20th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
20th Special Forces Group (Airborne), headquartered in Birmingham, AL, is assigned to Southern Command. The 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne) is one of two Army National Guard Special Forces Groups. Each group has three battalions, a group support company and a headquarters company. The companies have six Operational Detachment Alphas, or A-teams, assigned to them. The ODA is the heart and soul of SF operations. The mission of the two Army National Guard Special Forces groups is to plan and support special operations in any operational environment. Special operations are conducted independently or in coordination with conventional forces.
Special operations forces differ from conventional forces in that they are specially organized, trained, and equipped to achieve military, political, economic, or psychological objectives using numerous means. Special operations forces support the theater combatant commands to achieve national security objectives in peacetime and war, and these forces have become an integral part of the theater commander's peacetime strategy. Special Forces units perform five doctrinal missions: Foreign Internal Defense, Unconventional Warfare, Special Reconnaissance, Direct Action and Counter-Terrorism. These missions make Special Forces unique in the U.S. military, because it is employed throughout the three stages of the operational continuum: peacetime, conflict and war.
The 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Alabama Army National Guard, organized with battalions from Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida received the alert notification on 1 February 1991, and entered federal active duty on 20 February 1991. The 20th mobilized, trained, and was validated at Fort Bragg, NC. Elements of the 20th deployed for Operation PROVIDE COMFORT. The 20th was the first-ever RC Special Forces Group to be mobilized.
Special operations forces from the Army, Navy and Air Force conducted numerous missions supporting NATO's implementation force in Bosnia. Assistance ranged from air support and rescue operations to reconnaissance and liaison duties. Nearly 700 members of the Army's Special Operations Command deployed to Bosnia in mid-December 1995 and began numerous operations throughout the Balkan nation. Included are more than 100 reservists serving in Special Forces, civil affairs and psychological operations positions. Army special operations units in the area included the 1st Special Forces Group, Fort Lewis, Wash.; the 5th Group from Fort Campbell, Ky.; the 10th Group, Fort Carson, Colo.; and the Army National Guard 20th Special Forces Group, Birmingham, Ala. Portions of Fort Bragg's (N.C.) 4th Psychological Operations Battalion, 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, and 112th and 528th Special Operations Signal battalions are also in Bosnia. Special operations personnel served as liaisons between NATO forces and local nationals. Other tasks may included unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, counterterrorism, and humanitarian or civic action.
At the time of Operation Desert Storm, in most cases there were no published or followed standard for reserve component [RC] unit premobilization training certification and validation. Furthermore, in most cases, there was no published or followed standard for RC unit postmobilization training certification and validation. The noted exception to lack of published criteria and standards is the US Army Special Forces Command (USASFC) which published criteria for training certification and validation for all Special Forces (SF) units: AC, ARNG, and USAR. Upon mobilization of RC Special Forces units for Desert Storm, USASFC staff members, with command emphasis from the Commander of USASFC, applied the published criteria and standards without deviation or question to all SF units, both AC and RC. As a result of the equal application of a published standard, the soldiers of the 20th Special Forces Group, Alabama ARNG, broke the record for the USASFC's Intensive Training Cycle. The 20th Special Forces Group, composed of National Guard units from Alabama, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi and Kentucky, completed their 90-day certification program in half the time.
Cabaņas 2000, a U.S. Southern Command sponsored multinational peacekeeping exercise involving civilian and military agencies from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and the United States, kicked off 06 September 2000. The exercise culminated 20 September 2000 following four days of round-the-clock training designed to prepare these seven Latin American nations and the U.S. in 33 specific United Nations approved peacekeeping operation taskings. U.S. Special Forces personnel on the coalition training teams, U.N. evaluators from Argentina's long-standing peacekeeping program, civilian representatives from the International Red Cross, Congressional Hunger Center and Partners in Health evaluated the training. In the exercise, more than 1,000 peacekeepers were thrust into the middle of a bloody squabble between two fictitious nations. In the fictitious scenario, the Islamic Republic of Sudistan and Free Sudistan Federation have split their country into two regions and sporadic fighting continued. Once in the training buffer zone, U.N. evaluators and Special Forces instructors threw a wide array of scenarios at the trainees. Argentine and U.S. Special Forces from the 2nd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group, Mississippi National Guard; and 7th Special Forces Group trained together.
