Special Forces Group Coming To N.C. From Virginia

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National Guard Unit Moving To Roanoke Rapids

Special Forces Group Coming To N.C. From Virginia
POSTED: 1:22 pm EDT May 14, 2004

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Roanoke Rapids soon will be the new home of a North Carolina Army National Guard unit.
Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group is scheduled to move to Roanoke Rapids from Fort A.P. Hill, Va., on or about Oct. 1, 2004. A ceremony marking the formal arrival will take place at a later date.
According to Army officials, the changes have been planned for some time and are not a product of the current world situation.

"This Special Forces company is a natural addition to our force structure in the North Carolina Army National Guard," said Maj. Gen. William E. Ingram Jr., North Carolina's Adjutant General. "Fort Bragg is the home of United States Army Special Operations Command and the JFK Special Warfare School. North Carolina is the center of the universe for Green Berets."
The movement of the unit comes as part of Ingram's vision to bring Special Forces to the N.C. National Guard.
The National Guard makes up nearly half of the Army's combat arms and almost a third of Special Forces groups.
Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group will replace the 1131st Military Police Company, which was projected to stand-up in September 2005. Officials said the prestigious unit will place the NCNG on the cutting edge of war fighting.
Special Forces units perform five doctrinal missions: foreign internal defense, unconventional warfare, special reconnaissance, direct action and counter-terrorism.
Those 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.
On an everyday basis, soldiers of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) are deployed around the world,living up to their motto: De Oppresso Liber -- "To Free the Oppressed."

Copyright 2004 by WRAL.com.

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Elite Special Forces team calls Valley home

Green Beret National Guard unit settles into armory

Jennifer Heaslip /Herald Staff Writer

ROANOKE RAPIDS - Special Forces soldiers landed quietly in the city Monday, arriving in flatbed trucks and private vehicles.

Their entrance was a little different than their usual routine of jumping from aircraft, shooting weapons and setting off explosives. But that will come.

The unit is now a part of the North Carolina National Guard and will be based at the armory at 1400 E. Virginia Ave.

The soldiers are members of a National Guard Special Forces unit of the U.S. Army's Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion. They come from Fort A.P. Hill, Va., where they had been a part of the Virginia Guard for 10 years.

By crossing the border, the airborne unit becomes the newest member of the North Carolina National Guard and the only special forces unit in the state. Soldiers serve one weekend a month and two weeks a year, meeting at the armory for training. Most will not live in the area, but will commute from their current homes.

For now, soldiers are busy unpacking cargo crates full of supplies and materials, and are waiting for some construction to begin in the armory to create training rooms.

They will have a low-key presence in the community, said Company Sgt. Maj. Scott La Morte. Soldiers will meet at the armory and leave the area for training most of the time.

Maj. Gen. William Ingram Jr., the adjutant general of the North Carolina National Guard, has been pushing for some time to get a special forces unit in the state, said Capt. Robert Carver, public relations officer for the N.C. Guard. This week, his wish came true.

The unit chose to relocate to Roanoke Rapids because of its location off Interstate 95 and because it is close to Fort Bragg, Carver said. The armory is also a good facility in a supportive community, and the airport could be used for training operations.

Maj. Alan, who asked that his last name not be used, said the demographics of the area are good for recruiting, as soldiers coming off of active duty at Fort Bragg may want to stay in the area and can join the unit and commute.

The unit has close to 80 members, including some from Wilmington, Greensboro and Sanford. Most are from Maryland and Virginia, as well as other states, mostly on the East Coast.

The Special Forces unit has five missions - foreign internal defense, unconventional warfare, special reconnaissance, direct action and counter-terrorism. Their motto is "To free the oppressed."

"This is an elite unit. It's cutting-edge," Carver said. "It's a real feather in our cap to have these soldiers here."

The unit was sent to Afghanistan for seven months when the war against terrorism began and then came back to train other National Guard units about to deploy overseas. At least five units they have trained have since gone overseas.

Special Forces training exercises are based on the five missions, and soldiers will be focusing on unconventional warfare such as needed in Afghanistan. They will do a lot of weapons training and a lot of jumps from aircraft.

"We do a good deal of shooting," Alan said.

They will train for information gathering and intelligence use on the battlefield, practicing how to turn intelligence into offensive operations. They will also complete mountain and water-borne training.

"Actually, one of the things we like about being here in Roanoke Rapids is the proximity to the lake," Alan said.

Each soldier has a different specialty, and the Special Forces unit is broken down into six, 12-man teams, plus support personnel and leadership positions.

The unit traditionally hasn't worked in the desert, but mostly in jungle environments, Alan said. They will have to develop operational procedures for actions, such as driving vehicles, which they are not used to.

Carver, a native of the area who graduated from Roanoke Rapids High School, said it was nice to have the soldiers here because the unit goes right along with the North Carolina National Guard's mission.

"We have felt really, extremely welcome," Alan said.

"Everybody's friendly. The community's very accessible," La Morte said. "It's a very patriotic area, from what I've seen."

The addition of the unit brings an increase in resources, experience and knowledge to the state Guard, and to the community as well. As citizen soldiers, the Special Forces unit will provide National Guard services in the area if needed, taking action during hurricanes and other situations.

The unit includes trained and specialized men such as master electricians, computer scientists, policemen, firemen, medics and "just about every walk of life you can imagine" who can respond in the area, La Morte said.

They can asses the amount of damage done to a bridge after a hurricane or conduct recovery operations. They have the resources to get soldiers into remote, isolated and blocked-off areas.

The Special Forces unit will go hand-in-hand with the homeland security practices of the North Carolina National Guard, Carver said. The Guard has a quick reaction force that can respond within four hours to any situation in the state.

A heavy civil support weapons of mass destruction team operates out of Greenville, and extensive force protection training has taken place in the state.