A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter hovered so low on the water during a recent demonstration that it created concentric white caps, seemingly clearing an area in the salty sea off Key West for divers to slip in. Once the divers in full-body camo dropped slender from the helicopter one by one, they disappeared below the water’s surface. And the chopper was off.
Armed and undetectable after six weeks of training at the Special Forces Underwater Operations School at Naval Air Station Key West, more than 1,000 divers annually are readied for global missions.
America’s great power adversaries Russia and China boast a combined 32,000 miles of coastline where a clandestine beach entry may one day be required.
“It's paramount that we maintain a maritime mission readiness here in Key West,” a Special Forces dive instructor told the Washington Examiner ahead of a Dec. 16 visit by acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.
"[We must] own the maritime battlespace above and below the surface," added the combat diver, with a dozen years of experience.
The Army Special Forces soldier withheld his name from the Washington Examiner for operational security, but he openly discussed the rigor of the six-week course that he leads in the warm coastal waters at the southernmost tip of Florida.
During World War II, the military executed several successful dive missions in both the European and Pacific theaters. Army Special Forces operators retained diving as a special skill, he said.
But it wasn’t until 1964 that a centralized school was established in Key West. Now, Army Rangers and Green Berets volunteer to attend the Underwater Operations School to learn how to use specialized closed-circuit equipment, reduce their signature for subsurface infiltration, and maintain the absolute calm required to minimize oxygen usage.
“What we do is, we train special operations services in surface and subsurface maritime infiltration,” the special operator said.
When Miller, himself a former special operator, visited the school at Fleming Key, he greeted special operators before boarding one of two UH-60s positioned at a nearby field for a demonstration.
The two choppers flew off the coast, and the secretary’s helicopter hovered nearby. The secretary watched as the first team of divers was dropped to assemble a small inflatable boat for surface infiltration. Then, the secretary’s helicopter lowered just feet above the water’s surface as more divers dropped into the water and slipped below the surface.
They looked nothing like recreational divers.
The closed-circuit breathing apparatus they wear rests on their chest. It scrubs out exhaled carbon dioxide and re-oxygenates the air for continued breathing without emitting bubbles that would give away their position.
The specialized equipment allows these divers to remain below the surface much longer than a diver wearing a tank or two on their back. Additionally, with the front-mounted device,
divers can carry a dry bag with communications and medical equipment and food on their back.
But unlike the underwater knife and harpoon fights of James Bond in the 1965 Thunderball, these Army soldiers’ aim is not to fight an undersea enemy.
“I wouldn't say it's the cool stuff in movies,” the special operator said, making note of the physical exertion required to get from a point in the ocean to the beach. “The real mission for us starts once we hit the land.”
Once on the land, the soldiers will link up with partner or allied forces for a foreign internal defense mission.
“The diving piece of it is just how we are able to get there,” he said.
...
There is more.
This is some of the most training the military and it takes courage and physical skills to engage the enemy this way. We are fortunate to have such people in our military.
Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now. It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Comments
Post a Comment