UNDISCLOSED, Lebanon — The Army recruiter thought the well-dressed young man was lying. After all, the yarn this man spun, after walking into the recruiting office in Baltimore, sounded like pure nonsense. All kinds of honors at Swarthmore College. Top of his class at Columbia Medical School, and now into his fourth year of the elite, seven-year residency program at Johns Hopkins in neurosurgery. He claimed to speak both English and Korean fluently.
Yeah, sure.
This young man wanted to be a Green Beret? An enlisted man in the U.S. Army? Bringing home a base pay of $32,000 a year? The recruiter was polite; they always are. But he insisted the recruit come back with his diplomas to prove he was who he said he was. When proof was provided, the recruiter tried to convince the aspiring brain surgeon to join the U.S. Army Medical Corps as a physician.
No dice. He had a different adventure in mind.
Today, that young man is a sergeant. He is a Green Beret in the U.S. Army, the absolute crème de la crème of the 1% who chose to serve in the military. He carries an M4 assault rifle to work, can jump out of a C-130 cargo plane, fast-rope off a Black Hawk helicopter, and is an expert on small unit tactics. He can avoid capture, resist interrogation, and train a guerrilla force behind enemy lines.
There’s more. He can conduct reconnaissance in hostile environments and, when necessary, neutralize the bad guys. Sabotage or demolitions operations? No problem.
The path from Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon to Special Forces warrior took about two years. He entered the Green Beret world through a unique, if poorly advertised, Army program that allows qualified young men and women to leave their civilian jobs and try out to become part of our nation’s most elite and highly trained warrior class.
These volunteers will gather with soldiers from the regular Army or other military branches in a grueling 24-day assessment program to see who has what it takes to wear the coveted green beret. Since the civilians rarely have prior military service, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command gives them a special designation: “18X.” More familiarly, they are called “X-rays.”
The soldiers who have entered the secretive, hard-boiled Green Beret community through the X-ray program are about as varied and extraordinary a population as you will find. During four months of reporting this story, we were given unparalleled access to X-rays at bases around the U.S. and also at several tiny, secretive Special Forces outposts in the Middle East that are not marked on any maps. (Quick note of explanation: A Green Beret is a soldier who wears the Special Forces tab. For all practical purposes, Special Forces can only mean Green Berets.)
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We met all types of X-rays. The Army’s operational security regulations prevent us from using their real names.
But we can tell their stories.
We met a former corporate lawyer. We met a commercial pilot. And then there’s the handsome, young man who grew up in a small town in India, eventually earned a doctorate in nuclear engineering in the U.S., and was making big bucks in corporate America. This Green Beret spoke four languages fluently before he entered the Army as an X-ray; he has since picked up Arabic. A reflective sort, he describes being in the Special Forces as part of a “spiritual journey to something bigger than myself.”
There are other soldiers with doctorates on similar journeys in the Green Berets. One was fluent in Mandarin and earned his degree before deciding he wanted more challenge out of life. Then there was the beefy standout SEC football player who signed an NFL contract.
Our Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon was not the only doctor who left medicine to try to become a Green Beret. Yet another physician volunteered as an X-ray and is now a weapons sergeant. He is capable of breaking down, rebuilding, and fighting with every current type of pistol or rifle, both our own and those used by our enemies. Take the Zastava M70 assault rifle, made in the 1970s in what was then called Yugoslavia. No problem. Heck of a skill for a doc.
No surprise, we found our share of country boys who could kill and field-dress a deer before they could read, and always had their Skoal tin handy. X-rays tend to come from rural areas, but not always. Much to our surprise, we learned of yet another X-ray who was an ex-gang member.
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Another X-ray was a preacher’s kid working as a counselor at a Christian summer camp. Others: a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, a gifted clarinetist, toss in a carpenter, a small-business owner, and several mechanics.
Explains a veteran Green Beret: “We need guys who are Swiss Army knives, who have lots of diverse skills, some of which can only be found in the civilian sector, and are independent thinkers and good problem-solvers. Our job is not just to shoot our enemy in the face and rout bad guys. Our job is at times to be violent, but it is also to have the judgment to figure out a plan to get to the desired end state under high-stress situations where violence may be counterproductive.” One such X-ray had been a cross-border drug smuggler. “He had ingenuity.”
There you have it — perhaps the only job in America that both a neurosurgeon and drug smuggler are uniquely qualified to perform well.
Explains another Green Beret who was a star college basketball player: “Give me a standardized test and I’ll screw it up. But give me a complex problem to solve, and I’ll figure out a solution. And I will have a Plan B. Green Berets know how to get things done. Effort is important, but we’re about results.”
As summarized by a retired Green Beret, a grizzled veteran of 31 years: “When the shit hits the fan, get next to a Green Beret.”
Getting into the Green Berets isn’t exactly a cakewalk. The Special Operations Recruiting Battalion keeps its data private, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to say it’s easier to get into Harvard Law School than to wear the Special Forces tab on your left shoulder.
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Why, we asked repeatedly, would you chuck a civilian life of comfort to take a shot at qualifying for what may be the most demanding job in the U.S. military today? Answers varied. Most centered on working with other highly elite soldiers and getting to do the most extraordinary of jobs. Many spoke of being part of something bigger than themselves. Two common themes: service to country and a desire to be where the action is.
What is it a Green Beret does? If the answer were simple, the Army recruiters could sell the X-ray program more easily. Other branches have obvious appeals. Navy SEALs are the toughest dudes in the room and get to kill all the bad guys with kick-ass weaponry. Marines look sharp in their dress blues and swords. Aviators fly snazzy jets off aircraft carriers.
Green Berets? Not so simple. On any given day, they may throw on a Brooks Brothers suit and brief an ambassador on cutting-edge policy issues from Iraq. They might go out on a lethal kill-or-capture mission in up-armored Humvees in the dead of night and wipe out a nest of insurgents who never saw them coming. They might be training an indigenous force in Syria to fight the Islamic State, and do so entirely in Arabic. They might travel many days through the jungle to neutralize a high-value target with a single sniper shot.
What else can a Green Beret do? He knows a dozen ways to kill an insurgent and has employed several of these techniques on his last Middle East deployment. He might jump out of a C-17 transport aircraft at 18,000 feet with his trained Belgian Malinois dog, both wearing oxygen masks, or launch an underwater scuba attack with a serrated MK3 dive knife. Or scale a near-vertical on mountain bike with 75 pounds of gear to get eyes on an enemy village.
Starting to get the picture? A Green Beret must be brilliant, subtle, and lethal. He must speak at least one foreign language and be deeply immersed in cultural training and critical thinking.
Col. Michael Kornburger oversees the day-to-day training of the next generation of Green Berets at Fort Bragg, N.C. He explains this conundrum. “We can train a soldier to go on target, kick in doors, and inflict lethal violence in a kinetic environment. We can teach soldiers a foreign language, and train them in nuanced thinking so they can link up with surrogate forces to conduct guerrilla warfare with less-than-traditional oversight. Our challenge is training one soldier to do both.”
But train ’em they do. The Green Beret is the living embodiment of what the military calls “full-spectrum mission operators.”
Where does Kornburger find his full-spectrum soldiers? The X-ray program is largely dependent on civilians doing their own research into the Green Beret subculture and walking into a recruiting office. X-rays might learn of the Green Beret world online or from a family member or buddy who served. Some stumble upon an excellent, if dated, book named Chosen Soldier by Dick Couch, detailing the rigorous training of the Special Forces soldier.
Those who have read Couch’s book soon learn that the nickname for a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces is “the quiet professional.” They are trained to blend in. They don’t write books. They don’t self-promote. They don’t get in bar fights. They don’t all have huge biceps. They prefer cowboy boots and faded jeans to uniforms. They wear beards. They are rule-breakers by nature but have strong moral compasses.
And humility. Sit next to a Green Beret on an airplane and he may spin a tale for you about how he’s an Army clerk or a chow hall cook.
Nonetheless, the Green Beret mantra of being a “quiet professional” hasn’t exactly helped with recruiting. “We are supposed to be the ‘quiet professionals,’ not the ‘silent professionals,’” explains Maj. Gen. Kurt Sonntag, a combat decorated soldier whose wide portfolio includes commanding all Green Beret selection and training. It’s his challenge to fill out the ranks of the Green Beret community with X-rays.
“We are looking for young men and women who want to be personally challenged, who want to play an important role in protecting the security of the United States and its allies, who want to be part of and contribute to a team that is really more of a family, and who want adventure in their lives,” says Sonntag.
Switching into full-on recruiting mode, Sonntag adds, “More so than anywhere else in the military, SF offers more focused training, the ability to operate in small units more independently, world-class medical care and related benefits, and a truly one-of-a-kind fraternity of relationships now and forever that you can get nowhere else.” And don’t forget the athletic trainers and facilities that would rival those found in an NFL locker room.
Commanders in the field appreciate Sonntag’s efforts. One such end user is Col. Jay Powers, commander of 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Campbell, Ky. Powers’ unit has responsibility for the Middle East and Central Asia. His soldiers joke that since they cover a region that includes Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, they all enjoy long-term job security. “Our 18X’s are incredibly talented people that would excel at any path they chose,” says Powers. “They consistently amaze me at their ability to adapt and problem solve at the tip of our nation’s spear.”
Soldiers serving under Powers are fluent in, among other languages, several dialects of Arabic, Pashto, Dari, French, Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, Persian, Sorani, Tajik, and Russian. They also like to nip at a Blanton’s single barrel bourbon, read the Economist and Foreign Affairs for fun, and are charming by nature.
The Army spends a nice chunk of change training these Green Berets and hopes they will make a career of it. Nonetheless, we met some X-rays who appeared to be checking the “adventure” box on their resumes en route to Ivy League business schools or jobs with six-figure salaries. It turns out that many in corporate America are tripping over themselves trying to hire transitioning Green Berets.
Regardless of motive, X-rays continue to volunteer to see if they have what it takes. Doing so is not without risk. After learning Army 101 as infantrymen, passing through jump school, and getting some serious physical training, they eventually land at the intense 24-day course in the swamps of North Carolina, designed to weed out the unworthy. And weed out it does! As many as 25% of the incoming class may quit before too long.
We observed several of these exercises, including some in the dead of night. We were allowed into these secure Special Forces training facilities on one condition: The Army brass forbade us from sharing specifics, since they didn’t want future recruits to know what’s coming down the pike. Trust us when we say the adjective “grueling” doesn’t begin to capture the weeding-out process. Think sleep deprivation. Cold. Wet. Hunger. Swamps. Snakes. Leeches. Heavy rucksacks. Even heavier logs. Constant uncertainty. And nary a word from the assessors — the Army term is “cadre” — as to how you are doing. The candidates spend a fair amount of time crawling through some nasty stuff. You get the idea.
Even if you are one of the few who is still standing on the last day of the selection course, there’s no guarantee you’ll become a Green Beret. You may be told, gently, by the Special Forces cadre that you still have weaknesses in certain areas. Maybe you were too selfish. Maybe your peers thought you were a putz. Maybe you yakked too much. Who knows what may trip you up.
The key point, though, is that the Army wants the X-rays to succeed. There is a catch: If an X-ray fails to be selected, he still owes the U.S. Army up to four years of service in a regular Army unit. For some, that’s a bummer, for sure, but all is not lost. The recruit can and almost certainly will be given another opportunity try out for Special Forces again after the dust has settled a bit. This much is certain: Those who are determined, who have grit, tend to get selected.
What motivates these civilians to read up on Green Berets in their spare time, walk into a recruiting office, and sign on the X-ray program dotted line for 24 days of misery?
Listen to the X-rays themselves, who, it’s worth noting, deploy and fight in tiny 12-member teams. These 12 men get extraordinarily close, perhaps closer than any other type of military unit. Green Berets say their team becomes their second family or, often, their first.
“We are family, but in a way that the outside world could never understand,” says one X-ray, interviewed downrange with his team, a group that had been tasked with training elements of the Lebanese army. “We are also the tip of the spear when it comes to U.S. strategic military policy. The president often knows what we are up to.” He ain’t lying. Hard to believe, but Green Berets downrange can have a direct effect on downstream decision-making in the Oval Office.
Adds another X-ray, only partly in jest: “I am an adrenaline junkie and SF satisfies that need. I joined my current team because it is a free-fall team. I have done 31 high-altitude jumps and have not had to pay for one of them!”
X-rays often find that they are changed fundamentally by being a member of the Special Forces community. “I was once quiet, reserved, even a little timid,” explains an X-ray serving at a remote Mideast base. “Coming into Special Forces, I was all of a sudden surrounded by men who had done it. You naturally want to emulate these men, become one of them. As you work on your team, you gain a kind of self-confidence that you cannot acquire in the civilian world.
“Most people walking through an international airport, especially in a Third World country, can pick out SF guys by their look, their stride, the self-confidence in their ability to take care of themselves. For lack of a better word, SF men have a machismo, a forcefulness, and now I have that, too.”
Sgt. Maj. Chris Doyle was, until recently, one of the top enlisted men in the Army Recruiting Battalion in Nashville, Tenn., but X-ray candidates weren’t exactly knocking down his door. Since he joined the effort in Nashville some 18 months ago, only 40 or so recruits have signed X-ray contracts. Because attrition rates are so high during the selection and training process, Doyle wouldn’t have minded seeing a few more recruits, though he cautioned that they must be at least 20 years old.
Many potential recruits were first exposed to the Green Beret mystique in the field. “I was with a regular Army unit rolling through the desert in the Iraq invasion of 2003,” said one. “All of a sudden, we hear this music blaring. Some Humvees rolled up on our left side. It was a Green Beret team. Every guy had a beard. They were booming the Dixie Chicks’ ‘Wide Open Spaces’ as they zoomed by us. I said to myself, ‘Dang, those boys operate in their own space.’”
A tough space but an elite space. Who occupies this elite space? Increasingly, the Green Beret community relies on X-rays to fill its ranks. The Army was reluctant to discuss what percent of the Green Beret fighting force today was composed of X-rays. But anecdotal evidence suggests that some teams counted six, sometimes seven or even eight, X-rays among their 12-warrior team. In late 2018, the first woman made it through the 24-day selection process, and now, a second female has also qualified.
What became of the John Hopkins-trained neurosurgeon? He says he fully intends to complete the last three years of his residency somewhere down the pike. For now, he continues his training to learn the skills of a Green Beret. He admits that some of his fellow doctors looked at him “with sheer confusion” when he announced he was going to try out for the Green Berets. He is quick to add that the Green Beret training is “every bit as rigorous and difficult” as the most exacting Ivy League courses he took. This much is certain: There is a far higher dropout rate in the Special Forces selection process than in, say, the Yale undergraduate program.
Willy Stern has written from conflict zones around the globe. Breck Walker is a historian. Stern is the founder of, and Walker a board member of, the Legion Fund, a charity that supports 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Campbell, Ky.
