Q&A: General Bryan D. Brown

Professional Warrior
A Warrior of Distinction Leading Professional Warriors



General Bryan D. Brown
Commander
United States Special
Operations Command

General Bryan “Doug” Brown is the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. USSOCOM is responsible for all Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps special operations forces and is Department of Defense’s lead command for planning and synchronizing the global war on terrorism.

He entered the Army in 1967 as a private in the infantry. He immediately entered training for Special Forces. After completing the Qualification Course, he served on an A Team in the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C. After completion of Officer Candidate School, he attended Army Flight School at Fort Rucker, Ala.

Brown has served at all levels of command and staff to include three company commands and two battalion commands. He also commanded the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

As a general officer, he served as assistant division commander (maneuver), 1st Infantry Division (The Big Red One), Fort Riley, Kan., and then returned to special operations as the director of plans, policy and strategic assessments at U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill AFB, Fla. Brown then assumed command of Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, and later U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg.

During his career, he has been involved in combat operations in Vietnam, Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada), Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and others.

He is the senior aviator in the U.S. Army and is the first member of the Army’s Aviation Branch to be promoted to the rank of four-star general.

He is a graduate of the Harvard Executive Education Program’s national and international security managers course. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Cameron University and a master’s degree in business from Webster University.

His awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star Medal and the Air Medal with “V” Device. He also wears the Special Forces Tab, Master Army Aviator Badge, Military Free Fall Parachutist Badge and the Air Assault Badge. He is also a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

General Brown was interviewed by SOTECH editor Jeff McKaughan

Q: Has U.S. Special Operations Command lived up to the vision the members of Congress and the military had for the command when they championed the cause to create USSOCOM in the 1980s?

A: First let me say, the nation, not only special operations forces, owes a huge debt of gratitude to visionaries like Representative Dan Daniel, Senator Sam Nunn, Senator William Cohen, retired Army generals Sam Wilson and Dick Sholtes, and former Chief of Staff of the Army General Shy Meyer, to name just a few. These are the men who not only had the vision that resulted in the creation of USSOCOM, they had the courage to create the command in the face of what was not a popular idea in many circles.

Without these men and their vision, I don’t think our nation would have been able to respond as quickly or in the manner that it did after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Neither would we have had a special operations force that could conduct sustained combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus deploy forces in other parts of the world in support of the broader war on terrorism, for more than five years.

Has USSOCOM fulfilled or lived up to that group’s vision? is what you see reflected in our Center for Special Operations. I believe the senior leaders of the U.S. government need to have one place in the Department of Defense that is a center for excellence for the global war on terrorism. One place that has a plan, is executing that plan and knows what everyone is doing. A center where leaders of U.S. government agencies can have their organizations plug in to ensure we are all headed in the same direction.

Today, USSOCOM is that place. If you want an answer about the global war on terrorism or you want to know what’s going on with the campaign strategy, come to USSOCOM in Tampa. That is what USSOCOM provides the Department of Defense today.

Q: What is the state of the force after conducting continuous combat operations for more than five years?

A: First of all, the force operates at a higher level than ever in history. The reasons for that are; they are extremely well trained, they are extremely well equipped, and the skills they bring to the battlefield are crucial to the global war on terrorism.

The ops tempo on our people is amazing. These guys are going back to the battlefield for three, four, five tours. Prior to 9/11, SOF around the world had a sustained deployment rate of about 2,200 people a day. Today, SOCOM is managing a sustained deployment of over 7,500 people a day. What that translates to is an increased ops tempo on all of our people.

We are doing well because of the great people who, quite frankly, are sacrificing—routine tours, one right after another on the battlefield. And this is a dangerous, dangerous battlefield. The families are doing a great job of hanging in with us as we continue to deploy our forces. The people who bear the brunt of these repeated deployments are our tremendous families.

Our reenlistment rates are up, our recruiting in the usual, difficult skill sets areas is improving—all the seats in all our schools are full—we’re doing very well.

But we’re burning our equipment up at a very high rate. Our equipment gets stressed as we continue to use it in very tough conditions.

We’re flying our AC-130s, both H models and U models, at an extreme rate. They are absolutely phenomenal. I cannot say enough about how well they’re doing on the battlefield and how important they are on the battlefield. Because of their success and importance, we’re burning them up. They’re flying at a rate probably five times greater than we anticipated when we bought them.

That drives you to center wing box problems faster, it drives you to more maintenance problems, and it reduces your ability to train your crews. So modernization of the C-130 fleet is a major issue for us.

We have to look to the future to standardize the fleet so that we don’t have different variants of C-130s.

We always fall prey to the wall of small inventory—eight H model gunships and 13, soon to be 17, U models. If you’ve only have eight H models, you’ve got to keep some in training, there’ll be some in the modernization line, and there’ll be some down for maintenance. Pretty soon you’re running out of H models, and you can’t mix the crews because they are totally different aircraft.

We have to get a standardized C-130 fleet as much as reasonable for the future. That’ll give us flexibility and better fleet management. The C-130 and modernization of the fleet is one of the big issues ahead of us.

Another of our high priority issues is fielding as many armored Humvees and other high-protection vehicles that we can field as quickly as we can.

When we went into this war, we went in with no armored Humvees. Most of our Special Forces groups were not even mounted, so they didn’t have Humvees. The immediate task was to get some non-standard vehicles that we could get on the battlefield right away for the troops to use and to start a process of fielding Humvees and armored Humvees. We took that task on with great support from the United States Army. I can’t say that enough times—with great support from the Army. At the beginning of the war we quickly started fielding armored Humvees, and we are into a number of variations now.

I looked at some of the Humvees when I was over in Afghanistan and Iraq a few weeks ago, and the armored Humvees are doing very, very well. But we have gone out and looked for vehicles with improved protection from IEDs, and we’re right now in the process of buying some vehicles that are built specifically for the IED threat. We’re doing that with the Army and Marines, and we will start fielding those as quickly as we can and get them on the battlefield.

I saw a Special Forces team in Iraq that had just come through the battle of Najaf. They were ten incredible Special Forces solders led by a great young captain. I gave six of them purple hearts for the battle of Najaf. They performed magnificently.

I looked at one of the Humvees they drove in the battle. There were two head shots in the front windshield and one in the driver’s side window. None of the bullets penetrated. Had that not been an armored Humvee, the driver would not have survived. An armored Humvee in a point blank ambush saved that team’s life.

The ability for us to work with the Army and rapidly field these has been absolutely crucial to some of the successes we have been having in Iraq.

In our helicopter fleet, we have modernized our Little Bird fleet. They remain one of our great assets, and probably the best aircraft and pilots on earth for the type of mission we give them.

We are modernizing the Black Hawk fleet. The Army is giving us M models and then we’ll put a new, improved engine on them to get even more lift. So I’m excited about our modernization program for the MH-60 fleet and, again, our phenomenal pilots.

The MH-47 has become the big winner of the war in Afghanistan. It is the only helicopter on the battlefield that gets up to the altitudes of the terrain we need to operate in. It has been able to work in the mountains of Afghanistan and put Rangers and other special operations forces in the areas they will need to operate. Again, it is more than the aircraft that deserves recognition. The MH-47 crews are doing an incredible job.

We’re going to expand our 47 fleet and we are modernizing it. We have already started getting brand-new MH-47Gs with special operations modifications and have already deployed them to the battlefield.

For the immediate future, with the MH-6M and MH-60M, and the 47G, we will be in good shape for the next 10 to 15 years.

Q: As you approach your 40th year of military service, what are the biggest differences in the special operations forces of today from the time you completed the Special Forces Qualification Course?

A: That is a great question, but it is an easy answer—it is the people.

Back in 1967, I was the junior member on the Special Forces team, and the guys on the team were tremendous NCOs. But we didn’t have the rigor in the assessment and selection course that SF candidates go through now, and the training was not nearly what it is today. The training today is much longer and much more thorough. It includes language training and a greater emphasis on cultural skills.

I think if you were to go visit one of our great training institutions at Fort Bragg; Hurlburt Field; Coronado, Calif.; or Camp Lejeune, N.C., as the MARSOC stands up its school, you will see the emphasis is different from the past. The emphasis you will see is on preparing individuals to perform tactical operations but with the understanding those operations will have strategic impact.

It does not make any difference if you are a sergeant on a Special Forces A team or you are the commanding general of this wonderful 47,000-man plus special operations force, it’s about the people. If you select the right people, give them world-class training, give them world-class equipment and then empower them to go out and make decisions, they will successfully perform the task that you’ve trained them to do.

Q: What can industry do to assist USSOCOM and the rest of DoD to fight the global war on terrorism?

A: First, U.S. industry is already playing a key role in the global war on terrorism. They are providing us some tremendous equipment that is saving lives on the battlefield every day. The bullet-proof glass in the armored Humvee in the battle of Najaf I just spoke about is only one small example of the impact they are having on the battlefield.

The Department of Veterans Affairs published a report in November of last year that showed in the Korean War we sustained 2.6 wounded for every fatality and in Vietnam, it was 2.8. The most recent DoD casualty report shows that in the global war on terrorism, which includes Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, we currently have about seven people wounded for every fatality.

There are many reasons for that increase in survivability. One of the big reasons is the great equipment U.S. industry is providing us.

But industry’s impact on the global war on terrorism can be even greater if they deliver what we order on time and at the agreed upon price.

According the Max Boot, in World War II, once American industry was on a war footing, they produced an airplane every 294 seconds. We could have replaced all of the aircraft lost at Pearl Harbor in about 16 hours.

I understand a great many things are different today. This is not World War II. But we have programs that are years, not minutes or days, behind on delivery. We need our equipment on time, on budget and able to be deployed immediately to combat. As I said earlier, we are taking the MH-47Gs from the manufacturing line to the battle line.

Only U.S. industry can ensure a piece of equipment ordered for a SEAL, Ranger, Green Beret or special operations aviator to use in defending the nation is actually there when he reaches for it. ♦

Back_To_Top