1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group
The 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) is located on Torii Station. This battalion is the only Army combat unit located in Japan. Their peace time missions include supporting Commander-in-Chief Pacific Command (CINCPAC) engagement strategy by training with foreign nations to maintain a U.S. presence in selected focus countries. The 1st Battalion also provides forces for CINCPAC's crisis response, Joint Task Force (JTF) to conduct direct action, noncombatant evacuations, disaster relief, and displays of U.S. resolve throughout the Pacific. During major theater operations, they provide forces in support of established operational plans, with particular focus on the Pacific theater of operations.
On the island of Okinawa, some 250 soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group -- part of the Joint Special Operations Command, Pacific -- operate out of a former National Security Agency listening post at the Army's Torii Station. The site accommodates three line companies, each with six SF teams. Together they comprise the forward battalion of the Fort Lewis, Wash.-based 1st Special Operations Group.
The 1st Bn. is the only Army combat battalion in Japan. And, as its motto implies, it is "Proudly Serving Our Nation at the Forward Edge of Freedom." The SF teams typically spend roughly six months of the year deployed. The battalion supports U.S. Pacific Command's peacetime engagements, among them training with other countries' forces, special forces and border police in the Pacific region. Training for contingencies includes a scenario of theater war in Korea.
Because there's no Army aviation element on the island, every mission is supported by joint-forces air assets. A two-man Air Force special operations weather team provides the critical data SF teams use in planning airborne and maritime operations. For training purposes, the battalion uses a drop zone on nearby Ie Shima island, where Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Ernie Pyle died during the Okinawa Campaign of World War II.
The battalion trains in many countries throughout the Pacific Area Of Responsibility (AOR). Performing their doctrinal mission of foreign internal defense, 10-12 man Special Forces teams train host nation forces in small unit tactics, individual specialty skills, leadership, human rights, and infiltration techniques. 1st Battalion also teaches foreign militaries' humanitarian demining, showing them how to render the areas safe for local civilians. Other subjects include counter-drug operations in coordination with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Joint Interagency Task Force-West, and humanitarian assistance including disaster relief.
By working within local customs and taboos, and by using the indigenous language, Special Forces soldiers provide CINCPAC a low visibility and credible engagement force. The 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group's (Airborne) "quiet professionals," with their diverse skills and robust quick response capability, make them "First in Asia."
SF teams conducting maritime operations swim, use zodiac boats and employ HALO (High-Altitude, Low-Opening) parachuting. The latter allows them to leave the aircraft at 25,000 feet and land within 75 feet of their objectives. Training for scuba-team members includes "mother-ship" operations and the use of kayaks. The teams also practice fast-rope insertion techniques and military free-fall parachuting. For divers, some of the locations and sights off Okinawa are unparalleled.
Being forward-deployed is another advantage to the island assignment. Fort Lewis soldiers who deploy to Thailand, for example, suffer from jet lag when they arrive. Besides providing foreign internal defense, the battalion conducts counterdrug missions in the northern region of Thailand. They teach small-unit tactics, including ambush techniques against heavily armed drug runners at very remote borders. The SF teams also provide medical training for border police.
Through the battalion's demining program, SF teams taught demining operations to indigenous forces between 1994 and 1997. That training, Rice said, should resume soon in Vietnam and Cambodia. Among the unit's other missions is search and recovery of World War II remains in Papua New Guinea, providing medical training in Vietnam, and conducting security assistance training in the Philippines, Rice said.
In 2000, following the eruption of Mayon Volcano in the Philippines, the battalion also helped displaced and injured personnel by setting up tents and evacuating citizens to safety.
They conduct unconventional warfare, what was originally known as guerilla warfare. There's a mindset of creative problem-solving to engage or counter a threat. The idea is: 'You can't do what you've always been told. You have to be creative.' The planning is 'bottom-driven' -- with some constraints, of course -- as opposed to coming from higher headquarters. The SF soldiers have to determine the best way to accomplish a given mission, based on the mission and logistics constraints. The mission could be counter-insurgency, for example.
