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The battalion commander dis- are badly wounded. During this week more diverse set of skills and abilities,
patches a reinforced platoon under of continuing confrontation with FARC meshing them into a comprehensive
the command of Second Lieutenant guerrillas, the division commander advisory element. The ARSOF leader
Gomez German-Alonso to break up and key members of his staff (includ- must also be able to teach his team to
the attack by the guerrillas on the ing members of a U.S. military adviso- work in cross-cultural operating en-
populace. As the platoon approaches ry team) move from base to base via a vironments and lead them to success
the site of the reported attacks, a combination of Blackhawk, MI-17 and without pushing U.S. military doctrine
sniper shot strikes German-Alonso Bell Ranger helicopters to coordinate or organization onto a foreign host.
in the chest, killing him. The attack the responses of the brigades as they The Colombian military is wag-
was a baited ambush to take out the continue the fight. ing its counterinsurgency primar-
leader of the patrol and dampen the Welcome to the mission of the ily against the FARC, which is now
enthusiasm of other officers aggres- U.S. planning, advisory and train- considered to be the largest crimi-
sive attacks against the FARC. ing team, or PATT, to the Republic of nal organization in the world and is
Colombia, and the personnel who man responsible for the production and
Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2006 this decentralized operation on behalf transportation of the majority of the
Municipality of Mocoa, Department of the U.S. Army Special Operations worlds cocaine. Most of the senior
of Putumayo, southern Colombia Command and the U.S. Army John F. leaders of the FARC are under indict-
acting upon information from villag- Kennedy Special Warfare Center and ment by both the Colombian and the
ers, soldiers from the reaction platoon Schools Security Assistance Training U.S. justice departments. Under Plan
of the Colombian armys 27th Brigade, Management Organization, based at Colombia, the United States has com-
6th Division, engage an element of the Fort Bragg, N.C. mitted its resources to helping Uribe
32nd Front. In a fierce firefight, the As the Colombian army faces stabilize the country economically and
Colombian soldiers marksmanship off against the 43-year-old FARC, it socially while eliminating the FARC as
and movement techniques win out, receives targeted assistance from a a threat to national sovereignty.
18 Special Warfare
In Defense A Colombian solider sets up a mortar in defense of the firebase. All photos provided by Patrick J. Christian.
As military consultants, their job is tifying the unique skills and meshing make sure that cooperation, commu-
to help identify critical business ele- them into a continuously evolving nication and coordination occur at the
ments and focus their time and energy plan of military advisory assistance. lowest possible level, with all credit for
to meet their own goals and objectives. Variances in rotations of the vari- successes going to the host unit. Only
Conventional military advisory ous team members cause continuous by performing a realistic assessment of
teams begin their service with the idea personnel changes, but our hosts are our host-units capabilities, compared
that they must reshape the force into surprisingly accepting of the adjust- to the FARC threat they face rather
a model similar to that of the U.S. ments to our advisory plan that those than to a U.S. standard, could we un-
Army primarily because that model changes necessitate. derstand their actual weaknesses and
is the only one they know. Imagine Key to the success of our plan is place available assets against them.
however, a business consultant who our ability to help the Colombians to For this type of military consult-
tries to push an IBM model of busi- identify weaknesses in the FARCs ing to work, the advisory team must
ness onto Google or Microsoft. These critical infrastructure and to develop build a great deal of trust with its
companies have different business capabilities for disrupting, disabling or hosts. The bulk of this trust-building
models based upon their particular destroying it. We learned that our hosts has to do with realistic advisement of
cultural base of employees and cus- are more concerned that the plans we the individual and group capabilities
tomers, and they know that one type bring to the table are effective than they of host-nation forces in the areas for
is not the solution for all. are about whether we have the skills to which the team has training or experi-
The military advisory team that the cover every operational area. ence. The advisory teams claim to a
author leads in southern Colombia When the team receives person- certain type of knowledge or skill must
consists of Army and Marine NCOs nel who specialize in various aspects be backed up by an ability to explain
and Army and Air Force officers. of maneuver operations, intelligence where and how it was obtained, as
Hailing from three different branches or SOF operations, we work to ensure our hosts have been fighting the same
of service, the team members have that their skills and abilities are best enemy for more than three decades.
unique backgrounds and skill sets. aligned with identified weaknesses in Success for the advisory mission is
The success of the team lies in iden- our hosts military structure. We try to predicated upon two (at times conflict-
May-June 2007 19
GuerRillas in the mist
20 Special Warfare
Roadblock An explosion on a bus caused by insurgents damages the road and inhibits travel. All photos provided by Patrick J. Christian.
At each step of the way, however, and objectives. Most importantly, In summary, working as an adviser
the members of the PATT had to such a method develops the planning to a foreign military force involves a
sidestep efforts to take responsibility and analysis skills of the host nations change in the way we view success
for the training away from the Colom- junior military leaders. criteria and our expectations of how
bian chain of command. We used the Teaching them to base their military quickly success can be achieved.
Socratic method of teaching asking operations on actionable intelligence Operating in a cross-cultural environ-
questions to ensure that we did not and to plan each combat operation ment means that we actively avoid
step out of our adviser/consultant as an intelligence-gathering operation making clones of the U.S. military
role. The quality of the training was was more difficult than we anticipated. and instead work to help our clients
very important, but more so was the Often this was due to their reverse- develop and achieve measurable goals
ownership of the process and product. engineering of U.S. military processes, and objectives while retaining their
While much of the instruction was which gave them an understanding of cultural methodology of field opera-
based upon standard U.S. training what to do without the requisite knowl- tions. Advisory teams must be suf-
doctrine, the authority for determining edge of why they were doing it. ficiently trained and experienced in
how and why we trained a certain way Also, many of the processes they order to move beyond offering cultur-
stayed with the Colombians, using had been exposed to in their careers ally-dependent templates and begin
their years of experience in fighting were based upon high-intensity-con- training their host counterparts to
the FARC insurgency. Those experi- flict environments rather than on cul- develop their own templates consis-
ences that had worked were adopted, turally adaptive low-intensity conflict tent with their operational cultural
and those that failed were not. involving protracted political violence. environment.
The reason for using this method By encouraging them to develop their Lieutenant Colonel Patrick J. Chris-
was again, simply to keep responsibil- own operational and support tem- tian is a Special Forces officer who
ity for training, planning and opera- plates, based upon their own identi- serves as a field advisory team leader
tions squarely upon the shoulders of fied requirements and operational in southern Colombia. He has served
Colombian officers and NCOs and to environments, we helped them acquire in similar capacities in Ecuador, Sudan
keep them focused on meeting goals skills for effective planning. and Ethiopia.
May-June 2007 21