After a time, he lay down at one of the sniper stations, and proceeded to fire off ten rounds. The targets were at about 500 yards, medium range by current sniping standards, and he started scoring direct hits on his third shot, with no coaching from the spotters.
Then it was back to the truck for a drive to the roadblock and vehicle search training.
The GAC FAC company had marched down from the barracks area accompanied by a camp dog, a little one-eyed mutt who also joins the troops when they make parachute jumps and helicopter assaults. Even the GAC FAC dogs are jump qualified.
Once the company had arrived, the four SF soldiers sat them down under a tree, and laid out the procedures for setting up and running a roadblock, and for properly searching a vehicle—including basic rules about human rights of the suspects, a serious issue for SF troops on JCETs. After the “dirty” history of Latin American military forces toward civilians, such training is included wherever it will fit during a JCET mission.
Twenty minutes later, it was time to set up a roadblock. Soldiers from another GAC FAC company had volunteered to serve as the OpFor for this exercise; they would drive the truck that would be stopped and searched.
The GAC FAC leader set up some of his men (wearing body armor) on the road as control personnel. The rest were out of sight among the trees beside the road.
The roadblock itself was road cones and tire obstacle strips (metal plates with spikes). Vehicle traffic was stopped and checked. The passenger and engine compartments were inspected, the frame checked with a mirror and flashlight rig on a handle, and credentials examined. If the team leader or one of his men suspected that a further search was required, then the driver and occupants were moved into the trees, where they were searched and questioned by the security group posted there. More invasive searches were then conducted on the vehicle, until several packages of suspected (and simulated) drug contraband were located.
At this point, the exercise was stopped and critiqued by the SF soldiers. Then the GAC FAC personnel switched around, so everyone would get a turn on the road team.
The evolution was repeated half a dozen times. By the time it was over, the GAC FAC troops not only had the procedure down cold, but were coming up with improvements based on their own real-world experiences.
Colonel Rojas was understandably pleased.
Back in Caracas, Sergeant Carlos and I talked over plans and objectives for the rest of the trip. Tomorrow we would be headed south, to the town of San Fernando de Apure, where we would meet up with two more 2/7th SFG teams. Since Major McCollum was scheduled to arrive—finally—on the midnight plane, Sergeant Carlos would be able to return to his duties at the embassy.
Wednesday, February 10th—Guardia Nacional Barracks, San Fernando de Apure
An early wake-up call confirmed that Major Tom McCollum had indeed managed to get into Venezuela early that morning. I met him for coffee a little later, and then Carlos drove us to the airport.
Our destination, San Fernando de Apure (meaning the town of Saint Ferdinand on the Apure River), is the largest city (with a population of about 90,000) in the Los Llanos (the plains) region of Venezuela several hundred miles south of Caracas. Los Llanos is a mostly level plateau, with huge tracts of land dedicated to ranching and farming, and San Fernando de Apure, on the south bank of the river, is the hub of commercial activity in that part of the world. It is also a major headquarters for the Guardia Nacional.
That doesn’t mean the place is easy to get to. You can either drive there or fly down on what we would call a commuter airline up here. We flew... in what must have been a fifty-year-old, twenty-seat Twin Beech (a twin-engine Beechcraft with two vertical stabilizers like B-25s, and in spectacular shape, with not an oil or bug spot on it). It had probably once been a VIP transport for the Venezuelan Air Force, and had then been sold to the airline after decades of loving care. I was amazed at how quickly the old beauty leapt off the runway, and climbed out, heading south on the minute flight to San Fernando de Apure.
The airfield at San Fernando de Apure was a single-runway affair, big enough for medium transports like C-130s, but not much else. In the small terminal building, we were met by Major Mark, the tall, sunny commander of ODB 740, which made him commander of Company Alpha, 2/7th SFG.
GAC FAC soldiers being trained in roadblock techniques by members of ODA 763. This training was designed to support counterdrug smuggling operations.
JOHN D. GRESHAM
As commander of Company Alpha, he was charged not only with running his own headquarters team, but also with commanding the three ODAs scattered around Venezuela running their own missions—ODA 763 up with GAC FAC in Macarao, ODA 743 here in San Fernando de Apure, and ODA 746 in El Guayabo in the western part of the country. His ODB also provided communications and control support for 2/7th SFG missions in Guatemala, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. While not in actual command of these missions, he was responsible for ensuring that their regular reports got back to Fort Bragg and their support needs were met. (One ODB controlling between two and six ODAs operating around a particular AOR is a fairly standard deployment scheme.)
Our first stop was the ODB 740 team house, which was on the second floor of a walled barracks building assigned to the 69th Commando Rurales (Rural Commando Battalion). The 69th is a recently formed “regular” Guardia Nacional unit, part of the larger 6th Regional Command (a four-battalion brigade) assigned to the 1st Operation Theater (in southern Venezuela). Its mission, like the other “regular” units, was to defend against rebellions, provide law enforcement, and back up the Army as a reserve. Right now the troops of the 69th were living in an old prison, which had been abandoned by the Ministry of Justice.
This was hardly an elite unit like GAC FAC, and it showed.
The job of ODB 740 and ODA 743 was to teach basic tactical, fieldcraft, and firearms skills to the new recruits.
The team house for ODB 740 during their Venezuelan rotation in early 1999. These comfortable quarters were located in a vacant Guardia Nacional barracks in San Fernando de Apure.
JOHN D. GRESHAM
The ODB 740 team house was in an air-conditioned barracks. This was useful, since the climate in the Los Llanos region is hot and humid during our winter. At one end was a compact command center, with the communications gear being run by a senior communications sergeant (18E).
Each man had his own bunk and locker, and there were the usual team house amenities—a television with VCR, tables with laptop computers, a boom box or two, and lots of CDs and movies. Among the videotapes was the ubiquitous (among SF teams) copy of John Wayne’s The Green Berets (whenever their host nation counterparts visit, the locals all want to see it). There was also a hotplate for making coffee and light cooking (the team normally ate with the 69th officers or in town at a local restaurant).
After a quick look around, Major Mark ran Tom McCollum and me into town for a late breakfast. Over eggs and ham links, we talked over our plans for the next couple of days. We then checked into what passed locally for a hotel (it had air-conditioning and running water), and drove back out to the team house for a briefing on his mission orders and objectives.
His entire operation, I was interested to learn, was funded out of the JCS operating budget, and a counternarcotics (CN) line number was used to designate each mission. The chart below lays each out:
A map showing the disposition of the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) teams in early 1999 during their missions in Venezuela.
RUBICON. INC. BY LAURA DENINNO
Each SF mission was targeted at a particular Venezuelan unit, with specific plans tailored for each. This was important, since each Venezuelan unit had a different readiness status and mission within the country’s national security structure. For example, GAC FAC was at the top of the Guardia Nacional food chain; it was their best unit and reported directly to the force’s top leadership. Therefore, CN-9036 could carry out very advanced and difficult training with them. The 69th Commando Rura
les was at the other end of the spectrum-brand-new and not yet terribly important. Therefore, CN-9035 would deliver the most basic kinds of instruction... virtually “baby steps” for the new guardsmen.
Each mission called for its own training plan, and required separate measures for evaluating success or failure in its execution.
On top of all this, there are also numerous rules and regulations, such as human rights and, of course, financial guidelines.
Because of the Venezuelan units’ limited budgets, most consumables (MREs, ammunition, targets, building supplies, etc.) had to be shipped in from the U.S. This meant that a lot of U.S. money had to be spent getting things down to Venezuela and distributed to the far-flung training sites. Because these U.S.-bought supplies were procured with JCS funds (controlled by Title 10 of the Federal Code), anything not actually consumed during the missions had to be returned Stateside for a full accounting. In the minds of Army auditors back home, this means not only bringing back unused ammunition, but every scrap of unused brass, and even the wooden packing dunnage!
This produces a catch-22: The value of materials returned to the U.S. does not match the cost of shipping it home. In order to eliminate any chance of waste and fraud, they make more waste. Go figure.
On the other hand, does all this activity cost U.S. taxpayers a lot? In fact, no. It actually costs very little:
Consider first of all that the SF soldiers, their weapons, food, and other basic operating necessities have to be paid for anyway, out of the normal Army operations and maintenance budget. Add to this ammunition, building supplies, food, and other expendables, and the costs for two months of cellular phones and rental vehicles. Also included must be the cost of shipping to Venezuela and back.
Put all this together, and you’re hit with an amazingly low cost of $250,000 for all four missions (actually a little less). It would be hard to run a single aircraft carrier for an hour on that amount.
After Major Mark’s briefing, we moved over to the small communications center at one end of the team room. Because seven missions were routing their communications through this small portal, the Sergeant (Drew) was a very busy man. His setup was a classic SF mix of ruggedized Army-issue gear (PRC-5/TRQ-43 radios, KY- 99A/KL-43 encryption systems, and MST-20BDC-400 modems), and civilian commercial systems (laptops running Windows 98, HP-97 palmtop computers, etc.). I also recognized one of the new PRC-137 combined radio/crypto units, that could plug directly into almost any kind of communications device, from a laptop computer to a Morse key.
Many people have an interest in overseas operations such as those in Venezuela. That meant a lot of demands were put on the communications setup. So for example, Special Forces Command, 7th SFG, SOCOM, and SOCSOUTH (Brigadier General James W. Parker) all had obvious operational concerns. But so also did various members of the diplomatic community: the U.S. Ambassador in Caracas, the Undersecretary of State for Latin American Affairs, and the Secretary of State all wanted updates as well. (Madeleine Albright gets a weekly briefing on the status of every JCET mission actually in the field. These missions are important at a very high level of government.)
The communications sergeant (18E) of ODB 740 runs the team’s communications center. From this tiny cubbyhole, ODB 740 ran three other teams around Venezuela, along with others in Latin America.
JOHN D. GRESHAM
There was also a regular flow of “housekeeping traffic” (personnel and supply reports, schedule changes, etc.) and personal e-mail.
As the hub for all this, Sergeant Drew was working an average of twelve to sixteen hours a day. Along the way he was also designing new interface cables, maintaining other teams’ broken radio gear and computers, and trying to get in a few hours of sleep. And I’ve got to say he loved every minute of it. Whether it was conducting his twice weekly HF radio test “shots” up to the Chicken Road communications center at Fort Bragg, or finding a new way to connect old gear together to save the Army some money, this was a happy SF soldier.
Later that afternoon, Major Mark took me across the avenue from the barracks complex to a large, flat, and somewhat overgrown field, where a half-dozen SF troops from ODA 743 were engaged in training a company of Guardia Nacional soldiers.
Major Mark introduced us to the members of ODA 743. The team leader, a captain named Tom, took me aside to explain what they were up to. “We’re teaching rudimentary ground tactics,” he told me. “The groups are broken into ten-man fire teams, and then given walk-through instructions on formations, search procedures, and movement across terrain. Within a month, they’ll be doing a live-fire assault onto an objective, complete with assault breaching demolitions.” Such lessons are the basic building blocks of infantry training, and few armies do it better than ours. So the young guardsmen listened closely, and tried their best to emulate their Yanqui instructors.
Troopers of the Venezuelan Guardia Nacional 69th Battalion conducting field maneuvers near San Fernando de Apure.
JOHN D. GRESHAM
Tom then left me to move from fire team to fire team, occasionally stopping to show guardsmen how to position themselves in ways that would allow them to both cover each other and maintain surveillance on their surroundings. This went on until he was satisfied; it took several hours.
Afterward, I rode with him in his rental SUV back to the ODA 743 team house on the other side of town.
This was located in a housing complex reserved for Guardia Nacional officers assigned to the 6th Brigade and reminded me of Army base housing on Stateside posts, and was quite pleasant. Cots had been set up in the bedrooms, gear stowed in the dining and kitchen areas, and a communications center (a half-sized version of Sergeant Drew’s facilities) in the recroom.
In addition to the standard TV and VCR, ODA 743 had brought along an 18” DSS satellite dish, and had a college basketball game going.
“This is the best team house I’ve set up,” Captain Tom told me. “It’s comfortable... and it’s separated from ODB 740.” That is, he liked living away from the shadow of his company commander, and had the freedom to do things his way. SF soldiers like their independence.
After a diversion to an animal sanctuary across the Apure River to view some of the largest crocodiles and anacondas in the world (I saw there a crocodile more than twelve ft./four m. long, and was told a wild crocodile, estimated at sixteen ft./ five m., lived in the river nearby), we moved on to a nearby restaurant and dinner with Major Mark.
Guardia Nacional officer candidates conduct land navigation training under the supervision of Special Forces soldiers from ODB 740.
JOHN D. GRESHAM
Wednesday, February 11th—Guardia Nacional Barracks, San Fernando de Apure
Early that morning, I was once again at the ODB 740 team house for a quick trip to one last training event.
The 6th Regional Command maintains at San Fernando de Apure a training academy for newly minted Guardia Nacional officers who will be assigned within the region’s various units. At this academy, which is housed at the Guardia Nacional aviation complex at the local airport, young men learn the trade of soldiering and leadership from members of ODB 740. ODB 740 had set up there a small training cell where the students would get a U.S.-style dose of operational art.
When I arrived, the class of around a dozen in a small, well-appointed classroom was being taken through a land navigation and map reading course. Each student had been given a U.S.-supplied map of the area, a map protractor, and a series of UTM coordinates for specific locations. They were then split into two- and three-man teams, whose job was to plot out routes and timing for a hypothetical squad to march from one place to another.
The morning’s lecture had covered march rates over various types of terrain; then the officer candidates broke up to work the problem out.
About twenty minutes later, the SF instructors asked them to show their solutions.
Roughly a third of the group had succeeded in plotting the course and developing the timeline. The rest t
ook more attention.
After the class, a few of the young officers stayed on to work further with the SF instructors... igniting a nice smile from Major Mark. “These are the kinds of officers I look for overseas,” he told me. “I take their names and keep track of them.”
By midmorning, I was heading out to the airport.
Because the Beechcraft had suffered a generator failure on the ground in Caracas, it was three hours before a replacement aircraft, a classic DC-3, arrived to take us back to Caracas.
Colonel Jose Grant, commander of the 107th Special Forces Battalion, with a Special Forces soldier from ODA 746.
JOHN D. GRESHAM
From there, Major McCollum and I caught a quick flight over to Maracabo in the western part of the country. Though we had planned to continue on to El Guayabo, the earlier delay had nixed that, so we spent the night in a local hotel. Tomorrow, we would do a lot of traveling.
Thursday, February 12th—69th Parachute Battalion Barracks, El Guayabo
Starting early that morning, Tom McCollum and I caught a commuter flight (this time aboard a modem turboprop ATR-72) to the tiny airport at Santa Barbara, where we were met by a pair of SF soldiers from ODA 746 (which was assigned to work with the Army troops of the Venezuelan 107th Special Forces Battalion). After loading into their rented SUV, we headed southwest to the town of El Guayabo (which is only a handful of miles from the Colombia border). The country was pretty, with rolling hills and an abundance of lakes and rivers. In the distance you could see the Andes.
Here is located a barracks for the Venezuelan 107th SF Battalion, one of their finest units. The 107th is charged with securing the region against drug traffickers and raids by Colombia FARC rebels. Anywhere else, similar duties would probably be handled by police-type units, but here the scale is larger: It’s a simmering low-level war. Recently FARC has been kidnapping for ransom wealthy Venezuelan ranchers. Since these thugs use every available means of travel—air, roads, and rivers—to conduct their operations, ODA 746 had been sent down to El Guayabo to provide the Venezuelans with new tools to fight back.