That would be too much 'work' and it wouldn't have the reader arrive at the desired conclusion.
The false characterization of Idema as a "rigger" which can be seen on some message boards would much better fit someone like TP Warrington, as far as I can see.
Those of us who are either connected with military operations or who have family who is, understand the bureaucratic constraints these men are now under; unable to fight a very real enemy because of 'political correctness', watching them get released with a pat on the back, money and a pakol only to watch them turn around and commit more acts of terrorism. The policy of appeasement which the Karzai government has adopted and which the American government seems to sanction, IMO, is costing more American lives when in 2002-2002, we had WON and driven them from Afghanistan.
The elitist media, on many occasions, has referred to Jack Idema as a “former” Green Beret. Being that my background is mostly Marine Corps and second to that Army, I don’t have much personal knowledge as far as what a Green Beret actually is.
However. I have a some contacts, to whom I can pose the question: What exactly is a Green Beret, and why is it that the military people who write about him write as though he IS ONE RIGHT NOW?
Here is the explanation
at Wikipedia.
So it’s an AWARD, which means once you’ve received your training and receive the award, that’s what you are, and nobody can take it away from you. So if I understand this correctly, you’re never a “former” Green Beret, or “retired”.
From Dan in Iraq:
All other military headgear and uniforms are issued when you are assigned to a unit. Doctors are not called former doctors, Rangers are not called former Rangers, nor are SEALs called former SEALs, because these are awards which have specific requirements, such as graduating specific schools.
Marines, are former Marines. They say once a Marine always a Marine, and while that is true theoretically, it is not fact. You become a Marine by enlisting in the Marine Corps and when you leave, you are a former Marine, even though you may still be a Marine at heart.
In contrast, the Green Beret is a presidentially authorized award for specific service/achievement/qualification, which can never be taken from a person once they earn it. To quote President John F. Kennedy:
The Green Beret shall serve as ‘a symbol of excellence, a badge of courage, a mark of distinction in the fight for freedom.”
John F. Kennedy describing the Green Beret on December 10, 1961.
This became a Presidential Executive Order that would forever protect the Green Beret as the official award and headgear of a U.S. Army Special Forces Qualified soldier.
So that is the short answer.
Cao’s Note: Here is the long answer. I don’t know about you, but this is really cool and helps me to understand what the hell’s going on in the Idema situation.
I have taught at the Special Forces School and I am fairly versed on this subject having written many articles about this for the Army and other publications. This places the term ‘Green Beret” in the proper perspective related to factual, regulation, and historical considerations, and its status as a lifetime award.
The Navy SEALs Trident
When you graduate Navy SEALs (the BUDS course at Coronado) you are awarded the Trident (a qualification badge that is a gold eagle with a flintlock pistol and a trident, signifying the unconventional heritage of Rogers Rangers, etc, and the Trident, signifying unconventional warriors from the deep sea)- from then on, you are always a Navy SEAL (note: I believe you have to serve on a SEAL Team before your Trident can be worn, or that’s the way it was a few years ago).
The Ranger Tab.
When you graduate Ranger School you are awarded a “Ranger Tab” which, like the Trident, follows you everywhere and for the rest of your life, you are a Ranger and can wear the Ranger Tab. It is a cloth tab you wear on your left shoulder. These are actual awards just like Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, and Meritorious Service Medals.
They cannot be taken away, rescinded, or stripped from you or your military file.
Since 1961, the Green Beret has been the only uniform item (specifically headgear) authorized by the President of the United States. (Between 1952 and 1961 it was worn without authorization only in the field and in secret).
To this day, JFK’s presidential decree serves to protect the Green Beret from the conventional army officers and politicians who would seek to strip it from our elite unit, much as General Eric Shinseki stripped the Rangers of their Black Beret and gave to the entire Army even the Chief of Staff of the Army, or Joints Chiefs of Staff, or even Congress, have no authority to ever discontinue it, remove it, revoke it, or change it. Under JFKs Executive Order, it is an award non-rescindable even by future Presidents.
Up until the mid-80s the Green Beret was presented to you upon graduation of Phase I SFQC (Special Forces Qualification Course). Then you received your ‘Flash” to sew on your Green Beret when you completed all three Phases. This was called being ‘Flash Qualified.” At that point you were, and always would be, a Green Beret. While many people are assigned to Special Forces, such as cooks, truck drivers, clerks, doctors, radio operators, etc, only a very small percentage of those serving in Special Forces units are actually Green Berets. Riggers are not Green Berets, except in a rare circumstance where a Green Beret takes command, such as First Sergeant or CO of a Rigger Platoon. These are considered Support Personnel, and are assigned to Support Companies, such as Service Company, Rigger Platoon, Headquarters Company. Support personnel, such as Riggers, do NOT go into combat, recruit, train, and lead indigenous armies and take part in unconventional, covert, or clandestine operations. This is not to say that some Green Berets do not know how to pack chutes, many do, especially the Military Free Fall (MFF) Qualified Green Berets and sport skydivers. And everyone does external checks on their chutes, but I would rather jump a chute packed by a professional that does it all day long before I do it myself, because it is a technical skill which requires a high degree of proficiency. In fact, I watched Jack (Keith) Idema let someone else pack his chute at a Raeford Skydiving site years ago. Obviously he didn’t want to fuck with it.
Contrary to Blog lies and newspaper reports,
Jack Idema is not, and never was a Rigger.
Jumpmaster Wings
I do know for a fact that he is a Jumpmaster, and graduated Jumpmaster School at Fort Bragg which means he is qualified to do your equipment check, rig a plane or chopper, and throw you out of an airplane, but NOT qualified to pack your parachute which is what Riggers do. I know this because I first met him when I was a very young Ranger buck sergeant and he did my MACO briefing before a jump at SOT (it was SFs highly classified hostage rescue and counter-terrorist course at Mott Lake). I walked away thinking, this guy is a no joke bad ass. I have never changed that opinion. I have volunteered to help on the SuperPatriots website because I owe my career to Jack Idema. When I left SOT all I thought about was leaving Ranger Battalion and going to the Special Forces Course and doing the kind of stuff he was doing. I have not left Special Forces since I graduated the course about two years later. I met a Marine Lance Corporal once that left the Marine Corps and joined the Army to become a Green Beret. He did it because he met Jack Idema, his name was Orlowski. I can probably count a dozen people like that which I know. So imagine how many there really are.
But this is off point. The subject is the ‘Green Beret.” As a presidential authorized award, it is irrevocable. Not even God can take it away.
De Oppresso Liber
Nor do I suspect God would ever try because our motto is De Oppresso Liber: Subject to three Latin translations; the official, To Liberate the Oppressed, and the literal, We Liberate the Oppressed. Finally, the heraldic English translation, Free the Oppressed. SF has remained true to this motto since its inception by our founder, the legendary Jedburg (OSS WWII) team leader Aaron Bank forty-three years ago. The last time I saw Colonel Banks, with his wife and daughters, he was 99 years old and attending the SF and Task Force Dagger reunion at Fort Bragg in the summer of 2002, where he was sitting in his wheel chair privately speaking to two friends, Jack Idema and the Commander of Special Forces. Most of us could only watch from sidelines, such was the real history of Jack Idema in Special Forces.
I do not dispute that Idema is both loved and hated in Special Forces. And, there is no one in between. You are either at one end of the scale or the other. Those that hate him either never met him, never worked with him, never trained under him, or took a ration of shit from him at some point. Like Major Jim Morris said in your interview,
‘Jack doesn’t just call a spade a spade, he calls it a nasty, evil, shit-covered shovel.”
In my experience, I have found that those that hate him either fear him or are jealous of him, but those that love him would die for him. Aaron Banks died last year, and Idema did not attend that funeral, he was a POW (and the Afghan government has recognized them as POWs). One more thing during this regression from my original subject. I didn’t see any of these anonymous soldiers blogging about what a fake asshole he was say one word to his face at that reunion. But I am looking forward to seeing what happens at the next reunion, because I expect he will be there, and I bet all those pukes are kissing his ass or sitting on the sidelines once again. Back to the Green Beret:
In the 80’s a problem became identifiable in that once a Green Beret left his Special Forces unit he remained a Green Beret but was then “former Special Forces.” Navy SEALs carried their Trident with them for life, and wore it on their uniform regardless of where they were assigned. Army Rangers wore their Ranger Tab the same, forever. Paratroopers, even if they went to a non-Airborne infantry unit, wore their Jump Wings (Parachute Qualification Badge) forever, like the Tab, and Trident, it was an official award. But Green Berets removed their Green Berets when going to another unit that was not Special Forces, and carried no evidence of their status with them (uniform insignia that is, because Green Berets are still fairly recognizable in a unit, even in jogging shorts).
In many assignments, such as ROTC advisory assignments, the Pentagon, or Reserve advisors, which Green Berets are used for frequently because of their unsurpassed leadership and training skills, SF soldiers were refusing to remove their Green Berets and causing quite a bit of shit with the higher commands.
Finally, the Army took a step to correct this and established the SPECIAL FORCES Qualification Tab. It is a shoulder tab, like the Ranger Tab, which is Teal Blue and Aztec Gold (the colors of Special Forces) and is worn above the Airborne Tab and Arrowhead patch of Special Forces. The arrowhead has a dagger and three lightening bolts. The arrowhead stands for the ways of the Indians, improvision, and unconventional warfare. The 3 lightening bolts stand for our means of infiltration; air, land, sea, along with the speed and surprise of lightening and our ability, like lightening, to strike anywhere at anytime, and without warning.
Once the SPECIAL FORCES tab was authorized, it became the actual qualification badge of a Special Forces soldier (a Green Beret). Special Forces are Green Berets, and vice versa, there is no difference, and anyone that tells you they were Special Forces in the Navy, Marines, or Air Force is full of shit, they were Special Operations. There is only one American “Special Forces” unit and that is that. As an example, Delta Force is Special Forces, the actual unit designation is SFOD-D, Special Forces Operational Detachment- Delta, because there were already A-Teams (12 Men), B-Teams (company HQ), and C-Teams (FOBs and operational HQs). So D was the next logical choice, hence ‘Delta.”
Now, after another twenty so years of change and adaptation, and conventional Army interference, we are finally our own Branch of the Army, so you no longer have to transfer out of Special Forces for part of your career, and can stay there indefinitely, as I have done.
We now wear Crossed Arrows on our uniforms as our branch insignia, instead of an Eagle, which stood for being unassigned to any Branch of the Army (the true forefathers of Special Forces).
The Special Forces Qualification course is the most difficult course on the face of the earth, bar none. Including the British Special Air Service Course, which Idema also attended (he also taught the Special Forces Orientation and UW course to the British SAS). When Idema went through the course in the 70’s it was brutal. You can read about his course at the JFKSWCS school library. It was Colonel Charlie Beckwith’s (founder of “Delta Force”) attempt to make an impossible course, which would pale the SAS in comparison. 1225 people started, 16 finished. I think, but I might be off, that 3 died in the course, and dozens were hospitalized, most flunked out in the first few weeks, and the rest in the first few months. Like I said, you can read about it at the Museum and the Maraquat Library, although its been a few years since I did. The course lasted about a year (46 weeks) although Army TRADOC only credited it as a 16 week course. Now the Army acknowledges the course as a 48 to 56 week course, often longer. It is the most coveted respected school in the military, in the world, period. Ranger School is 8 weeks, Airborne School 3 weeks, do the math. Green Berets are also acknowledged as the most educated soldiers in the world, speaking multiple languages, and most having a degree or college education of some level.
Jack Idema (on the left) Graduation day, in 1975 outside USAIMA (aka United States Army Institute For Military Assistance, as it was called then) Student Barracks on Smoke Bomb Hill at Fort Bragg.
The average Green Beret has six years in the Army before he makes it to the course. The age average is between 27 and 35. Idema was 18. Is it no wonder he got shit from his peers??? Most of them were still living with mom and dad at the age that Idema was a fully qualified Green Beret. He was roughly seven years younger than the average soldier in his Special Forces class. That says volumes to me.
Most Special Forces soldiers frown on the term “Green Beret” complaining that a Green Beret is a piece of headgear, not an award, but when Idema went through the SFQC the Green Beret was the award, the SF Tab came 14 years later, and it was retroactively awarded to all those that earned the Green Beret, including Idema. The official designation was an “S” after your MOS (Military Occupational Specialty). Now, our designation is a special branch identifier, of “18.” This is called the 18 Series.
To finalize this debate, you are in Special Forces when you are assigned to a Special Forces unit. You are Special Forces Qualified when you complete the “Q” course, now called Special Forces Selection and Assessment, and then the Special Forces School. You receive a Green Beret and a Special Forces Tab. You are forevermore, a Green Beret (aka Special Forces Qualified soldier), even when you retire. Just as a doctor retains the MD title after he stops practicing medicine, a Green Beret retains the title after he leaves Special Forces operational activities and assignment.
The thing about Idema is that he never left. While the last of his classmates retired last year (a Command Sergeant Major at SOCOM), Idema never stopped driving on. Had this Green Beret encountered his difficulties a year or two after 9/11 all Americans would have stood in outrage and support of him. Four years later, barely any Americans give a fuck about Idema, or the blood and pain he has endured for their sorry worthless asses. Or any of us getting shot up and blown up by the terrorists, and decimated by the bleeding heart liberal scumbag press. Excepting you of course, Cao, and your Wide Awake Blogger friends.
Dan Rather said it right on CBS 60 Minutes, ‘Jack Idema is a former Special Forces soldier, he IS a Green Beret.”
“Dan XXXXXXX”
From Iraq
Rangers Lead the Way
SF is already there.
Notes: for your acronym sensitive readers:
BUDS Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL course at Coronado
SFS Special Forces Schools, Fort Bragg, NC
SFQC Special Forces Qualification Course
JFKCENMA John F. Kennedy Center for Military Assistance
USAIMA United States Army Institute for Military Assistance
JFKSWCS John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School
SOT Special Operations Training, the school for Bluelight, forerunner to Delta Force
MOS Military Occupational Specialty
‘S” Special Forces Qualification designation
A-Team ‘ODA” The 12 man Operational Detachment Alpha (the backbone of SF).
B-Team Special Forces Company, 5 A-Teams (sometimes BNs are referred to as such)
C-Team Special Forces Command and Control Element ODA Charlie (FOB)
SFOD-D Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta
CO Commanding Officer, usually a Captain on an A-Team
FOB Forward Operating Base, where Support Elements provide logistical support to operational teams
USASFC United States Army Special Forces Command, the combat command
USASOC United States Army Special Operations Command, Rangers, and other SOF Units, including USASFC, Fort Bragg.
NAVSPECWAR Naval Special Warfare Command, Coronado
SEAL Sea, Air, Land, plural is SEALs, the Navy Special Operations Forces
USSOCOM US Special Operations Command, SF, Rangers, CCT, SEALs, etc, McDill.
SOCOM Same as above, the short phrase
CCT Combat Controllers, the Air Force Special Operations, Hurley, Bragg, etc
SOF Special Operations Forces, in general
SAS British Special Operations Forces, the Special Air Service.
TRADOC The Training and Doctrine Command, which USED to oversee SFQC
OSS Office of Strategic Services, WWII forerunner to SF and the CIA
And lastly:
PD Plausible Deniability, the one phrase anyone writing about why the US government fucked Jack Idema, ought to know about first. Before they learn that they should learn the REAL meanings and differences between overt, covert, and most importantly, clandestine.
