Special operation forces induct notable veterans at Fort Bragg

FORT BRAGG — The Special Forces, Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs community named eight new soldiers and veterans and one Army unit as distinguished and honorary members during induction ceremonies Thursday.

Known as distinguished or honorary members of regiments, the inductions are a link between veterans and current soldiers, said Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson, deputy commander of the U.S Special Operations Command.

“We need to recognize the architects of our past success ... We can learn a lot from these guys,” Roberson said.

Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Richard Lamb, who comes from a military family, donned a World War II uniform as he was inducted into the regiment during Thursday’s ceremony.

“It’s humbling,” Lamb said afterward. “We didn't do it ourselves. We stood on the shoulders of giants who acted as surrogate fathers and best friends or kept me out of trouble.”

Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Tony Sandoval also used the word humbling to describe what it means to be inducted along with a Medal of Honor recipient and former prisoner of war.

“Sometimes you feel like you don’t belong in that group,” Sandoval said. “You don’t join the Army for these kinds of accolades. You just kind of do your job and other people will decide if you’re worth it or not, but it’s very humbling to be mentioned with some of (the fellow inductees) and to be in the same room as them.”

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Special Forces Regiment Distinguished members

∎ Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee, a Clinton, Oklahoma, native, was awarded the Medal of Honor on Dec. 16.

Plumlee earned the Medal of Honor for his actions in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, while serving as a weapons sergeant with Charlie Company, 4th Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group.

According to the MOH citation, Aug. 28, 2013, Plumlee responded to an explosion when Forward Operating Base Ghani was attacked and 10 insurgents wearing Afghan national army uniforms and suicide vests poured through a breach in the base’s perimeter wall.

Plumlee rushed toward the detonation site along with five other special operations soldiers in two mounted vehicles.

Plumlee’s driver maneuvered his vehicle around enemy fire to shield three dismounted teammates, but two were injured.

Plumlee used his body to shield the driver from enemy fire and exited the vehicle to engage insurgents 15 meters away.

“Without cover and with complete disregard for his safety, he advanced toward the enemy force, engaging multiple insurgents with only his pistol,” Plumlee’s citation states. “Upon reaching cover, he killed two insurgents. Plumlee left cover and continued to advance alone.”

Plumlee temporarily withdrew to take cover and join another soldier but soon re-engaged the enemy disregarding his own injuries.

Joining a small group of American and coalition soldiers, Plumlee advanced to engage insurgents and ran to a wounded soldier to carry him to safety and render first aid.

He organized three coalition members in a defensive stance, as he scanned the area for any remaining threats.

“Throughout the entire engagement, Plumlee repeatedly placed himself in extreme danger to protect his team and the base, and to defeat the enemy,” his citation states.

∎ Retired Maj. Gen. Salvatore “Sal” Cambria served in the Army for 36 years.

After graduating as an honor graduate from the Special Forces Qualification Course, Cambria served as commander for Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha in the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group in Bad Tolz, Germany.

His other assignments included as operations officer and chief of current operations for the 1^st Special Operations Command; operations officer in a special mission unit; commander of the Support Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group; and commander of the 7th Special Forces Group.

Cambria was the first Special Forces officer selected to command two theater special operations commands — Special Operations Command South in Florida, and Special Operations Command Pacific in Hawaii.

Cambria employed special operations troops in support of Plan Colombia, a diplomatic initiative conceived in 1999 by Colombian President Andrés Pastrana and U.S. President Bill Clinton to combat Colombian drug cartels and left-wing insurgent groups in Colombia.

He also was involved in Operation Secure Tomorrow in Haiti, which was designed to protect U.S. interests and implement U.S. foreign policy.

As commander of the Special Operations Command Pacific, he planned and coordinated employment of special operations troops in support of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s objectives to enhance stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

Cambria was responsible for employment of a Special Operations Joint Task Force in support of Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines, which was part of the Global War on Terror and targeted various Jihadist terror groups operating in the country.

Cambria culminated his military career as the director of operations and logistics for the U.S. Africa Command, where he planned, organized and synchronized joint military combat operations in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya.

He also oversaw the planning and directed the execution of a hostage rescue mission in Somalia, and coordinated planning for training and security assistance activities across 54 African nations.

∎ Retired Col. Jerry Sage joined the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps in 1938 at the State College of Washington and joined the Army on Dec. 9, 1941, as an infantry officer.

During his career, he earned a few nicknames including “Dagger,” while showing knife fighting skills when training with the British Special Operations Executive and “Cooler King,” during World War II when he was captured numerous times in prison camps and had more than 15 escape attempts that inspired the Steve McQueen character in “The Great Escape”.

Post-war, Sage coordinated the repatriation of displaced people based on his language skills developed during captivity.

At the height of the Cold War, his leadership and infantry command experience in Korea with the 5th Regimental Combat Team earned his selection to command the 10th Special Forces Group in Bad Tolz, Germany, from August 1963 to September 1965.

The final test for the Special Forces Qualifications Course, Robin Sage, bares Col. Sage's name combined with the name of the town of Robbins where the first exercise was held in 1952.

In the later part of his career, Sage served in the Pentagon in two Special Forces-related assignments: first on the Army Staff developing the unconventional warfare training requirements for Special Forces, and then within the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff developing strategic plans for the employment of special operations.

After retiring from the military in 1982, Sage became an educator and mentor at the collegiate and high school levels, developing a civics course for the University of South Carolina and being named High School Teacher of the Year for the state of South Carolina in 1978.

Col. Sage died in 1993 at the age of 75.

∎ Retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Douglas D. Frank joined the Minnesota Army National Guard in 1976 as an infantryman before becoming a military policeman for the Army two years later.

In 1985, he graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course and was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group, where he spent the next five years.

In 1990, Frank was appointed as a Special Forces warrant officer, serving as assistant detachment commander and detachment commander for the 7th Special Forces Group.

Frank is credited with influencing the Special Forces Warrant Officer Program and was the first Special Forces-qualified Training, Advising, and Counseling officer at the Warrant Officer Candidate School at Fort Rucker, Alabama.

He helped form the Special Forces Warrant Officer Institute, which led to the U.S. John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School becoming one of only two organizations authorized to appoint and commission Army warrant officers.

After more than 38 years of military service, Frank served as an honorary warrant officer of the regiment for four years and as the operations director for the Special Forces Charitable Trust.

He continues to be an active member of the Special Forces Association and is a co-founder and executive director of Warrior Sportsmen Inc., a nonprofit organization that supports Green Berets.

∎ Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Richard C. Lamb enlisted in the Army in 1978 and participated in Operation Eagle Claw as an infantryman with the 1st Battalion, 75th Rangers.

After completing the Special Forces Qualification Course in 1986, Lamb was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group in Panama, where he participated in Operation Just Cause.

He served as a platoon sergeant and operations sergeant with the 75^th Ranger Regiment during Operation Gothic Serpent, where he became a Purple Heart recipient.

Lamb served as a weapons sergeant, intelligence sergeant and operations sergeant for the 3^rd and 7^th Special Forces Groups, before becoming a company sergeant major for the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group in Stuttgart, Germany, where he participated in Operation Joint Forge in Bosnia.

His command sergeant major assignments included the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa in Djibouti during Operation Enduring Freedom and the 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

After retirement in 2003, Lamb served under the U.S. Special Operations Command's Special Operations Forces for Life program.

He cross-trained as a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, focusing on the Global War on Terror, and helped establish an interagency task force and integrated 24 allied partners into a first-ever, Multinational Directorate for the U.S. Southern Command.

From 2015 to 2017, Lamb served as a Global Force Management technician with the Special Operations Command Korea.

He currently serves as a military liaison for the Global Special Operations Forces Foundation and the Round Canopy Parachuting Team, organizations that honor, advocate for and assist airborne and special operations veterans.

Psychological Operations

∎ Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Robert S. Groover, a native of Orlando, Florida, joined the Army in 1994 and was first assigned to the 20^th Engineers at Fort Bragg.

He reclassified as a psychological operations specialist in 2003 after being assigned as an intelligence analyst to the 1^st Psychological Operations Battalion in 2000.

In 2004, his first assignment was as a detachment sergeant and he lead his detachment during the surge in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

After several team members died during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Groover became passionate about advocacy and support for the Psychological Operations Regiment to include outreach to Gold Star families; the Institutionalized Professional Development School Award Memorialization; establishing a regimental hallway that honors fallen soldiers and creating a local chapter of the Psychological Operations Regimental Association.

Groover served with the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion during the height of the Counterdrug Operations in 2006 and was responsible for teams across Central and South America that had a role in the fall of the Marxist-Leninist Guerrilla Group known as “The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.”

“The effects of interagency cooperation reduced illicit drug trafficking and drugs from entering the United States,” Groover’s biography states.

During his military career, Groover served as the first sergeant for Delta Company, 9th Psychological Operations Battalion in support of Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Arabian Peninsula and supported the Naval Special Warfare teams to counter ISIS in the East, North and West.

As a sergeant major, Groover increased the impact of the only Psychological Operations Tactical Battalion across combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He is credited with redesigning his battalion into a task-organized force to meet the Central Command and Special Operations Command central mission requirements and optimizing the Army Force Generation Training Cycle to synchronize a reduced training window with other special operation forces organizations.

∎ Retired Col. Norvell B. DeAtkine commissioned into the Army as a field artillery officer after graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

As an artilleryman, he served in positions of increasing responsibility, including a tour in Vietnam, before being chosen foreign area officer for the Middle East.

DeAtkine earned his master’s in Arab studies from the American University Beirut, Lebanon while serving as the senior defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan.

He is credited with helping modernize the Jordanian army. He culminated his military career with an assignment as the chief of the Land Forces Section, Office of Military Program, which was responsible for modernizing Egyptian ground forces from Soviet to U.S. armament.

DeAtkine has also served as director of Middle East Studies and a regional studies academic coordinator for the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and helped develop a regional studies course for psychological operations and civil affairs officers.

For more than 18 years, DeAtkine served as a Middle East seminar leader training psychological operations officers who developed psychological operations after 9/11 during the early years of the Global War on Terror in the Middle East.

∎ The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops' tactical-deception group, “Ghost Army,” was named as an honorary member of the Psychological Operations Regiment.

Many of the tactics, techniques and procedures pioneered by the Ghost Army are used today by psychological operations regiments.

The Ghost Army officially activated Jan. 20, 1944, at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, as a mobile multimedia unit that was “designed, manned, trained, equipped and dedicated solely to conduct and execute military deception.”

The “Ghost Army” was comprised of existing units to establish one new company of about 1,100 soldiers and included the 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion Special; the Signal Company Special; the 3132 Signal Service Company Special; and the 406th Engineer Combat Company Special along with a headquarters company.

The unit was under Gen. Omar Bradley’s 12th U.S. Army Group and executed secret operations plans.

The unit is credited with saving about 15,000 to 30,000 allied lives while rarely engaging in direct combat.

Out of the 1,100-man unit, the only surviving members are John Christman of Leesburg, New Jersey; George Dramis, of Raleigh; Manny Frockt of West Palm Beach Florida; Mark Mallardi of Edgewater Florida; Bill Nall of Dunnellon, Florida; and Seymour Nussenbum of Monroe Township, New Jersey.

More:Fort Bragg's Special Forces, Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs induct honorary members

Civil Affairs

∎ Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Tony A. Sandoval is a Nevada native who joined the Army on Nov. 15, 1989, as an infantryman.

After serving in various infantry positions and assignments from 1990 to 2003, he graduated from the civil affairs course in 2003.

Sandoval said he had no intention of staying with civil affairs, but stuck with it after his son was born with medical complications in 2004.

“I got to work in very small teams and go into places I would have never got go to in regular infantry units, and it kind of drew me to it,” he said. “It’s one of those jobs in (special operations forces) that you either love it or you hate it. There's no in-between. You got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

Sandoval served as an operational civil affairs first sergeant from 2006 to 2010, directing multiple civil affairs operations in five countries in West and North Africa to support Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans Sahara.

He said working with different cultures in South America, the Middle East and Europe, makes him appreciative of the U.S.

“You don’t want to force stuff on them,” he said. “You want to let them see how we operate …. and people are very appreciative of anything we do for them.”

As a 95^th Civil Affairs Brigade operations sergeant from 2010 to 2012, Sandoval helped supervise the first two iterations of the brigade’s Special Operations Civil Affairs Assessment and Selection Program and created the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade Company Command and first sergeant Pre-Command courses.

From 2012 to 2017, Sandoval served as the senior advisor to the commander in support of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Southern Command, providing leadership, guidance and input to all operational deployments in support of special operations and conventional forces.

After retiring in 2018, Sandoval continued to be involved in supporting civil affairs soldiers through his involvment in the Friends of the Civil Affairs organization, which has raised money for Family Readiness Groups, scholarships, family assistance and a 95th Civil Affairs Brigade memorial stone at the Airborne and Special Operations Museum and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s Memorial Plaza.

Sandoval currently lives in Fayetteville with his wife and two sons.

Outgoing and incoming honorary regiment leaders

Also recognized Thursday were retired Brig. Gen. Ferdinand Irizarry, outgoing honorary colonel of the regiment; retired Col. James Wolff, incoming honorary colonel of the regiment; retired Command Sgt. Maj. Timothy Kohring, outgoing honorary command sergeant major of the regiment; and Sandoval, incoming honorary command sergeant major of the regiment.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Special Forces, Psychological operations and civil affairs honors