"A symbol of excellence, a badge of courage, a mark of distinction in the fight for freedom". These were the words used by President Kennedy when he described the Green Beret. The Green Beret is the US army's Special Forces unit. The soldiers are carefully selected, specially trained and capable of extended operations in extremely remote and hostile territory. The green berets train to perform five important missions: Foreign Internal Defense, Unconventional Warfare, Special Reconnaissance, Direct Action and Counterterrorism.(Payne 1).
In addition to the individual skills of operations and intelligence, communications, medical aid, engineering, and weapons, each special forces soldier is taught to train, advise, and host nation military forces. SF soldiers are highly skilled operators, trainers, and teachers. Area-oriented, these solders are specially trained in their area's native language and culture.
The fundamental building block of the Special Forces groups was the detachment-A, or A team. There are six A-teams in each Special Forces Company. A captain leads the twelve-man team. Second in command is the warrant officer. Two noncommissioned officers, or NCOs, are trained in each of the five Special Forces functional areas: weapons, engineering and demolitions, medicine, communications, and operations and intelligence, and compromise the remainder of the team. All team members are Special Forces qualified and cross-trained in different skills as well as being multi-lingual. Capabilities of the highly-versatile A-team include: to infiltrate and exfiltrate specified operational areas by air, land, or sea, conduct operations in remote areas and hostile environments for extended periods of time, and to perform other special operations as directed by a higher authority.(Simpson 80).
Special forces soldiers are trained to perform five important missions. One of these missions is direct action.