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Special Forces Readying for Any Situation

Aired February 25, 2003 - 14:42   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: From deserts to city streets, modern day wars are fought on all fronts. Today, we've been able shown you up close the intense training U.S. Special Forces go through in urban combat, and our Kyra Phillips has been right in the thick of it at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She joins us now -- Kyra.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson, as you can see, it's a lot more calm now. You have to sort of decompress. You see the debris everywhere and it's a lot calmer than what you saw about 45 minutes ago. Once again, Major Bame (ph) with me. He's been sort of -- you have been my bullet trap, we said...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bullet trap. That what's we call...

PHILLIPS: ... to make sure nothing happened, nothing dangerous, of course. But let's go ahead and debrief. As we look at videotape we just captured of the guys moving out. How did it all go?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fairly well. This is one of the capstone exercises that we run to apply all the skills that the students are trained in throughout the course. And compared to other classes that we've had come through, they did a great job. They moved quickly, and they solved the complex problem of the urban situation. They achieved the objective and found the downed crew.

PHILLIPS: And they were able to get all the crewmen out without any complications.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Did you see anything, though, that you noticed -- you're going to have a massive critique session afterwards. What are you going to talk to them about?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The instructors are out here. You noticed them, I am sure the audience noticed them throughout. They're taking notes as they go, and they are giving them the fine points of what they did right and what they did wrong. As a training environment, there are things that will happen that are wrong, and we just give him that feedback immediately.

It's called a hot wash, just giving them immediate feedback so that they can improve the next time they do it.

PHILLIPS: All right. Now, another asset, Special Forces soldiers, they're able to handle land, air, and sea. This morning we got to experience firsthand the wind tunnel. Let's talk about the advanced training with the free fall military school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we can talk about the free fall, the way we look at it in Special Forces is it's one more infiltration technique. Again, all the courses in Second Battalion are advanced skills, so we take experienced Special Forces soldiers and bring them back to improve their capabilities, providing the free fall capability, stuff that you didn't see down at Key West when we do the combat diver schools, and the advanced urban combat training that we provide out here.

PHILLIPS: And the wind tunnel, that we're looking at basically is a simulation as if you are jumping out of an airplane, and so you're learning techniques on how to basically not dive in a dangerous way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger, and the wind tunnel is a value-added asset because it teaches them stabilization in the air, and when you're talking about jumping out of an airplane in a free fall capacity, that's the biggest risk factor is a guy gets unstable and starts tumbling in the air, because then even an instructor can't come in, fly next to him, and regain control of him. So we get them stable in the wind tunnel. That way, when they get out (UNINTELLIGIBLE), they are jumping, and they are doing so efficiently. We get max jumps that way. They get max training benefits that way.

PHILLIPS: Finally, we had a great opportunity to have exclusive access here and see Special Forces. It was tough to be able to get this assignment. We understand why. I know that there are a lot of things -- it was very -- we declassified the whole scenario, but I think that Americans definitely got a feel for what you go through.

Now, possibly, there may be a war in Iraq. Many of these soldiers may be called in to that environment. Are they ready to go?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they leave this course, they've achieved the baseline for advanced urban combat, and that's what we tried to achieve. When they get back to their Special Forces groups, the groups build upon that, and regionally orient their capabilities. So, yes, unqualified -- qualified yes to that, that when they leave the course, they've got the skills that they need to conduct this training successfully in a real world situation.

PHILLIPS: And just so our viewers understand, when we say Special Forces, explain to the viewer in layman's terms what that means. What can a Special Forces soldier do in a wartime scenario to keep peace throughout the world?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I spent more time deployed when I was in a Special Forces group in the context of a more peaceful world environment. We do work in every aspect, and all under the umbrella of unconventional warfare, and that's true for every member of Special Forces. That is our bread and butter, and when you look at the missions within unconventional warfare, we've got a great capability to execute a number of different mission sets. So unconventional warfare is the bread and butter, and we keep honing the skills within that construct.

PHILLIPS: We got to see it firsthand. Major Bame (ph), thank you so much for your time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's our pleasure to have you out here. I appreciate it.

PHILLIPS: All right. Anderson, as we sort of wrap things up here, a lot to think about and obviously, a lot learned.

COOPER: Certainly was. Really fascinating stuff. Kyra Phillips. Thanks very much. Live from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the U.S. Special Forces.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 25, 2003 - 14:42   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: From deserts to city streets, modern day wars are fought on all fronts. Today, we've been able shown you up close the intense training U.S. Special Forces go through in urban combat, and our Kyra Phillips has been right in the thick of it at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She joins us now -- Kyra.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson, as you can see, it's a lot more calm now. You have to sort of decompress. You see the debris everywhere and it's a lot calmer than what you saw about 45 minutes ago. Once again, Major Bame (ph) with me. He's been sort of -- you have been my bullet trap, we said...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bullet trap. That what's we call...

PHILLIPS: ... to make sure nothing happened, nothing dangerous, of course. But let's go ahead and debrief. As we look at videotape we just captured of the guys moving out. How did it all go?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fairly well. This is one of the capstone exercises that we run to apply all the skills that the students are trained in throughout the course. And compared to other classes that we've had come through, they did a great job. They moved quickly, and they solved the complex problem of the urban situation. They achieved the objective and found the downed crew.

PHILLIPS: And they were able to get all the crewmen out without any complications.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Did you see anything, though, that you noticed -- you're going to have a massive critique session afterwards. What are you going to talk to them about?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The instructors are out here. You noticed them, I am sure the audience noticed them throughout. They're taking notes as they go, and they are giving them the fine points of what they did right and what they did wrong. As a training environment, there are things that will happen that are wrong, and we just give him that feedback immediately.

It's called a hot wash, just giving them immediate feedback so that they can improve the next time they do it.

PHILLIPS: All right. Now, another asset, Special Forces soldiers, they're able to handle land, air, and sea. This morning we got to experience firsthand the wind tunnel. Let's talk about the advanced training with the free fall military school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we can talk about the free fall, the way we look at it in Special Forces is it's one more infiltration technique. Again, all the courses in Second Battalion are advanced skills, so we take experienced Special Forces soldiers and bring them back to improve their capabilities, providing the free fall capability, stuff that you didn't see down at Key West when we do the combat diver schools, and the advanced urban combat training that we provide out here.

PHILLIPS: And the wind tunnel, that we're looking at basically is a simulation as if you are jumping out of an airplane, and so you're learning techniques on how to basically not dive in a dangerous way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger, and the wind tunnel is a value-added asset because it teaches them stabilization in the air, and when you're talking about jumping out of an airplane in a free fall capacity, that's the biggest risk factor is a guy gets unstable and starts tumbling in the air, because then even an instructor can't come in, fly next to him, and regain control of him. So we get them stable in the wind tunnel. That way, when they get out (UNINTELLIGIBLE), they are jumping, and they are doing so efficiently. We get max jumps that way. They get max training benefits that way.

PHILLIPS: Finally, we had a great opportunity to have exclusive access here and see Special Forces. It was tough to be able to get this assignment. We understand why. I know that there are a lot of things -- it was very -- we declassified the whole scenario, but I think that Americans definitely got a feel for what you go through.

Now, possibly, there may be a war in Iraq. Many of these soldiers may be called in to that environment. Are they ready to go?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they leave this course, they've achieved the baseline for advanced urban combat, and that's what we tried to achieve. When they get back to their Special Forces groups, the groups build upon that, and regionally orient their capabilities. So, yes, unqualified -- qualified yes to that, that when they leave the course, they've got the skills that they need to conduct this training successfully in a real world situation.

PHILLIPS: And just so our viewers understand, when we say Special Forces, explain to the viewer in layman's terms what that means. What can a Special Forces soldier do in a wartime scenario to keep peace throughout the world?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I spent more time deployed when I was in a Special Forces group in the context of a more peaceful world environment. We do work in every aspect, and all under the umbrella of unconventional warfare, and that's true for every member of Special Forces. That is our bread and butter, and when you look at the missions within unconventional warfare, we've got a great capability to execute a number of different mission sets. So unconventional warfare is the bread and butter, and we keep honing the skills within that construct.

PHILLIPS: We got to see it firsthand. Major Bame (ph), thank you so much for your time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's our pleasure to have you out here. I appreciate it.

PHILLIPS: All right. Anderson, as we sort of wrap things up here, a lot to think about and obviously, a lot learned.

COOPER: Certainly was. Really fascinating stuff. Kyra Phillips. Thanks very much. Live from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the U.S. Special Forces.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com