Editor’s note: As everyone now knows, the American ground forces in Afghanistan are Special Operations soldiers. Special Ops is a euphemism for unusual and always difficult missions, and historically some of those missions were both covert and controversial. Special Ops soldiers are principally Army Rangers and Green Berets (who are also known as the Special Forces), Navy SEALS, and elite units of the Marines and US Air Force. These forces are likely to be the ones that will continue the direct fight against terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world, and therefore The Bradley Report will, as often as possible, seek to focus on them and the obstacles they face in their important mission.

The following is an interview with retired Green Beret R. Michael Stover regarding the War Against Terrorism and the Special Operations soldiers that are conducting the war on the ground in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Bradley Report: "You were a Special Ops soldier back before it became a common household phrase; how do you see the Special Ops soldiers of today?

Mr. Stover: "I see them as part of an organization that has received far more support in terms of the types of equipment that they have available today compared to what was available to us in years past….

Bradley Report: Can you define that more clearly; that is, are they more reliant on high tech or are they essentially the equivalent of the troops you served with who happen to have more sophisticated equipment?

Mr. Stover: "It’s a case of more sophisticated equipment; the men are still the best we’ve got. They are definitely getting the job done, with a minimum of loss. When you can take a group of soldiers, 200 strong, and weed out 190 of them to get a selection of 10, (who will then be offered a chance to train as Special Ops soldiers), those ten individuals are capable of performing those types of missions."

Bradley Report: We are talking about elite forces, of course, but since you’ve just used an analogy of 200 soldiers involved in a selection process, could you comment on any issues that may affect the military personnel who remain in conventional units, which of course are also very important to our national defense.

Mr. Stover: "Well, one issue I think should be reconsidered is the decision to move away from the Open Bay Concept of military quarters. In the Open Bay Concept the soldiers lived and slept together in a large, barracks-style environment, which led toward a greater team sense among the men. A 40-man platoon that lived in the same room meant you got to know everybody. But if you’ve got the same 40 individuals living in two man rooms, as you do now, you might know the individual there who’s in that room with you, and a few others, but you might not know half the other guys. This could be an important difference in combat situations. Also, it is harder to harbor prejudices if you’re living among all your fellow soldiers."

Bradley Report: To return to Special Ops, do you see the Special Ops soldiers changing or becoming somewhat different now, especially since they are becoming increasingly well known and are in the full glare of publicity?

Mr. Stover: "No, it’s basically the same thing, but there is too much publicity put on their existence. To me, Special Ops is a form of National Security that should be on a need to know basis. One of the things I don’t go along with is the publicity that is available today, where you can watch TV and see shows and documentaries that reveal techniques and approaches; Afghanistan can sit back and watch CNN, or the History Channel which goes into in-depth reports on the types of weaponry that Special Forces, Rangers, air force and marine personnel are utilizing, and that’s too much publicity. We’ve got to have some trust in the personnel running these operations and allow them to operate without all this publicity."

Bradley Report: In terms of news coverage from Afghanistan, what has upset you the most?

Mr. Stover: "The biggest thing that aggravated me was Geraldo Rivera getting down and praying on what he said was a sacred site, a place where supposedly two of our Special Forces soldiers were killed, and yet where he was when he filmed that clip is a couple of hundred miles away from where the men were (actually) hit. They showed Rivera acting as if he was under fire, jumping around and ducking, but if a sniper round is coming in everyone will be hitting the dirt, and the TV cameraman never flinched. Rivera must have set it up to have someone fire a rifle. He did this kind of thing years ago too. He said he went back into Cambodia but he never left Thailand."

Bradley Report: What do you see as the principle differences between Special Ops in the years between the Vietnam War and the Gulf War, and today?

Mr. Stover: "I think that the weapons availability is far greater. Research and development has come a long way. We were looking at Second World War vintage weapons, where today they’re coming up with the necessary equipment to accomplish the missions.

Bradley Report: But in Vietnam you had night scopes, M16’s, and many upgraded weapons. What new weaponry that’s available now gives such an increased advantage?

Mr. Stover: "They’ve got these laser packages now, and guided bombing techniques that can put out a selected area, for example an area six football fields wide, and this can be a tremendous advantage. During the Vietnam War era we had a hard time getting the (military) hierarchy out of a conventional, WWII strategy while we were there in a jungle, guerilla war environment. The way the world is today, we’ve got to be prepared for all environments."

Bradley Report: Currently we see Special Forces soldiers hitting specific targets, such as the Al Qaeda fighters that were barricaded in a public building in a remote part of Afghanistan and were killed last week in an attack by Special Forces and Afghan allies. Do you see these kinds of actions as necessary?

Mr. Stover: "Most assuredly. They are going after the command structure of this terrorist organization, which is what they must do. But the great problem today is the lack of intelligence depth; where we had greater intelligence, the current Special Ops people have shallow intelligence. It’s ironic that in this day and age they’re developing intelligence as they go along."

Bradley Report: Why do you think the intelligence is shallow now, where it wasn’t years ago?

Mr. Stover: "I attribute that problem to past (U.S.) administrations that shut down the foreign intelligence gathering agencies in the U.S. We knew (the terrorists) existed in that part of the world, but we neglected it until they struck first."

Bradley Report: Do you foresee these actions as ongoing, at least in the immediate future?

Mr. Stover: "Yes. I believe it’s going to be a case where we are going to have to go from country to country; heck, we walked away from a situation in Somalia. The (U.S.) political structure determined that because we lost some men, they chose to walk away instead of putting more men and equipment in there and finishing the job…now it’s come back to bite us."

Bradley Report: You fought against guerrillas, the Viet Cong, and against the North Vietnamese regulars, among others; how would you rate the Taliban and the Al Qaeda?

Mr. Stover: "I don’t think it’s a case of their fighting capabilities (that makes them particularly dangerous) so much as it is the idealistic brain washing that they’ve received. And with the types of targets they have available to them, they can be very devastating. They’re not fighting our military one on one; they’re all over the world and have the capability of popping up anywhere. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the threat to the U.S. We still haven’t addressed the security for our airports…"

Bradley Report: What do you think remains as a serious security problem at our airports?

Mr. Stover: "One thing is the illegal immigrants who are allowed to come and go as they please; until we address that issue we’re going to continue to have individuals who are potential terrorists stepping into airplanes, trains or buses, or targeting us in general, our infrastructure, and our lifestyles. When you refuse to address this issue and allow people who are here illegally to remain here, you (are indicating you) don’t really want to address terrorism, because otherwise you would remove that potential threat."

Bradley Report: Do you think that the religious fervor of radical Islam makes these guerrillas and terrorists more dangerous than those encountered by the U.S. in the past, during Vietnam or other engagements, including the South American drug wars?

Mr. Stover: "They are at least as dangerous. They make up for the (limited) weaponry available to them by fanaticism. The Communist armies were dangerous because of the equipment and training they had available to them. This organization here, it doesn’t have the large expenditures for weapons, but when they can take a common carrier aircraft and turn it into a device that can take out 2,000 individuals by having their members commit suicide to direct and accomplish the goal, well…"

Bradley Report: To the average person, it might seem that the Taliban and the Al Qaeda were quite well armed, but obviously that does not seem so to you. Can you define what arms deficiencies they made up for with fanaticism?

Mr. Stover: "I think that the biggest shortcoming they faced was that we immediately gained complete air superiority. The actual weaponry that they had was often weapons we left behind 20 years ago when they were our allies against the Russians, such as the Stinger missiles we left behind. But with air superiority and smart bombs, they really only had small arms in the end. But they have a psychological warfare capability through terrorism."

Bradley Report: As a widely experienced, former combat soldier, what do you see different about today’s tactics?

Mr. Stover: "The major thing is the part of the world where we’re now fighting. The jungle environments (in Southeast Asia and elsewhere) provided us with cover and concealment, but today they are operating in an open environment; desert and mountain areas. Also, importantly, we do have the capabilities now of pinpointing personnel on the ground with our infrared, heat seeking weapons, which were only in the developmental stages in the Vietnam War era.

Bradley Report: Is there anything you would recommend to the young Non Commissioned Officers, NCO’s, who are undertaking these kinds of assignments?

Mr. Stover: "Draw your strength from your senior NCO’s that have been there and done that."

Bradley Report: What might you say to the young Special Ops soldier of today in terms of the criteria he would need to succeed?

Mr. Stover: "To serve in Special Ops requires individuals who know their inner selves and what their capabilities are, so that (in an emergency or under stress) they can reach down inside themselves and find the resources to get the business done."

Bradley Report: Do you think that there will be U.S. forces in Afghanistan a year from now?

Mr. Stover: "I think they’ll be wrapped up in Afghanistan for years to come, but I also think the action will be broadened into other countries such as Somalia, because this, and other countries in the area, is where the terrorist personnel came from in the first place; they only congregated in Afghanistan because it was a country that didn’t have the strength or the will to throw them out."

Bradley Report: What do you think is the most important lesson that may have been learned since the World Trade Center attack and our response in Afghanistan and, to some extent, around the world?

Mr. Stover: "I sure hope that in among the lessons learned will be that (our) politicians understand that when we are committed, we have to have a clear, decisive objective. It has to go A, B, C, D. And when we reach D is when the host country can stand on its own and not resort to its old ways. I think the Afghans have the capability of setting up this (new) government, but the basic structure recently has been government by groups of bandits. Until these bandits are legitimized, probably by bringing area leaders into the national government, there are going to be problems."

Bradley Report: In terms of the overall welfare of today’s Special Ops soldiers, what would concern you the most?

Mr. Stover: "I’m still concerned with the types of environments that the soldiers of today are exposed to - this is similar to what we were exposed to with Agent Orange – such as the strange experiences of our soldiers in the Gulf War, with toxins and possible exposure to poison gas and biological weapons. And who knows what our soldiers may face in the next battles. Our politicians need to start taking a good, cold hard look at the end results as far as soldiers disabilities are concerned. They expose the citizen soldier to these environments and once the threat has been put on the back burner, the soldiers are forgotten."

Bradley Report: Can you elaborate on what you mean by the soldiers being forgotten?

Mr. Stover: "What they do now, is when an individual desires to stay in and serve his or her 20 years, that individual receives a retirement check that is a percentage of his base pay, which everyone understands. But if during the 20 years it’s determined the individual is disabled, the percentage of the disability received from the VA is deducted from the retirement pay. You take an individual who is part of our political structure – like former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, (D – Nebraska), for one, who had a leg amputated – when he retired from the Senate he received his Senate pay and his disability pay, and in other government areas that’s the same. It’s only in the military that this disability is deducted from the retirement pay. Congress has been evading this issue since before Vietnam.

"There are a lot of military personnel who don’t bother addressing their disabilities due to the fact that the only advantage they have in bringing this to the attention of the government is that we have a tax advantage in that the disability isn’t taxed, (so if the retired soldier was receiving $1,500 in monthly benefits, and $200 was established as a benefit because of a service related disability, that $200 would be deducted from the $1,500 and would be untaxed, but the total amount received would remain $1,500). We have individuals with 100% disability because of Agent Orange and they receive no advantage other than their retirement is free from taxes. President Bush and other politicians can talk about supporting the military all they want, but until this is addressed he and the other politicians are not looking after the welfare of the soldiers. Waiting until 90% of the personnel are dead and gone before addressing the problem is a way of not addressing the problem.

"Our government is well aware of the problems right through the Gulf War, including the biological weapons our soldiers were faced with, but you still have these citizen soldiers going back to their homes and dying before you address the problem. Further, there are soldiers who remained in the military who are afraid to address their medical problems for fear of repercussions to their careers.

"And these problems affect our families and our children. It’s a fact that we have children who have been affected by Agent Orange and now by other chemical and biological agents that our soldiers have faced.

"I can attest to that problem, because I know how it feels, and I’d like to see this corrected for today’s young men before they grow old."

Bradley Report: Do you sometimes wish you were back in the fray, or are you just as pleased to be enjoying a retirement you clearly earned?

Mr. Stover: "There are times I wish I was back, but there is also a realization that I have reached my peak, age wise. One of the things about these types of organizations is that you are only as strong as your weakest link."