Inside Special Operations
Oct. 24 -- While missiles seek out strategic targets, clearing the way for ground troops in Afghanistan, America's military elite — the special operations units — spearhead covert missions, providing intelligence and sneaking behind enemy lines, often in the dark of night.
The Green Berets, Delta Force, Navy Seals and the Army Rangers (known collectively as "special operations" forces) are a breed unto themselves, says Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, an account of a disastrous 1993 Special Ops mission in Somalia.
"They are the best of the best…" Bowden told ABCNEWS' Primetime. "They are capable of killing people with their hands, with weapons, with a sniper rifle from a great distance. And they have no compunctions about doing so if it's in the service of their country."
Those who join these units are hand-picked for their survival skills, fitness, intelligence, personality and willpower.
"These men are survivalists," he says. "They are capable of going without food, without water for long periods of time; capable of laying perfectly motionless in a spot for days, if necessary; capable of being delivered to just about any target anywhere in the world."
But despite their training, stamina and high-tech gear, the work they do is extraordinarily dangerous and even with the best planning, an operation can go very wrong, very fast.
Special Forces in Depth
Soldiers Become Cops
In 1993, as part of the United Nations effort to quell anarchy in the impoverished East African nation of Somalia, special forces soldiers were sent in not as soldiers, but as policemen.
Their goal was to arrest the troublesome warlord Mohammad Fara Aidid, hiding out somewhere in the neighborhoods of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Because this mission was more peacekeeping than a military strike, support was limited and there was little expectation of resistance.
But their peacekeeping mission turned into a battle for survival when the enemy overwhelmed a U.S. patrol.
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