Q&A: Major General Thomas R. Csrnko

Written by Jeff McKaughan

TRAINING PROPONENT:
Developing the Baseline for
Success in the SOF Warrior



Major General Thomas R. Csrnko
Commanding General
U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special
Warfare Center and School

Csrnko’s first assignment was with 2nd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, where he served in a variety of positions including platoon leader and executive officer. He then served as the assistant S3 for operations, 1st Brigade, 24th Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.

He graduated from both the Infantry Officer Advanced Course and Special Forces Officer Qualification Course and was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C. Csrnko served as the commander of Special Forces ODA 586, battalion adjutant and commander of Company A, 1979–1982. In 1982, he was assigned to Germany as the 3rd Armored Division assistant G1 and then the commander of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Armored Division, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army.

Csrnko served as the inspector general, U.S. Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School, Fort Bragg, N.C., from 1985–1988, with a follow-on assignment as executive officer, 3rd Battalion, 5th SF Group (Airborne) from 1988–1990. He graduated from the Armed Forces Staff College and was assigned as a Joint Staff officer, Special Operations Division, J3, Joint Staff, Pentagon, Washington D.C., from 1990–1993. Following his Pentagon assignment, he was assigned to Fort Campbell, Ky., to assume command of 1st Battalion, 5th SF Group (Airborne) from 1993–1995. After his battalion command, he served as chief, Special Operations Coordination Element, III Corps, Fort Hood, Texas, from 1995–1996 and then attended the U.S. Army War College from 1996–1997. From June 1997 to June 1998, he served as director, Department of Joint and Multinational Operations, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Csrnko assumed command of 1st SF Group (Airborne), Fort Lewis, Wash., on July 1, 1998. In August 2000, he returned to the SWCS as the deputy commander, with a follow-on assignment as chief, Office of Military Cooperation Kuwait, American Embassy. From July 2006 until June 2008, he commanded the U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne). Csrnko’s awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal (one Oak Leaf Cluster), Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (seven Oak Leaf Clusters), Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, Army Achievement Medal (one Oak Leaf Cluster), Expert Infantry Badge, Master Parachutist Badge, Special Forces Tab and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge.

Q: In terms of size, budget and responsibilities, how does the school compare to a year ago?

A: The John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School [SWCS] is an integral part of the Army special operations structure. Not only do we take the nation’s young men and women and develop them into the most capable fighting force in the history of our Army, but we provide opportunities for them to develop as soldiers and individuals across the entirety of their careers. Because of the growth in the Army’s civil affairs, psychological operations and Special Forces structure since the attacks of September 11, 2001, we at the center and school have also added capacity in terms of cadre and staff to support this growth.

In recognition of the importance of initial and advanced skills training of our ARSOF soldiers, the Special Warfare Center and School remain a top funding priority for USASOC.

As to the responsibilities of the soldiers and civilians who teach in our classrooms, manage our ranges and develop the doctrine for tomorrow’s ARSOF, that hasn’t, and will never, change—we produce the world’s most capable unconventional warfare force.

Q: What is the school doing today that it didn’t do five years ago?

A: We constantly evaluate our entire body of courses to ensure we are providing tactically proficient and technologically astute soldiers for the missions that Army special operations forces are called to tackle. We are finalizing the reorganization of the Special Forces Qualification Course [SFQC], which will bring some fluidity to how the students’ progress to become Green Berets and better align phases so we can better prepare soldiers for the next phase of training.

Part of the realignment will see all of the Special Forces military occupational specialty courses housed in the 1st Battalion of the 1st Special Warfare Training Group [Airborne]. Soldiers in SFQC will now remain in the same unit during training instead of moving between battalions as was the case previously. This alleviates unnecessary distractions from training and allows the cadre more time to conduct training—time with students being our most precious resource.

We have also realigned the Special Forces Assessment and Selection [SFAS] under the responsibility of the Directorate of Special Operations Proponency. This move puts the screening process for Special Forces candidates directly under the organization with the greatest capacity to evaluate the quality of soldier we have volunteering for Special Forces training and also makes our ability to make changes to SFAS easier in the future if we may need to.

Our civil affairs and psychological operations courses are also evolving. The advanced individual training for each branch, which is only taught here in the SWCS, will be shortened as we find ways to better manage the student’s time in training. However, we will not sacrifice the quality of the soldier we produce; it’s simply not an option.

One significant change to our training programs is the decrease in class size and the correlating increase in the number of classes that we teach. For example, several years ago we had larger numbers of soldiers attend our Special Forces Assessment and Selection four times a year; now, we run SFAS ten times a year with smaller classes. This is advantageous for two reasons: first, our cadre has more contact with the individual candidate, or student, resulting in a better learning experience for the soldier. Second, providing more opportunities for soldiers to attend SFAS is smart because the deployment schedules for potential special operations soldiers means there are limited times in their careers they are even eligible to come here to be assessed for Special Forces. Similarly, we want to offer our current special operators more opportunities to attend advanced training along with officer and non-commissioned officer professional development courses.

While the center and school is well known for our CA, PO and SF qualification courses, it is only the first step in the ARSOF soldier’s career and we are making great strides in providing the lifelong training professional soldiers expect and deserve. SWCS is home to the Noncommissioned Officer Academy of the ARSOF regiments: civil affairs, psychological operations and Special Forces. In all of our NCOA courses, distributive learning courses have reduced the time soldiers spend away from their families.

In the past year we have taken the final steps to get our Warrant Officer Institute accredited by the Army. Ours is the only warrant officer training program that is run entirely by the branch and proponent; none of our warrant officer candidates go to Fort Rucker for their initial training. The reason this is so vitally important is the distinction of our Special Forces warrant officers being combat leaders, not technicians. They are a different breed of warrants, drawn as experienced NCOs from the very force they will return to, and they deserve the special operations-centric, lifelong learning we can provide here at the center and school.

Q: Are there any initiatives that have priority this year?

A: The special operations community has always led the rest of the Army in embracing new technologies and finding ways to enhance training through their use.

Our medical training facility is one of the best in the Department of Defense, but our technological capacity to support our training was lacking, and modern medical education requires a large volume of digital resources. In the past year, we have updated our telecommunications capability to give our students a wireless campus area network, which includes computer-based testing for the medical courses.

We do have some challenges ahead of us; with the lack of classroom space, we need to meet the training growth we have experienced in the past few years. In particular, buildings constructed in the 1970s and ‘80s have not kept pace with the incredible advances in telecommunications and dynamic audio-visual presentation media that promise to enrich our student’s learning experiences. We are pressing ahead with bringing these education facilities to standards fitting Army special operations soldiers.

Q: How much cross-utilization is there between the other services’ special warfare training organizations? Do you have many Air Force, Marine or Navy SOF come through your programs?

A: The military’s special operations forces’ ability to conduct operations fairly seamlessly is well known, and so it naturally follows that we could conduct our training together as well. The center and school is fortunate to begin the integration of our sister services fairly early in the training process, most notably with our medical training. Additionally, we have significant numbers of servicemembers from the Air Force and Navy who not only attend our advanced training, but also serve as instructors at our military free-fall and underwater operations schools.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have a permanent detachment stationed at Fort Bragg to assist members of the sea-going services as they attend courses taught here at the Special Warfare Center and School.

All Navy and Marine special operations medics receive medical training at the Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center. Additionally, special operations medics from all branches of the military receive biannual medical refresher training at the JSOMTC.

Q: With the growth in actual numbers for special operators, and the changes in methodology in the schooling and training of the warriors, how has that affected the completion rate versus those that do not finish the pipeline?

A: Not surprisingly, our completion rates have remained fairly consistent, and we believe this to be a result of the processes we have had in place for decades to evaluate and train prospective ARSOF soldiers.

Due to the stringent selection criteria, the overall SFQC graduation rate has improved somewhat over the pre-9/11 standards based on the most recent statistics. For the psychological operations and civil affairs qualification courses, those success rates are near 95 percent. These numbers do not represent a decrease in the standards, but instead, represent a greatly improved screening and selection process that ensures only the best qualified soldiers are selected for training.

In terms of medical training, the recent increases we have experienced in throughput have caused an increase in resource requirements—more instructors, equipment, space and money. We also took a hard look at our effectiveness as an organization and found ways to improve. For example, we’ve enhanced the quality of student testing by improving increasing objectivity and standardization during practical evaluations. We’ve improved resourcing and lesson plan stability with a consistent and controlled system for reviewing lesson plans. We’ve improved the criteria and system used to select and notify potential medics from SFAS to ensure all new students have the aptitude and skills required to complete training. We also work very hard to develop our cadre professionally with instructional assessment and feedback on student performance. This has allowed us to decrease attrition while improving the quality of our graduates.

Q: Some focus of special operations has smaller forces going into more places. If that’s the case, has that changed the scope of languages that you have in the curriculum?

A: Our soldiers have always trained in small detachments, preparing them to accomplish missions in foreign countries, isolated from other U.S. forces, because of the language training that is provided here at SWCS. Language capabilities are as crucial an element in special operations soldiers’ kitbag as any other; we simply cannot be effective in our missions if we lack the ability to speak with our counterparts around the world.

To provide our commanders in the operational units the most flexibility and relevance, we focus on the core languages that have the most applicability around the world: Korean, Arabic, French, Chinese and Russian, for example.

That is not to say, however, that we don’t constantly evaluate what we are teaching as the DoD re-evaluates where our forces may be needed in the future. In the recent past, we determined it would be of greater benefit to teach Thai in place of German. We now have that change incorporated into our stable of languages.

I’m asked frequently if the tribal languages of Central Asia, Urdu and Pashto in particular, will be incorporated by the center and school. Contingency language training will always be a fact of how we operate. In the mid-1990s, we had a fairly robust capacity to teach Serbo-Croatian and other languages that supported our missions in Bosnia and Kosovo. As we expect to have Army special operations soldiers in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, we are exploring the possibility of adding Urdu and Pashto language training here at Fort Bragg.

Q: What role has SWCS had in developing the special operations capabilities of the Iraqi and Afghan national militaries? Have you helped in developing their academies?

A: You know, more than 90 percent of our soldiers are combat veterans doing their primary task of working by, with and through our indigenous partners and allies in Iraq, Afghanistan and, just as importantly, in lesser-known places across the globe.

So yes, in a roundabout way, we have assisted with the growth of the security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the same way we helped indigenous groups in Vietnam and military organizations in South America—by training our soldiers, our Green Berets in particular, here at Fort Bragg to be able to deploy and build the capacity of the Afghan and Iraqi military and police forces. This is our core mission; this is what the Special Forces Regiment exists to do. We have had limited opportunity to send members of the center and school forward to help our partners with the higher-level development of their training programs and academies. In fact, one of the company commanders in the 1st Special Warfare Training Group was deployed and seriously wounded in a rocket attack. So yes, we do have folks from the center and school on the battlefield, but in limited numbers.

Q: Does the SWCS have a role in training and educating special operators from our other allied and partner nations?

A: The center and school is one of the best fits in the Army to host members of our military allies for training; our soldiers have an innate understanding of what it takes to integrate them into our courses and have them be successful in the training. We currently have partners from a wide range of nations enrolled in our International Special Forces Training Course, our civil affairs and psychological operations qualification courses and in selected advanced combat skills training. Integrating them into the classes, having them train with our men and women is a benefit to everyone; it gives our soldiers a sense of their mission once they are in the operational units, and we also get a leg up on building relationships with our partners in allied militaries.

Q: In general there has been a line of thinking that the military lacks the physical acreage to perform full-scale, real-time training scenarios. From your perspective, do you have access to as much land as you need to train the warriors as they will fight, and is there a need to seriously consider acquiring additional real estate either for SOF-specific needs or for military training in general?

A: It’s no secret that Fort Bragg is getting crowded and the formations that call Fort Bragg home require lots of training resources when they aren’t deployed. So in a sense, we are in the same boat as all of the organizations on post, but with some unique aspects of our training that alleviate some of that pressure.

First, the most recognizable of our training exercises, the Special Forces Qualification Course culmination exercise Robin Sage, is conducted in large part off of military lands and is actually conducted on state and private properties across central North Carolina. That exercise has been conducted for decades and still receiving unparalleled support due to the incredible people of North Carolina. The Military Free Fall Course that we teach is based at Yuma Proving Grounds, Ariz., and the Special Forces Underwater Operations School is in Key West, Fla., so having those capabilities decentralized means that we are using the best possible locations in the world to teach those skills. In keeping with the uniqueness of the training that we do, we have partners across the nation who assist with medical training. Our medical students are provided the opportunity to get real-world, hands-on training in hospitals and with emergency service providers in the Tampa Bay area and Richmond, Va. These scenarios cannot be re-created elsewhere and we really value the patriotism our partners show in hosting our medical students.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing the schooling of ARSOF?

A: One of our biggest challenges is a result of the eight years of our men and women intimately supporting the rest of the Army—the military now sees what we can do, and they want more of what we bring to the fight.

Our operational, active duty civil affairs force is experiencing significant growth. In fact, the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade activated another battalion several weeks ago. It goes without saying, then, we have a commensurate responsibility for training the men and women who make up this growth in civil affairs.

The Special Forces groups are also expanding from three battalions to four, representing the need for a third more Green Berets for the five active duty groups, totaling nearly 8,000 Special Forces soldiers by 2012. Our current requirement is to graduate 750 soldiers a year from SFQC, which may not sound like a lot, but about a quarter of the soldiers who volunteer for Special Forces graduate— out of the limited percentage of the force that is even qualified to volunteer.

So we recognize the challenges before us, but I have the utmost confidence that the soldiers and civilians who are a part of the center and school are up to the challenge. At the end of the day, when our officers and NCOs return to their teams and prepare to deploy, the men and women they are training and mentoring will be those they lead into combat. They understand this; they work night and day to develop the most competent special operators our Army has ever known.

Q: Any final thoughts?

A: We are really at an unprecedented point in the history of Army special operations in terms of the combat experience across the force and also how ARSOF is integrated with the Army’s general purpose forces and our sister services.

In the past, the center and school has been thought of as a place for soldiers to take a break—that this environment was not a challenge or beneficial to the soldier’s career. I can tell you, without hesitation, the men and women here at the center and school are working as hard as anyone in uniform today. They work long days and longer nights and spend a lot of time away from their families. But they do so willingly, knowing the training our students receive here will make them successful when they are deployed to combat. After some eight years of sustained combat, the sheer numbers of deployments our Green Berets, civil affairs and psychological operations soldiers is staggering. That is a benefit and a challenge for us at the center and school. We have instructors who don’t rely merely on doctrine; what they are teaching our new batch of ARSOF warriors is what they have lived in Iraq and Afghanistan—they are masters at the skills they are imparting. But the flip side to having that body of knowledge is keeping our training relevant to the developments in the current engagements, as well as keeping an eye on what capabilities our soldiers may need in the future. ♦

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