Get ready to chant USA USA USA and be embarrassed by your personal lack of intestinal fortitude!
We’re talking about the US Special Forces on today’s Nutty History!
Like this video and subscribe to this channel. I’m taking names of everyone that’s not doing it right
now. Okay. You’re going on the enemy combatant list. We’ll get into the history, insane stories,
and crazy requirements involved in the US special forces. And we’ll finally answer the question:
who would win in a fight between Rambo and Rambo 2? The answer is Rambo 2.
There’s so much confusion around the term ‘Special Forces’. So let’s clear things up before we get
started. Special Forces is not a generic term in the U.S. military and refers to a very specific
unit. The 1st Special Forces Regiment falls under the command of the Army Special Operations Command
and includes the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 19th, and 20th Special Forces Groups. They are most
often referred to by their distinctive headgear, the Green Berets. Special Operations Forces
is a generic term that you can use to refer to any and all special operations units. Naval Special
Warfare, Air Force Special Operations Command, Army Special Operations Command, and Marine
Special Operations Command are all included under this umbrella. They cover everything
from the 528th Sustainment Brigade and Civil Affairs to the SEAL Teams and Ranger Regiment.
Okay? Are we all clear? This segment was just for the one person in the comments waiting to make
the point that “Well actually, ‘Special forces’ would just be Green Berets..” Yeah! We know! We’re
going to probably get it wrong and use the terms interchangeably. Shut up about it. Special forces,
or special operations forces are just that: Special. That means they’re specialized. They
receive specialized training to do a specialized job. For example, Navy SEALs are special sailors,
because SEALs are trained to "lock-out of submarines, jump out of planes, leave large
ships, operate minisubmarines, swim to meet the enemy, and SEALs often fight the enemy on land."
But that doesn’t mean SEALs are the most elite sailors, because SEALs are not necessarily better
at doing the things that traditional sailors do, like operating warships, submarines, and aircraft.
Special forces have always been smaller specialized units within larger militaries,
specialized to carry out specific tasks, like hostage rescues, covert activity,
special reconnaissance, counterterrorism, foreign internal defense, unconventional warfare,
psychological warfare, civil affairs, and counter-narcotics operations. You know, the
cool stuff. The training and discipline involved in carrying out these tasks is intense and takes
a special breed of person. One of those people was David Goggins. Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL
that also went through U.S. Army Ranger School and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training.
At 24, he had been in the Air Force for 4 years but was now a 300 pound broke exterminator. He got
tired of doing nothing but inhaling mini-donuts and watching TV, so he decided to go back and
enter Navy SEALs training. But to get in the program, he would have to drop 106 pounds. He did
it, in 3 intense months. The toughest mental and physical challenge of the program is Hell Week,
which is 130 hours of continuous training. Goggins had to go through three Hell Weeks in a year,
after pneumonia and stress fractures forced him to drop out of the first two.
He passed on his third attempt and went on to become a member of SEAL Team 5. Goggins went on
to become a marathon and ultramarathon runner. In 2012, he won an ultramarathon by running
88 kilometers in 12 hours! And, Goggins holds the world record for most pull-ups in 24 hours
with 4,030. Not bad. That crazy Navy SEAL training weeds out quite a few people.
Out of about 1,000 candidates who start the Navy SEAL training program each year,
only about 200-250 succeed. Push-ups, sit-ups, running and swimming dominate the first few weeks.
Then in Hell Week, candidates will only get about 4 hours of sleep in total
during a five- and-a-half-day period and push themselves to run a total of 200 miles.
Then they’ll go on to SCUBA training with closed circuit and combat diving.
Then, weapons training, survival, escape and parachute operations. Navy SEALS that have
completed the training will tell you that it’s 90% mental. But it sure sounds physical as heck to me.
Another highly specialized fighting force, and what some call the most elite in the US armed
forces, is Delta force. Delta Force was formed in response to terrorist threats during the 1970s.
Once selected for training there are a series of physical tests. As well as sit-ups and
pushups and running, the tests include swimming 100 meters while fully clothed.
There are land navigation exercises to be carried out at night, and long marches while carrying
increasingly heavier weights. Mental strength is also important and candidates are tested to see
how they cope under pressure. Candidates must learn to shoot both moving and stationary targets
without having time to take aim. They must be accurate enough to use this skill, for example,
in a hostage situation when they need to shoot the enemy without harming the hostages.
Breaching skills include how to pick different types of locks on houses,
cars, and safes. All aspects of espionage are covered as well as the use of various weapons,
and advanced driving training ensures they can drive in difficult terrain and situations.
Demolition training covers the use of explosives and from easily available materials.
But it is not enough just to learn each of the required skills. An important part of the training
is learning how to combine these different skills. Trainees learn about combining their skills with
support from the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration. Only around 10% of trainees will
complete the training successfully and become a Delta Forcer operator. The first Special Forces
unit was officially established during the 1950s, after several notable operational successes during
World War II. However, unconventional warfare carried out by small-unit operations has its roots
since before the Revolutionary War. That’s the war that made the USA for those keeping track at home.
World War II saw special forces units formed like The Jedburgh Teams, the First Special
Service Force, and The Alamo Scouts. Yes, those were from World War 2, not The Alamo. In 1954,
Special Forces Soldiers adopted the Green Beret. In 1962, John F. Kennedy ordered that they be made
a “symbol of excellence, a badge of courage, a mark of distinction in the fight for freedom.”
As the US became involved in unconventional war, more specialized forces were needed. Fallout from
the Iran hostage crisis in 1980 sparked reforms in the military and the creation by Congress of the
U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM. This ensures that operatives from different forces
standardize training practices and equipment and work together smoothly when necessary.
Now, with unconventional engagement almost the norm, U.S. Special Ops forces are deployed to 147
countries, or 75 % of the nations on the planet. Wow! I thought there were more countries. We
need to make some more countries. One of the most well known special operations missions
to the general public was Operation Neptune’s Shield. This was the operation that took down
Osama Bin Laden. A former Pakistani intelligence officer revealed bin Laden's location,
in return for the $25 million reward, according to a retired senior U.S. intelligence official.
With this information and other intelligence, US officials were finally able to identify
a courier Bin Laden used to relay his messages as he had stopped using cell phones after a 1998
missile attack against his home base. Finally, the CIA found the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad.
SEAL Team Six was tasked with the mission of raiding the compound. The team ran through the
raid on replicas of the compound, one in North Carolina and another in Bagram, Afghanistan.
President Obama decided to do the raid solo, as he felt the Pakistani government could not be trusted
to keep it quiet. They had possibly known of his location as well. So, Chinook helicopters were
to be positioned nearby with additional troops just in case the team had to fight their way out.
The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which is another special ops force commonly
called The Night Stalkers, supplied the SEAL team with two modified stealth Black Hawk helicopters.
The tail of one of the helicopters grazed the compound wall, forcing it into a “soft crash”
landing which fortunately did not result in major injuries, although the helicopter itself had to
be destroyed so none of its tech would fall into the wrong hands. With the power cut off, the SEALS
used night-vision goggles and infiltrated the compound, killing anyone who put up resistance,
securing the women and children, clearing weapons stashes and barricades, and taking anything that
could contain secret information. The SEALs quickly made their way up to the third floor,
where they found Osama in his bedroom and killed him. The exact details of the death differ from
SEALS Matt Bissonette and Robert O’Neill, who both fired on Bin Laden in his final moments.
In either case, Bin Laden was injured, and ran to his bedroom to use one of his wives as a shield.
She was pulled away and he was killed. From beginning to end, the operation took less than
40 minutes. If you’re impressed with these precision ops, subscribe to this channel,
and hit that notification bell to make sure you don’t miss any nutty videos. Thanks for watching!