While others observe the “suspected drug dealers,” Green 6 is ready if the team is compromised and deadly force is the only course of action. (Georgia National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry)
Woodland Training Course Tests Local,
State Counter Terrorism Teams, Preparedness
Georgia National Guard
Public Affairs Office
Editor’s Note: Because of the nature of their work the law enforcement officers interviewed for this story have had their names changed at their request.
March 15, 2006 -- As light of the newly dawned day began to brighten the Southwestern sky above LaGrange, civilian law enforcement officers and Soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard walked, side by side with deliberate quietness along the leaf and limb strewn, uneven ground of the heavily wooded Camp Pioneer just off Youngs Mill Road.
For six days 24 officers from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Troupe and Gordon county sheriff’s offices, Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and the county’s drug task force, Calhoun Police and its drug task force, Georgia Counter Terrorism Task Force and the Georgia Counterdrug Task Force, trained, ate and slept much as a Soldier does during the Georgia Counterdrug Task Force Woodland Training Course. Support for much of the fieldwork was provided by Counterdrug’s RAID helicopter and a helo from the Dekalb County Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Unit.
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Staff Sgt. John Blair gets a question on tactics from “Green 3” shortly before the team splits in two and moves in opposite directions. (Georgia National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry) |
During their six days of woodland training, the officers learned the ins and outs of detailed operation planning, tactical movement, land navigation, intelligence gathering, field craft (such as the building and use of the military camouflaged sniper outfit called a gilley suit) and insert and extract from an objective. As for the Soldiers, such as Master Sgt. Aaron Anderson of Decatur’s 78th Troop Command and Staff Sgt. John Blair from the Guard’s Regional Training Institute in Macon, they used their expertise in infantry tactics, team building and intelligence gathering, to provide the officers with the knowledge they sought. Each is challenged mentally and physically to go that extra step, to be motivated and become more than they believed they could be, Blair said.
“When the students leave here, they have not only earned their 40 hours of POST (Police Officer Standard Training) credits for the year, they’ll walk go back to their departments with a much better knowledge of how to seek out the bad guys, watch them, and then use the ‘intel’ to put a halt to their activities,” said Georgia Army Guard Maj. Nathan Gray, counterdrug task force executive officer.
For some with military backgrounds, it was like picking up old habits and relearning them. For others, like the majority of Team Green, this was their first encounter with “intelligence gathering,” military style.
“Only one of us is former military,” said Green 2, the team’s leader. “It’s a whole new learning experience for me and for the others, and it’s well-worth the effort.”
The first three days of the course were spent in classrooms learning the particulars, with each day starting with the Soldiers favorite activity -- physical training. Out in the woods is “where the shoe leather meets the ground,” Green 4 said. “Out there is where we put it all together to see if we listened.”
 Role players, acting as drug dealers, listen intently for anything that might tell them they’re being watched. (Georgia National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry) |
 Team members recheck their position during a halt in their movement toward their objective. (Georgia National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry) |
And listen they apparently did.
In one of the dozens of scenarios, Team Green and the others conducted, the mission was to insert into more than a mile from a site deep inside the wood line where role players acting as drug dealers and terrorists were allegedly orchestrating a drug buy.
All during the hike to a point not far from the site of the alleged buy Team Green made its way under the watchful eyes of Anderson and Blair. Each watched and listened carefully as Green walked a bit, then stopped, looked and listened, and then moved on. Once the team had reached its objective, its members moved into positions where they could watch and videotape what went down.
This time there would be no arrests made. The team, instead, pulled out after an hour of lying among the rocks and fallen trees to an extraction point where they were picked up by a waiting vehicle and taken to a nearby command and control center.
It’s a real challenge not to want to pop up out of your hiding place and take down the bad guys, the team agreed during its review with Blair and Anderson on how the team did. After all, it’s in a cop’s nature to want to make an arrest, not do the “sneak and peek thing,” Green 4 said.
“But that’s exactly the idea,” Blair answered. Pointing to each team member, he said, “The whole idea is for you to gather what’s needed so others can decide how to best put a stop to what’s going on.
“If a ‘take down’ is necessary, any marked [law enforcement] units that are part of the operation will do that,” he explained. “Should the operation call for it, those units will run the suspects to you, but otherwise, your sole purpose is to gather intelligence.”
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The eyes of team member “Green 1” scan the horizon for trouble as other team members begin crossing an open road. (Georgia National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry) |
Though the Woodland Training Course has been around for 10 years, this only the fifth time since Sept. 11, 2001, that the course has been given, said 1st Lt. Shilo Crane, operations officer for the Georgia Counterdrug Task Force. Normally, its put on annually, he said, but deployments supporting the Global War on Terror have made that difficult to do, he said.
“What we’d like to do is try to open it up to twice-a-year now,” Crane said, “and every time we do a course, those going through it will benefit from the continual updating of the material we present.”
Retired Georgia Army National Guard sergeant major and retired Gordon Police chief Therrell Goswick was a founding member of what was then called the Governor’s Strike Force. He also originated the idea of training civilian police in military techniques that would augment what they already do to protect and serve the public.
“Back when the program first began, it wasn’t just police officers learning how to do it the military way. I instituted training whereby we put Soldiers in the strike force (now counterdrug) and put them through the police academy,” Goswick recalled. “Had to be, and still is some of the best cross training someone in this line of work can get.
In today’s world drug dealers and terrorists are looking for better ways, more out of way places in which to do business. That means those soles, the civilian and Soldier, who make it their business to stop such transactions have to do right and do it better than the bad guys, Blair said. That’s why programs like the Woodland Training Course are so important.
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