Madson this is one of my favorites it's got a lot of history behind it this is the mp40 it's a German weapon that was used in World War two and if you look and see some of the original Nazi type marks here that's a mini using a mini Guzzi mini the reason for this stockpile of arms is for training Green Beret soldiers are sent into countries to help local citizens whose weapons are often old out-of-date or unusual so how many different weapons might a Special Forces soldier know about but there's quite a few we learn approximately 53 different weapon systems from the pistol all the way up to the heavy weapon anti-tank it is one thing to see the weapons in a warehouse quite another to use them in battle that was my next mission a live ammunition training scenario with an a-team but first I had to demonstrate that I could handle a firearm release the bolt go forward I trained with a seven and a half pound rifle known as an m4 Special Forces use this weapon for varied missions like close quarter battle the reason it's accurate and it's lethal good shot shooter ready standby up finger off you see that good shot finger off the trigger when you have a good sight alignment sight picture your rounds will always be hopefully tagged on target yep then for the first time ever the army allowed a journalist to play a very real role in the highest-risk training a Special Forces soldier does there would be weapons loaded with live ammunition and powerful explosives the mission with a 12 member a team we would enter an enemy controlled building I would blow the door off to let us inside step 1 piling on 35 pounds of protective armor it's like being a turtle right having a full shell step to a couple of quick but extremely important instructions to remember during the operation plant paste and push like a sequence don't try to do it too quickly right that's when you make mistakes exactly okay okay slowest move tray step 3 a lesson in learning how to get into the most difficult areas using explosives okay basically this is an example of one firing system it's a generic name is shock tube name of this Special Forces have a number of firing systems they got me up to speed on the one we were going to use this small explosive is so powerful that once initiated the spark can travel at six thousand feet per second and when it finally reaches what they call the blasting cap the discharge can actually take your leg off oh we have right here it's a system exactly like you're going to employ up there now go ahead hold it firmly in your hand okay now pulling this left one first grab it and give a good firm jerk go to the second Wow and there you go all right that's about the same amount of det cord that you're gonna have bailiff in the charges now when you're coming up after practicing the handling and detonation it was time for step four we would execute the mission for real already sure let me give you a breakdown of what we're gonna do here okay we have received information that there's going to be a high-level meeting of these counter insurgents and we need to go obtain some intelligence that they have so that's the scenario what we're going to do is Bravo Team will move to the berm and they'll set up an overwatch position providing security for us if they open fire then we need to move with a purpose okay okay let's do it my role during the exercise to place the explosive in position and then detonate so we could enter the area as we moved in I kept thinking real explosives real bullets real people one mistake and a soldier could be injured or worse he could be killed but this is how Special Forces trained they say you never want to do anything for the first time in battle so they make it as realistic as possible as I put the explosive on the door the noise around me was deafening but I force myself to remain focused one wrong move and this operation could become a catastrophe suddenly the meaning behind what they call the fog of war became clear when bullets are flying and smoke is everywhere nothing is taken for granted does anybody else have their heart beating every time every time are you serious yeah goes down I'll just go on record that doing that with all of this stuff on and you're the eyes and the whole thing you're it's extremely hot and it's heavy and it's really an adrenaline rush especially when all the guns start going off that's normal all the time yeah did you even notice the weight though wants to charge blood no no you don't even notice it when it was all over I couldn't help but think that this was just a training exercise that happens on a regular basis in Special Forces they don't overdramatize the danger or romanticize the job this is their way of life and for one brief moment they let me be a part of their world

Channel: JoanLunden

Views: 318,053

Rating: 4.8822794 out of 5

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Id: XgbHDyBpJxk

Length: 25min 46sec (1546 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 12 2016