As first reported by Stars and Stripes, on Sept. 11, President Trump will present Sgt. Maj. Thomas Payne with the Medal of Honor for his service during a 2015 operation against the Islamic State in Syria. The rescue mission for which Payne received his medal fits perfectly with the Delta Force unit he served.
Delta’s original formation back in 1977 was motivated by just this sort of operation — contested hostage rescue.
Concerned by rising terrorist attacks and by the absence of a dedicated counterterrorism team in the U.S. Army, Col. Charlie Beckwith moved to form Delta Force. Informed by his experiences as a liaison officer with the British Army’s 22nd Special Air Service regiment, Beckwith convinced his superiors that the Army needed a small unit of highly trained, adaptable, and intelligent soldiers. Incidents such as the Palestinian terrorist seizure of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the 1980 Iranian embassy siege in London, and numerous hijackings, convinced Army leaders the need was real. Delta was born and quickly prioritized its development of boutique hostage rescue capabilities.
By the early 1990s, Delta retained the highest contested hostage rescue competency of any global special forces unit. Less interested in public attention than its Navy counterpart, DEVGRU, Delta spent the 1980s and 1990s developing a particular capability for hijacking rescues. This success was partly (and remains) a result of Delta’s facilitation of innovative research and tactical evolution. But front and center is the hyperscrutiny of Delta’s selection process, the extensive direct action training of its Operator Training Course, and the unit’s relentless continuation training.
Delta’s four assault “saber” squadrons rotate responsibility for counterterrorism alert missions. While other squadrons are deployed abroad, an “Aztec” alert squadron is kept on high alert at the unit’s Fort Bragg compound. They can be airborne and on the way to a target within three hours’ notice. During this rotation, Delta operators spend their days on various training exercises and in the unit’s extensive “Killing House” training simulator. Using live fire and modifiable interiors (which can be altered to reflect an identified location abroad), the operators simulate hostage rescue and target capture operations. Aztec’s readiness has sustained throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
That brings us back to Payne.
Payne’s medal is to be awarded for his actions during an Oct. 22, 2015, raid against an ISIS prison in far eastern Syria. Holding Kurdish prisoners, the prison doubled as an execution facility. When Delta and its Kurdish commando allies arrived at the site, graves had already been pre-dug for the 70 prisoners being held there. As they raided the compound buildings, ISIS responded with heavy gunfire and by detonating suicide bomb belts. One Delta operator, Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, was shot and killed. But even under heavy fire and amid a spreading fire, Payne repeatedly entered one of the buildings to ensure that all the hostages were saved.
This is just one of Delta’s many successful operations. The unit’s A Squadron killed Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in October 2019. The vast majority of Delta’s missions, including some that assisted in the prevention of ISIS successor attacks to the Paris November 2015 strike, remain classified. Still, Payne’s courage fits pitch perfect with the organization he served. As with Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, two Delta snipers who gave their lives to save a downed Army helicopter pilot in Somalia, rescue has always been front and center in Delta’s identity. It’s one of many reasons that Delta remains the finest special operations unit in the world.
