Special Operations Technology Volume 10, Issue 8 • October 2012
World’s Largest Distributed Special Ops Magazine Editorial Editor Dave Ahearn davea@kmimediagroup.com Managing Editor Harrison Donnelly harrisond@kmimediagroup.com Online Editorial Manager Laura Davis laurad@kmimediagroup.com Correspondents Christian Bourge • Peter Buxbaum Henry Canaday • Jeff Goldman • Hank Hogan William Murray • Marc Selinger Leslie Shaver
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EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE The CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft has lived up to its promises to provide special operators with swift insertion and extraction over long distances at high speed. “I think it’s as advertised: faster, longer range, delivering the force,” Garry Reid, principal deputy assistant secretary, special operations and low intensity conflict, told Special Operations Technology. There are “clearly plenty of examples of the speed and the distance advantages of that platform, not only for SOF, but also for conventional forces as well,” Reid added. To be sure, he noted, “We’ve still got some chalDave Ahearn lenges of getting it integrated” into various forces. Editor The Osprey is twice as fast and offers three times the range of some helos. On another key issue, we asked how Admiral Bill H. McRaven, SOCOM commander, is progressing with his attempt to ease the burden of service on special operators and thereby lessen fraying of the force. The force generation effort started under SOCOM Commander Admiral Eric T. Olson, and Admiral McRaven continued it. “Getting the system put in place to put some more predictability into the op tempo, deployment tempo,” for special operators, Reid noted. And McRaven has instituted other initiatives in his concern for the force that he leads, Reid continued, such as the effort for preservation of the force and families, “and pre- and post-deployment services and engagements,” Reid observed. McRaven has advanced “a range of programs that he’s getting off the ground that we’re supportive of and we’ll see unfold here in the next several years,” Reid said. We also asked about training for special operators. “As you come out of Afghanistan [and daily mission] demands, we have to make sure we are addressing other skills that maybe have not been front and center in what we do,” Reid replied. “We have great initiatives in the command. Again, Admiral McRaven is heavily invested in the quality of the operator.” Major General Bennet Sacolick, who was commanding general at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, “where he did great things,” now will be standing up the Force Management Directorate at SOCOM to address those issues, Reid concluded.
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