This episode, Frank Rossi discusses the history and evolution of Special Forces, emphasizing their unique role as the commando arm of the CIA. He recounts his uncle's experience in the OSS. Rossi details his own journey into Special Forces, highlighting the rigorous selection process and the importance of teamwork and cultural understanding. He reflects on the impact of the Reagan era on Special Forces' resurgence and the challenges faced during the Global War on Terror, including changes in selection standards and the influence of generals. Rossi emphasizes the need for inherent qualities in Special Forces personnel and the importance of maintaining high standards.
Ben Derrick 0:00
Music.
Welcome to the soldier fund podcast, the platform for untold stories from the National Guard Special Forces community join us as we delve into the lives of these elite warriors and the journey of our non profit dedicated to supporting their courageous mission to free the oppressed worldwide. I'm your host. Ben Derrick, let's dive in. Well, it's not often we have an actual legend sitting in the soldier fund studio with us. So Frank Rossi, it is amazing to have you on. I have to say, we're about six months in of people mentioning your name as a guy that should be behind this microphone, and here you are. Well,
Frank Rossi 0:53
I wouldn't categorize myself as such much a legend, but I just been around a long time legend in your own mind. Been around a long time, been with the right people, I guess, yeah,
Ben Derrick 1:01
yeah. Well, as always, you guys are very humble behind Mike. I can respect that, so I won't force the issue. But my hope today is to just to capture part of the goal of this podcast is to capture history and stories, and you're the guy for that, to explain a little bit of the history of special forces in the army, why you were attracted to the community. This conversation could go 1000 different directions. Where would you like to start? So
Frank Rossi 1:24
if you want to talk about the history, a lot of it's misunderstood. Basically, we kind of have, for a long time, up until just, I say, the last 20 years, the mention of the OSS operational groups, like everybody heard the OSS, the spy side, right? The SI, but the operational groups were actually more in line what we're doing today, and they weren't really mentioned much. I mean, I had the unique experience of my uncle actually being a member of of that unit, okay, the 26/71 special Reconnaissance Battalion, which was an Italian group, right? And, you know, we growing up, I'd hear all these things and didn't really know what they meant. And people would mention the CIA all the time, like, Oh, your your uncle was in the CIA. But they kind of misunderstood it too, right? Because historically, the OSS goes away after ward two, right? While Bill Donovan, you know, gets retired, and Truman comes in, and there's no more of that intelligence base anymore, and they and they create the CIA a little bit later. So there's kind of a broad break, right? So the yes eyes become like the CIA spy side. But there was no, but there wasn't that OSS operational groups for the agency at that time, so Army Special Forces, it's its original, I guess, mandate was to be the commando arm of the CIA, right, to do the same job they did when the OSS, and explain that again, it's, you had the SIS, which were the spy, more or less, you know, you know, overseas, doing the intelligence gathering. And then they needed, like a commando unit to kind of action some of the intelligence. So, right? Basically, Wade was explained to me. And what I've learned, because I went to many of the reunions, which is just fantastic, right? And and these guys were kind of forgotten, because they were they were not real. They were kind of pulled out of the army and did this mission and then came back after the war, and they were kind of like lost. They were lost. They didn't get the recognition they were supposed to get. So what happens, basically, is wild. Bill Dunn was a World War one hero. And basically, he's very good friends with Franklin Roosevelt. And he was working with the English, you know, had an idea what English were doing on their side, intelligence wise. And he came with the idea, hey, we don't have this intelligent gathering vehicle here in the US, and, you know, we want to go ahead and do it. So he was given the authority to do it. If you don't think about Wild Bill Dunn if you read about his history, I mean, he was like 100% all the way, kind of guy in right? Famous lawyer, everything, the whole nine yards. So while Bill Donovan rolls with this, and he creates this, this intelligence agency. And then, of course, they need this commando arm of it. So he gets the idea from the British. And the British, you know, come on over, and they're going to set up the cadre. And then I come into it for my uncle, stories that he was, you know, drafted World War One happens, you know, they bomb Pearl Harbor. And he goes down there, and he's going to go ahead, and he's going to be, he's going to wait to get get drafted, and get overseas and do what everybody else is doing, right? This whole generation just looking to go. So he gets in the army, gets drafted, and he's, you know, he's in the Army's up up somewhere near DC, and he's waiting to get deployed. He wants to go overseas. And then one day, someone walked up to him and said, Tom, you know, your last name is Rossi. Said, Italian name, isn't it? He goes, Yeah, that's an Italian name. He goes, You know, I don't know much about it, but they're, they're asking for volunteers for this special secret unit. You know, they're looking for, you know, Italian Americans, or you mentioned, oh, I'm interested. Yeah, whatever we want me to go. What do I do? So he found the information, and he went there, and he said he had a place to go to walk into an office, sat down, and he's a private, right, a drafty private. And there was nothing but generals and colonels in a circle of chairs around him, and they began to ask him questions like, Are you first generation Italian? I'm first generation. You speak Italian. Guess I speak Italian fluently. That's all he spoke in my house. Do you have any family in Italy? Because, yeah, my a lot of my families, I know my grandparents are there. Would you have any problem fighting your family goes well, absolutely not, and I'm American, so we go to war over there. That's that's where it's at. That's what I do. So, you know, jump out of planes, high powered unit, secret unit, never coming. My uncle was, yeah, whatever you want, yeah, whatever you ever need. No dependent. So, so a few weeks later, they they pick him up, and they blindfold them, and they drove him around for about 1015, hours, and they brought him to the training piece, and they had, you know, they had will for Ben, and let's say, knife everybody talks about, and all these famous, you know, guys from the British side, right? That put the other first SWAT teams and all way, all that kind of stuff. And they put him through all the training, right? And he was with just Italians in his group. But there was Italians, and there was French, and there was all these different ethnic backgrounds, because they had the language capabilities, right, which we'll get to with Special Forces language capabilities, and also understood the culture, right, which was very important. So after they got the guys that made it through that in that group was called, you know, 26/71 special recons battalion, Italian group, right? OSS operational groups, 17 man teams. And then they went, you know, they went to, they went in Africa first. Then from Africa, they went to Corsica, and from Corsica, they were able to to launch their missions from there, which were the the same missions that Army Special Forces are, are really supposed to be targeted at, or are targeted at in a lot of different ways, but it's a train of eyes, and most importantly, what's left is lead train of eyes and lead a foreign force. Okay? So the leadership part, the part that you know you either lead from the front by with and through whatever it takes to get that mission done, is kind of lost a little bit, right? Because, like you said, the Special Forces community, there's a lot that, you know, you know we we're trained and told a certain way, quiet professionals, somehow that's been kidnapped by everybody, but that's fine. You know, some people call themselves quiet professionals to like the last ones in the but hey, it's all good, right? The bottom line, that's our you know, that's what we've been told forever. And that means, hey, you know, if it's done. Well, nobody really knows about it, right? You know, you track those kind of people that, you know, an older SF guy taught me this, you know, SF got to internalize the rewards, right? You're not going to get, you're not going to get the TV shows and the books and, you know, in that generation, I did all those things. If you look at what Special Forces has accomplished since the OSS right up until now, there's a lot of stuff missing. You know what I mean? Because we're not really good self promoters. We don't want to be self promoters. Really shouldn't be self
Ben Derrick 7:47
promoters, right, right? So that gives me a lot of trouble on this podcast, by the way, before we move too far, though, I did a detail that you gave me this intriguing to me, 17 is a really large team. Okay?
Frank Rossi 7:58
So, yeah, I'll talk you through that, you know? I'll just give you an idea how that, how that was done. So these are, like, these are, so these were the commando units the OS services that the OGS operational groups were the commando arm of the of the intelligence gatherers, right? And various, they did various reconnaissance types missions. And because they're in Corsica, they're well positioned to get in front of the Italian campaign, right? So, you know, Anzio was bogged down, and they worked their way up through, right? And I'll just give you an idea of some of the missions they did in some very, very important history. So the 710, 17 man team was like, that was like the sabotage level team say, right? And just like our teams, 12 can be split into any number, right? So, so one of the OSS guys I became very familiar with, and actually, I went up and interviewed him for a friend of mine that was writing a book. He comes into this, and he's, you know, they took him as a single, so he was pulled as a single guy, and he went into his briefing, and then they sent him with the British SAS, and they, he got with the British SAS, and he said, Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna do this operation in uh Sicily, because after Mussolini surrendered, all the prisoners were freed and there, and we had American, and we had American, mostly British prison walking all over the island. They didn't know how to get out, so they want to develop the rat lines the corridors to get them out. So he ends up over there. Says, Hey, we're gonna jump in. He goes, Wait a minute. I didn't get to go to jump school yet because it's moving so fast. It was supposed to be done in Africa, right? It's supposed to be done in Africa, but we didn't get a chance to do that. So he goes, we'll show you tonight. So they showed him, they showed him in one night, how to jump out of a plane, and they didn't jump like they came through a little hole, and hey, if something goes wrong, you hit this. And he's explaining this to me, and I'm looking at him like, I'd say your jump school was four hours, right? And your first jump was a combat jump, right, right? You're gonna jump in with three SAS guys, and you're gonna do this kind of work. And that's basically what he did. So he couple nights later. You know, I mean, he, he jumped in and, and I jump at that. I jumped at that. And he got on the ground. And then they started where he was on the ground for one year, one, almost one year in that area before he and he could never get himself out, you know, so, so, so that was 17 man team was kind of like the way it was set up, but it could be piecemealed in any amount of amount of men. Roger, yeah,
Ben Derrick 10:21
that makes sense. So, so to be able to split up, it's just a number where it started, and then, you know, over time, it gets down to 12, which is where it is today, which is what did, yeah, today. Your point. And I love that we're getting here so quickly. Your point that the quiet professional, you know, for those of us on the civilian side, and why I believe this podcast is so important is that so much of the history, so much of the heroics, so much of the important things that have happened, the civilian population doesn't understand unless somebody starts talking about it, this history is going to get lost. So you know, you sitting behind this microphone today is a huge effort against that. And even still, I know there's some things that you're going to censor you guys don't like to celebrate yourselves. This is kind of why I'm trying to get into a little bit of the history in the mentality. But I would like to say, before we get any further, ask, you know, what attracted you was it the family dynamic that attracted you to this type of work? You
Frank Rossi 11:14
see, I'm unique in the sense that my father was was one of 10, right? And he got married late, so me and my brother were like my cousins were. Were 1015, years older than me. My uncles were all world war two generation. My father was Korean, Korean War and all I come from a large Italian, extended Italian, American, extended family, like 10 uncles on both sides, all were in World War Two. And I'm saying my first cousins, that of them were like uncles and aunts us, like we're talking the Rangers, Rangers battalions in World War Two. We're talking my uncle across the street I grew up with was in Guadalcanal, Cape, bluster, Bougainville, came back out, went back to Korea. I mean, he was in chosen reservoir landing at Pusan. These are the people I grew up with, like everybody around me was, was, you know, my one uncle shaking me, missing three fingers, infantry man, the other one landed in Omaha Beach, and my uncle was in the OSS. So this was just normal to me, somewhere in the Navy, you know, my family just, I guess, the timing, you know, and they, and they were, they were first generation, so it was a big deal for them to do this to, you know, be American, right? So, yes, that's the way I grew up. So my cousin, I remember him going to Vietnam, was a real little little boy, and I wore his little marine hat. He went over there. My other cousin never came back. This is the way I grew up. So I, I kind of got, kind of went to school, went to college, put football in college, and, you know, never thought of it much. Went to a military college for a little while. And, you know, just didn't, just didn't, just never got in the military part of it, right? So then I came, I came back, and then, um, you know, joined Newark Police Department, Newark New Jersey. And, you know, did that for a while. And then at some point I wanted to go back to grad school. So I went, I went back to grad school. Went to Appalachian State. So I went back down. Mainly, I was going back to hang out all my football friends and my wrestling friends, you know, you know, get away, because I was working like, you know, I think about Newark. It's, you know, it's just, you know, I was working. It was just time for a little bit of a break, right? It was a priest. And I said, Listen, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get a master's degree, you know, be strength coach, whatever I was thinking. But so I went down there. And then, when I went down there, I met up with some of the, some of the guys that, the younger brothers, that they were, they went to VMI, and they were, they were pilots. We, you know, they had done all this stuff. And we were out in Norfolk putting some papers together. And I was, it bothered me. I was 26 years old, but it was bothering me that, like, Hey, I never been in the military, but every My family has served, right? So, how can you be from that environment and be interested in all that stuff and not step up at some point, right? So, so next day I went, you know, I was on weekends, I'd be, I'd drive out to, I drive out to Norfolk. And there's another story while I was going out there every weekend, but I drive out to Norfolk and hang out with these guys that were, you know, they were, they were Navy pilots, basically, you know, they whatever they were, I was in that mix, and I'd be out there. And so I said, You know what, I'm gonna do something about it. So I went and saw a Marine recruiter. Came home that night, and you know this, this captain in the Navy, right? Was like, are you crazy? Are you crazy? You're 26 you're gonna join what? I said, I had no idea. So he said, Okay, Nah, man, it's not good for you. So a couple weeks later, I, you know, I'm in Norfolk, so I see, you know, I heard all about the seals, right? How could you not hear about them, right? Every single book, every single movie. That's when marching co wrote that book, SEAL Team Six, right, right? With that little 130 pound guy climbing up on the rope, 130 pound guy climbing underneath. That's why all my guys bench 500 pounds right read the book. So I knew about those dudes. So I went down there and had some dive fare program, kind of like an SF baby program that came later for us. You get a navy and you roll right through. And I came home that night, this guy had been recruited. Goes, Man, listen, he goes, so you got in this program? Go, yeah, they told me about this program. So that night. Had gone out with his with his roommate, who was in the Third Infantry Division, went to VMI on a scholarship, came back from Ben, you know, from the academic scholarship, got out of VMI. Now, he was an Navy aviator, right? He was, you know, it was a jet pilot, right? Fighter pilot. So he took me out one night. We were doing what we usually do, which is just up to no good. And he's like, No, I'm telling you where you need to be. I've been there. I know all this you need to be. And he says, You need to be, like, be Green Beret. I'm like, Man, I heard of that before. Like, man, like, I remember the song, like, when I was real little, right? And hearing about them. And I'm like, man, yeah, I kind of know about that. Like, you know the mystique of it, but I didn't really know much about it. So now that's what you need to do. So I I said, All right, man, let me try this. So I called the recruiter. First recruiter, you know, asked me, you know, you prior service. Nobody hung up on me. Called another recruit like nobody. There was no way to get in, right? There was no way to get in. And attempted even. And I didn't know what the reserves were, or the National I didn't know any of that, but I did. I did call. I believe this was I was doing this all on my own, like, right? So I called the reserve, and he even said it, even the reserve guys like you got any prior service, said, No. He goes. Now we don't want you here. He hung so I had no vehicle for this, right? Except the Navy, my buddy and Tommy. He said, Hey, man, I got someone to call. Call this guy. Never forget his name, Jim Jones, right? Jim Jones, because he's in fifth group. Michael, fifth group. I don't know fifth group is, sounds cool, right? So I called Jim Jones because, listen, I'm over here at the 11 Special Forces Group, whatever it may be, over here and and I'm the advisor there. Back then they were full time advisors. There were two there for like, two years, where he goes. I heard what you want to do. I'm friends with, you know, some people, you know, he's, I need you to come down here and, you know, talk to me, right? So one thing leads to another. Went down there, took a PT test. He told us, because I tell you what I got. You got a college degree, right? So I can get you an army as e4 and if I get you an army, if you want to do it, you just keep on running as long as you go. When you get done, you go active duty, you call me and I'll get you in the fifth group. I says, All right, where do I sign? Now, I didn't know anything was going he told me was like two years, maybe more. But you know, if something goes wrong, it's on you. I said, All right, well, we'll take the shot, right? So that was my path through, right? Wow, but, but, as I was at but, but quickly I got very educated, you know? I mean, because you meet, you meet the right mentors, that kind of, you know, and these guys in the dead, I want them to read like, I want them to know the history, history is very important, right? If you're gonna, if you're gonna do the things that are gonna, you know? I mean, if you're not running on the edge, you're taking up too much room. That was my team philosophy, right? So if you're willing to put yourself out there, should know why, right? You should be motivated by who came before you. That's very important, right? So, you know, I read and I learned like what it was, and that was the height of, I don't know how to explain it, but special forces had kind of right at that point. They initiate the Special Forces selection course, which people don't know, but it was the British. SAS, not the British. It was the Australian, ses course, that they went out there and brought back here. And there's a movie, I don't know where that movie went, Golden Road or something, but it showed the Australian process, right? And they took it and brought it to Fort Bragg, and it was like a selection assessment that, you know. And you know, I had the opportunity to play sports and play in college, but the way they designed this thing is, you know, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. Like it wasn't yelling and screaming. It was none of that. It was like, how bad you want to be here, and if God's good to you and your body doesn't break or fall apart or something goes sideways, you might make it to the end and you might get picked but it was based on just how bad you really wanted it.
Ben Derrick 18:43
And this is, this is a brand new way to train I thought so. Well,
Frank Rossi 18:47
it was new, because before that, they did it in a different way. They had phase one, from what I hear, which was just as, probably just as brutal in certain way, right? And then you went, and then you went into
Ben Derrick 18:56
the Q Course, right? So you're playing holding this process. No, no, I came.
Frank Rossi 19:00
I went to selection 94 I believe this started, I believe 88 or 89 so, no, but, but I it was kind of the time period in SF where they were really getting very, very, very selective, and they were beginning to rise. Because people don't realize that the Reagan era, Reagan's really, it's not, it's not John F Kennedy that that puts Special Forces back. And I can tell you that story because it's amazing. That puts Special Forces back in the game. It's, it's Reagan, you know, because Reagan was very interested in the counter insurgency, very interested in that kind of thing. Because, remember, after Vietnam, special forces started to, like, like, now, getting too big, too big, unraveling, right? Okay, doing too much of what they shouldn't really maybe be focused on, right? And people don't know much, but we've all heard of Mac V SOG and all that. Well, at the time they were getting they were getting compromised, like, 100% of the time, and and they found out what was going on. It was a double agent, the South Vietnamese, whatever it may be. And, you know, he. Eliminated. And somehow that was leaked, and if you could look it up, it's called the Green Beret trial. Like, I think it's, that's what it's titled. And actually one, I think the officers from New Jersey, but anyway, the Special Forces guys in that Mac V saw guys were put on trial, okay? And at the last minute they, I guess the agency, or whatever, got them out of that. But it was nationalized. And, you know, you had, you had Abrams. Now, was the commanding general, you know, I mean, and he wasn't too fond of special forces in general, special units in general. That time. He was a superhero, conventional guy, tanker, tremendous. But, you know, Special Forces never been really an acceptable fit, right? You go back to the OSS. It's, it's, it's resistance movements, it's small groups, it's, you know, it's outside the Army's confines in a way, right? You don't really need, you really don't need the army to support you, you know, I, I'm not. I'm saying that that an SF team, well trained, well equipped, should be able to survive on its own unlimited amount of time, a long duration, right, right, which is kind of like counterintuitive to what you know, the conventional type forces, right? Even a good conventional type forces, elite forces. This is a little bit different, right? So it's never been fully accepted, right? But now
Ben Derrick 21:12
are an expensive soldier. I mean, there's a lot of resources pointed at an individual, right? I mean, an SF soldier is an expensive soldier, I
Frank Rossi 21:19
believe. So it's an expensive shoulder, yeah, as far as I know, I'm just concentrating on the idea that, hey, you know, you have, you know, you have these assets, right, that are treated kind of differently, right? So they're not as accepted, but Right? But when? But when it comes down to what this was, you know, he took this as an embarrassment, right, that he had no control over what was happening in Mac V saga, or special forces in general. And this reputation, right? This rogue Snake Eater, whatever the reputation was, baby, whatever that was pirate ship at that time, right? And so, so basically, his idea was to do away with special forces. And he did. He brought it down to two groups. Many people don't realize, after Vietnam or the he brought it down to two groups, and was left to die on the vine. And he instituted a new special forces, or a new elite unit, and that was to bring back the Ranger battalions, which were, if you watch Private Ryan, those were Rangers in World War Two. They didn't jump out of planes. They were like shock commando tribe troops, right? Great infantry troops, right? But they weren't paratroopers, right? So he decided he was gonna bring back the range of battalions, right, and make them airborne, and make them kind of the new special operations force, more or less. And for when I hear what I read, like the best Special Forces guys were given a choice. You can kind of go over here and help develop this unit, or you could retire, or wherever it may be. So, you know, they stood up a fantastic unit, right? Three battalions, regiment, whatever it may be. But you know, when Reagan comes in the office, he asked that question, well, who's our like, who does special? Here's our special forces at like, who does this? And they brought him up and, well, we got Rangers. They're the best in the world. They jump out of planes. Well, what do they do? They seize airfields. They they can do it. He goes, No, no, no. Who does this other thing? Right? Right, right. We're talking about counterinsurgency. We're talking about because that's what Reagan was, right? That's what was about. So Reagan is the one that kind of reestablishes. Third group comes back online, and Reagan pushes, because Special Forces was the vehicle at that time to go ahead and fight that Cold War, the proxy wars, right? It was designed for that reason, right? That's the reason it was, it was put on the map as the operational groups for the OSS, originally to be the command arm of the CIA, which, in the 60s, it kind of was, and then, and then it separate a little bit, and they have their own thing going on over there a little bit, but, but basically that's, that's how it move forward so with Reagan, and
Ben Derrick 23:44
it just so happens to coincide a few years later with where you are in your life, saying, I've got to contribute. I'm ready to jump in this. This stuff has been set up and has become more important again, to give you a place to land to do these things. What
Frank Rossi 23:59
attracted me was when, when I finally got into, saw an album in the system, and you go down to Ben, and you go down, and you know, you go through, you get through whatever it is, and you don't really know what you're touching yet. And then you, then you actually get to like and during that time period, so the 11th group, or whatever I was in, actually, actually a very few prominent people in the army were in the same broker as me right now. They're in really high positions. I don't even mention them, but they did away with this unit. So we they just attached us. They had nothing to do with it. So we just stayed in the pipeline. I had no unit that point. We're just an active duty in that. That's where we stayed. I think we were, think we're attached to, maybe even maybe use the SOC at the time, whatever it may be, and we just stayed there. So me and another, another couple guys that were kind of making it through, right? So they sent us out, you know, to Utah, and we trained out there for about three or four months with 19th group. They had something going on out there, and then, and then, every time we came back to brag, they didn't know what to do with us. So they were like, What do you want to do with them? I don't. Send them, send them. Pre Ranger, we go to premium. Come on back. What do you want to do it? I know where to put these people. Like, send them to send them to SEER. And back then SEER wasn't part of the pipeline, so we show up, and it's like, we're nobody's, you know, we're, you know, there's like, real SF guys here, like, like, these guys did it. We're nobody, you know, we're not even we, we just got through selection. We didn't get through the, you know, anything else. So in between, that's what they do at us, but back, just backtrack. And we trained up for selection and and as hard as we trained, and we were ready when I got there, when, when actually went through it, I it was an eye opener for me, right? Because, you know, it really, it really like had been a football player in college or whatever, and be high school, like it didn't really matter what you look like, didn't matter how you know, how strong or fast you were, if you didn't have the perseverance, if you didn't want this more than anything in the world, you weren't making it through that. You just it wasn't about how fast you can run. It wasn't about how you push ups you can do. Wasn't about any of that. It was about can you really last through this kind of crazy, where they set that up, like, when you're all night long, you see people like, operating on each other's feet at the end of the at the end of the course, no one, no one had boots. Didn't really guys would run around with, like, look like a sandal, like the front would be cut off, the back would be cut off. They'd have half a shoe on. This is the, this is the reality of it, right? You know? I mean, and guys would quit, like, they had for that shack of shame, like, the whole way through. And what impressed me was it was, it was self motivating, like they'd come out and a big gaggle people, and they say, Okay, we're going to do a run. You know, you're gonna be time for a run. They and you don't know how far you're going, they tell you, no distance. Just run. So you just run. Then you come in and maybe do a ruck like that. You know, maybe come in. And so everything was just, you have to motivate yourself. There wasn't nobody screaming at you, pushing any of that stuff, and they were encouraging to quit. But when you got to Team week, you know, that's where I thought the brilliance really was in that and that selection at that time. And I'm not saying it doesn't exist now. I don't know much about it, you know, I can't really compare. I just know what my experience were, and that that was kind of brilliant, the way they set this up, because whoever was left, and they had, you know, they had a big after we had whoever was left, and they'd pick, they'd gate a certain amount of people, and then whoever's left, they're put on 12 man teams, and it starts on day one. And you do these events, these really, really sick event, you know, which you know, you think about them. You can't make them up. You can't explain them to anybody. You really can't. But I could just tell you my experience, my day one experience, is very simple, right? So everybody's broken at this point anyway, and now you're on this group, and you know, everyone wants to get out here. We got 12 guys, and we're ready to go. And the first thing they come out, and laying greater comes out, and he says, Okay, we got, okay, we got four poles, and we got some lashings, and we got this 200 pound two 200 pound sandbags that you'll treat as a casualty. You got to figure it out. You know, roster number, you know, 147, come on up here. You're gonna be in charge. You got to figure out how you're gonna take, take this and straighten this out. You're gonna move on the map from here to here, and you go as fast as you can. And that's it. And then, you know, everybody wants to help each other, because you're gonna get peer reports. And, you know, plus you, you know, good dudes really want to help each other. And everybody's gonna put this crazy together at the end of the day, it's going on your neck, besides your 60 plus rock and your little rub whatever rubber rifle that it's all going together. And you got to figure it out. And when you and then when you get done with that and drop it, then they call the next guy up, because there got to be a movement. And usually they know who's who. They call a guy up, you know, like, like, Gary Brown that could rock guy, like, Dad come up here, and they know who he is. Listen, you're only, you know, you're this might be your only event. Your your event's gonna be moving the team from this point on the map to that point on the map. And I'll tell you what. Don't worry about the guys that drop out. We don't want them anyway. So now he's in a moral dilemma. Does he take care of these crippled, these crippling, crazy people that are all these buddies and all crippled, or does he run and try to make it himself? And it's kind of like, right? It's a it's a mindfuck Exactly, right? Yeah. So he makes his decision. Well, my guy made his decision, right? He ran. No, he ran. I'll never forget he ran. And we had this big guy. Big guy, Sean Wallace. He was with me, and me and Sean Wallace were like, so we just started running, because I'm not going home. I might get out of here dead or broken. I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not going home, right? So we start running as fast as we could. And they actually moved almost out of the instructor, who had like a fake rock on in him, were just flying. And then it was me and Shawn Wallace running as hard as we could, and there's nobody behind this. And the rules were at any point, if you can't touch the man in front of you, you're out. That was the rules, right? So we get to where we're going, and I look behind me and there's about six of us left. Maybe, I don't know where the wrestling people went. They vanished. Earthquake. I don't know there was six of us left, but the next event was coming up. You know, these giant, these giant telephone poles, you're gonna pull these telephones? And no one said, Hey, man, you only got six guys, one pole. It's still two poles. So we dragged these poles, the same kind of nonsense. Who's gonna do this? Who's gonna do that? And we drag that in. And when I. Got back there, I had three guys on my team. Day 133, left. I walked in there. So next day, I'm on a different team, and that's where I met this. That's where I met this superstar man. He's he's running on he's running the NCO court army right now. Stud kid. You know, we've been friends a whole long time before this, we end up on the same team, and it started all over again. So that in itself, was brilliant, because it pushed you to a limit to say, hey, and, you know, and I'll never forget one at night, they keep you up all night, like, you know, I know seals, they don't sleep during Hell Week, right? We don't sleep much either in our five days, either. But no one talks about that, right? You know, I have some good friends of seals of mine, too. They, they kind of, they say, Listen, we get, you know, certain amount they, they're, they're doing it right over there too, you know. But they keep us up all night, giving you a map fill in the States, giving these crazy questions about, you know, if you, if you dropped in somewhere and you caught a little girl in your class, five mission, would you what would you do? It like these crazy moral questions, they keep us up all night. Maybe get, supposed to get four hours sleep. Maybe you'll end up with two hours sleep and then you're back out the next day, right? But I remember, I remember. I remember a guy, come on, the CADRE guys, a cooler guy, right? Stud, right. I think you said was from 10th group, right? So 10th group, right? We ain't, no, we're nobody now, right? He walked in and said, guys, man, I'm really sorry about this, man. I wish that I'll never forget this, because I wish there was a way we could just plug you into the wall and find out, you know, if you're the right. Guy goes, but there's no way to do that, you know? I mean, so this is what we have to do. And he goes, you know, you think all this is crazy, because I just came back from the deployment carrying all this crazy stuff about you have no idea what we did just to get our get into our team house. You don't mean, like, like, the crazy effort, because you're by yourself, you have no support, and the crazy things that are expected, like, like, expected is normal, like, there's sleep comes last, food comes last. All that is ingrained in my, at least in my generation, and like to see it. I hope it's progressing now, but that's like to say you're to show one ounce of weakness. Never you know? I mean, mission first, right? Mission First, you're going to get it done, doesn't it's going to get done, right? You know? And he had said that, and never, never forgot that, right? He put
Ben Derrick 32:09
that bigger, why? Yeah, in you right there during the beginning of your career.
Frank Rossi 32:13
And I remember there was whatever was, over 300 for whatever the mountain was, but I remember there was 65 and they picked 55 and they told 10, Hey, man, you did a good job. You want to come back to next when you're more than welcome? I was like, what? And then after that, that's when we were like, we just, we had nowhere to go, so they'd send us a seer and back to backtrack and make clear. And then then we ended up in the Q Course, which wasn't any fun for me either. Like, yeah, because I, because I lack the skills of back in my time. You the guys and going to the Q Course were usually e4 promotable. So they were guys from the range of battalion. They were guys from 82nd airborne, 112th infantry, a ton of Marine Corps. Kids, right? Guys, right? Like battalion recon, yeah, because the Marine Corps wasn't part of MARSOC thing, okay? And I think if I'm, if I'm clear on it. I think they called that the X ray program. At that time, they went out and recruited prior service guys and said, Hey, you can come back in the army and go Special Forces. If you, if you don't make it, you're gonna go needs in the army, which is code name for 82nd airborne. But if you make it, we'll guarantee you selection and all these the track to make. Okay, so we had a lot of these guys. They came back into the army for this, you know, or went from the Marine to the army, or had been in the Marine Corps prior, you know what I mean. So I never been on a special forces team, and at least one or two Marines on my team in my time, team time, which is probably, I have to probably 28 years, team time.
Ben Derrick 33:36
So with someone who's found out those kind of numbers and has given me early 90s. You know, this question is coming. You've lived through G watt, so I'd love to hear your 911 story.
Frank Rossi 33:47
My 911 story, well, my line of story is a good one, because I was, I was teaching. I was teaching this Falk program. I was, I was down there teaching, and I was supposed to get married. So, you know, back then suffoc was brand new. So we were, like, we were Kool Aid drinkers. We were all in, you know, I mean, like, that was the most important thing in the world. But I was also in Newark, please. You know, I was on the Newark SWAT team. So I was, I was gone from that and when there were suffocs, that was it. I was there, you know, for four weeks, whatever it may be. So when my wedding day came up, you know, I looked at him and I said, you know, my father's like, I go, pop, I gotta, I'll fly home from my bachelor party, and then I gotta fly back, and I gotta finish this course, then I'll get married two weeks later. Because what, like, like, he was, like, you really got I go, Yeah, I can't. I really can't miss any of this. All right, whatever. So I go down there and we'd run, it was early. It was, like, a year into the safac program, which is, which was a excellent, excellent program that I was really privileged to be on. And I was mentored by some tremendous people, Jimmy judge and Steve Newman and these incredible, you know, you know, real SF guys that lived through the Reagan or we talked about, that did real stuff and, you know, and great mentorship, right? Like, real mentorship, not nonsense, right? Yeah. And, um, and I was privileged. So this was, this was everything. So I was there, and I was running the CQB committee, and then I went home from my, my bachelor party, like I said, I flew home, and I was hanging up, and I woke up that morning and and they hit the towers. So they hit the towers my weekend, and then I had to go. And then they I had to go to, uh, that I got called in for the SWAT team because I'm in Newark. I'm not going to see the towers from our, you know, from our headquarters, right, right. So I go to Newark. I'm in there. So now I'm standing on top of our building. We're watching it. And then they gave us our word we were supposed to, we were supposed to deploy our guys on the river area, just to make sure there wasn't multiple tax that wasn't coming this way, whatever it may be. And then, you know, and then, and then we got the OP tempo, and we sent some of our emergency service guys over. So I had to get back because I had to finish the course, but I can't fly back right there's no planes in the air. So my parents drove me to Atlanta, and one of my good buddies, big old Jude, one of Drew's favorite guys, he picked me up in Atlanta, and we drove to McCall, and that's where the training I finished up. And then my buddies drove me back to New Jersey, and I got married. Okay? I got married and and my wife's family came from Italy. I don't know how they got here. They must have swam here, but they were there, right? So they were there. It was like seven or eight when there. It was crazy, but I never forgot that. And all my, all my army friends were there, right, that drove up with me, or that had been in the army with me, and I'll never forget the Patriots, the level of patriotism in this wedding, and it was like a crazy ass Italian just knock out, like the guys from the South were like, they didn't know. They had no idea what planet they were on, you know? I mean, I remember someone tell me, Go, man, you just seen that. So they got crazy. Goes, first of all, they give you food, and so much food, you know, you think that's the food, but it's not the food all. And then it gets so crazy. They just start playing music, and everybody's dancing and screaming and running around to slow it down. Then it gets so crazy, they have another dinner. They have dinner again to slow everything like that. They never seen this, which I grew up with his normal behavior, right? Yeah, but I'll never forget, remember my uncles and aunts were alive then, and they're all and everybody there, the majority of people there, were World War Two generation, and I, and I the wedding that that was important to me, the way I grew up. The weddings for us were, like, geared to them, not the kids, we geared to the older generation, right? So the music's like that. It's, you know, but they were going, there was so much patriotism flags and just it was incredible, you know, I mean, and, you know, and I got married in my uniform, and big Jude, like I told you about, he has a calibrated eye. He said, You didn't know Jude had a calibrated eye. He set my uniform up for me, because I couldn't do it right. Had like, one or two little ribbons. I had nothing on it, really. But he set me up. And I remember that time, and then I went on my honeymoon. And the whole time I was on my honeymoon, I was politicking and calling and doing crazy things to make sure that if anybody's going, I was going, that was my story, and I did it, I did it, I did it, I went AWOL, but I did it. I went AWOL to do it, but I got there. Well, now you got to tell that story. Oh, it's a true story. I can't even make this one up. It's because I was at this valve committee. I knew we were with group. We knew what was going on, and they'd come up with and they said they're gonna take one company of three battalions, one company from each, and not attach them, assign them, put them into active duty. Just you're now active duty. You're, you're the property of this, this group or and so I was looking like watching which ones, and I was, I said, Well, who's going where? Because I could see it. And then I figured out. I figured out where Third Battalion, that company, Beco, was going to third group. I says, Well, you know, I'm not a genius, but I, don't wanna go 10th group. I definitely don't wanna go seven crew, right? I said, you know, this one here might be it. So what I did was, I'll never forget I drove, I drove home, and I went down to Biko. I was in Bico, which was a different battalion, okay, you know, I mean, and I knew Third Battalion, this, this group, Third Battalion was gonna go. And I already talked to the team leader, who was, he's a real he's, he's deep in on the dark side of everything, man. He's, he's a tremendous, you know, you know, asset in our government, you know, in parts of our government, but, but he's just an awesome SF officer. Man, just a stud. And I already talked to him, made the crack deal, so I knew I had a place to go, and I drove down there, and I paid that little supply guy, paying $50 and I dropped all my stuff, and I drove straight to Virginia, and I signed the paperwork, but there was no I remember there was nobody there. Like, they didn't do, like, whatever happened. All I did was sign it, and then I was kind of there, but it didn't go through the right system. I don't how it worked out, but I do remember that when they, when they activated these guys, I was there and I showed up, and then I remember we did a PMT, a pre mission train up. Well, for active duty, it's, it's like two weeks for us, it's like two years, right? So it's, it's a little different, right? It was like the way they did in third group, was two weeks. Went to picket fort. Pickett, can. Pick or whatever was. And I remember we had a 10th group commander. Richard was his name. He was the commander. I got a 10th group. He was our commander. And my father had called me that morning, said, Frank, listen there, there's a bunch of letters here. And someone came to the house. You're a wall ago. You AWOL. And I'm thinking, how am I? And he goes, so and I figured out how may well, because I left Bico without really telling them. And so I guess they were, they were preparing to go like, eventually, right? But, but, you know, man, you know you got to go when you can go, right? This might be over, right? So, so I remember I grabbed, I'll never forget I grabbed, grab. I said, Sir, I got, I got a problem. Because what's wrong, Franco man, they're, they're man, they're Sam AWOL. They're gonna go because, Frank, we're gonna duty. We're leaving tomorrow. Quit packing tomorrow. We had here three days, and we went right over there. And it was a, it was a tremendous experience. Because, you know, we had, you know, prior to that, when they put us into third group, we really kind of went into third group. And, you know, you said you talked to Doug Davidson, he went to seventh group that. And then the guys from Seco, where I'm at now, the last Confederate Calvary mission, Mississippi militia, right? Those guys, those guys went to 10th group, I believe, right? So it was a great experience, right? And we were just positioned, so we get over there and we're in First Battalion. I don't even know what that All right, we're in first battalion, and we're going to, we weren't going anywhere near Afghanistan. We I remember having the briefing. Our team was briefed to go to, we're going to go to Ethiopia on a mechanized unit, get with a mechanized unit, and work with them and then invade or do some work in Somalia. So we were all, you know, that's, that's what we were briefing. That's where all the right. So we're and then what happened was there was a team doing what's called, I think we're doing funeral detail. And a congressman had come by and he said, Hey, man, like so one of the guys from there said, hey, you know, we're mobilized, but we got mobilized for Afghans. And we says, What are you talking because we're mobilized, but we're not sentenced. He goes, and the next day, we got into Second Battalion, which was second battalion, was, was, I remember my colonel was reader, right? Tremendous officer, right? And he, he had been good friends with the guy that was running the safari committee, right? So reader treated us. Reader treated his guys like, how good you were, right? There was no games like, you know, I mean, we weren't like, we weren't generic, we weren't generic, growing in third group. But it's according to him, and we were assigned in, we were third group, right? We, we played the red cycle nonsense and picked up. We did all the nonsense for like, four or five months already, but we got on that deployment, and we went with him, and it was, it was a great experience. I was on a tremendous team. I had, you know, it was, you know, was, it was everything you thought it really should be right? Yeah, and all those things we talked about in training, and all the things that you thought about, you know, I was privileged enough to be with a bunch of guys that, and back then, most of the guys were true believers, or most of the guys had been tested and were prepared and wanted to do it, right, that's the difference, right? You can't. You mean, all my my circle, did everything they could get their ass shot off continuously. I mean, they just wanted to go and go and go. And there's, you know, it's a podcast, so you can't see him, but here's Gary Brown, right now, I know he was just as crazy all. I mean, we it was, like, it was like a mercenary force, right? Like, you come off a deployment and you're, I mean, who's going next? Where are we going? And, I mean, and, you know, how I ended up in sea CO was, you know, was a great big bait and switch, right? But it wasn't for the bait and switch. I wouldn't have the relationships I have today, right, which, so you had to go through that pain, right? Yeah, because, because I wanted, because, after Afghanistan, had a great time in Afghanistan, but then Iraq came. So of course, I have to go to Iraq. So, you know, man, I got to get with the people going there. So I, I made my calculations got with the people going over there, but they didn't end up over
Ben Derrick 43:45
there. Yes, that's a whole nother story. Yeah, you're a chess player, right? Whatever gets you to the action. So it leads me to this question, yeah. So it leads me to this question on experiencing g y, just some of your top memories.
Frank Rossi 44:00
So prior to GWA, everything was about what schools you went to, Hey, What school did you go to, right? You know, all that kind of stuff, like, you know, I mean, and then, you know, and I remember, I remember one of my bra when I was in the Bravo, course, I remember we had a really cool guy, and Bravo, course, back then was, it was 11 guys were left in phase two, right? That's all we had from Bravos. And, we were, we were living kind of good, the weapon special guys, because behind us was those, was those medics, and they were getting tortured, right? We had it good, right? We had a good over there. I compared everybody else. But anyway, I remember him. I remember him saying that, like, you know, man, talk about school that. Man, I went to Ranger School in Grenada, like, you know, you talking like, you know, like, like, things like that. Like, you know, hearing about guys that. And back then, anybody with a CIB was was a big deal. So that's what it was before, like, if you saw a guy with a CIB was like, wow. Or everyone was like, what school would you go to? What school? But when the G wat came, it was about, okay, man, what deployments you going on? Like, you mean, like, like, you know, what teams are you on? Like, you know, mean, and, and you knew the guys. And in my experience. Because I was always, always extremely privileged to be around the best guys, every every company I was Ben, every team I was on. I mean, I can't disparage any of them. They all want the same thing they wanted to get in the fight. So G watt made it real, right? So all things you think about, and, you know, talk about, and then in my first appointment, like it was shocking that it was actually happening. And I remember one of my friends, the good friends I talked about, had gone to a special mission unit, like a real, you know, select unit, and he deserved to be there, because those guys are tremendous. And I remember him, we it was his first combat deployment. It was my first combat deployment. We all ended up in Afghanistan at the same time, and that we were, we were in background for a little bit before we went down to Kandahar, and we met up there, and I remember him telling me, man, if I would have known, if I would have known, I would have stayed in SF, you guys are doing missions in jingle trucks, like you guys are like, like, in early in the war, like I had, you know, just the timing again, the word privilege to be there early in the war, where it wasn't thought out yet. There was no force trackers, you know, there was no Con Ops. There was none of that, you know, when I had that Captain, I'm telling you about that, you know, and I had a team sergeant that could manage those crazy horses. We had, like, you know, the guys on my team that were like, running on that edge, you can manage that craziness. And the captain was just like, hey, man, just take it as far as you can go and you can just do so much, and everything was real, if that made any sense, right? Like we can sure we can bend all the rules you're supposed to bend, right? You know? I mean, you can bend all the rules you're supposed to bend for the right reasons, right? And again, it's got to be the right reasons. It's got to be not risk taking. Because it's not risk taking just for risk it's risk taking with the calculated, you know, side that, hey, we got to get this done, you know what I mean? And we don't need impediments. And back then, that's what I remember. At g1 there wasn't so many impediments, right? And it was everything was real about it, like it wasn't about schools you went to or what, no man, how are you operating today? What do you bring here today? Yeah, right, that that's what I miss about it, and I miss the opportunities. It was every day, every week. It was, what's happening next, where's Where are we going next, what we're going to do? And that's what my impression was, where SF, kind of early in the war, SF, to me, did tremendous, tremendous things, you know, and then, you know, then the middle of the war comes, and you get people that what generals, right, right? So I'll tell you, I'll caveat with this right now. So, so one, so some of our teams ended up on when they send you up to the Jesus, Jesus. So what's that called? When they're they get sent up to the CGI soda, right? So, like, they get taken offline as a team. They got to go up there and play with all the, you know, the commanders and all. They don't get to operate for a little bit of time, right? And these kids got stuck up there, right? These, this team got, I would have committed suicide, but they got stuck up there, right? I'll never forget it. And I was like, Oh my God, right, but I remember my one, my one buddy, right? Then after that, he went on 35,000 tours, actually went to Afghanistan, never came back from Afghanistan. Like, that's a whole nother story. We're not gonna talk about it. But like, he was, these guys were all in, like, I'm talking he went native and never came back, right. So bottom line is, I remember telling me that he was sitting in his office and they had a listing of SOF units, right? The SOF units, right? So foreign soft all this foreign soft units, and all the soft units in country, and a commander. So 101st was there. When I got there, Anaconda was kind of stopped. It was about the end of Anaconda. We showed up. We got to Kandahar, and then very shortly after that, the 82nd airborne took over. The hunter first, right? So this, this Colonel or general, whatever he was, comes in, and he goes, he's looking at the board. He goes, Hey, uh, what's that? What foreign stuff? Is it? SFO, D, A? And my buddy says, what s f, O, D, A, what country they from? He goes, sir, that's a special forces Apple detachment. That's an art. That's army, Special Force. He goes. So this, this is what. So this is the kind of people that make these decisions, right? That what's the decisions? Well, these guys are doing really, really well. And we were, because we were, we're kind of made for that, like that war, Afghanistan, and I would say any war to some extent, but Afghanistan really, really played to what our strengths could be, right? Let's
Ben Derrick 49:07
dig into that for just a second, because now we're reaching back to the original part of the history. You're talking about the language skills, the culture skills. This is another thing the civilian population doesn't understand, that it's, it's about more than just doing bad things to bad people. There's, there's a larger skill set at play here for the Green Beret.
Frank Rossi 49:26
Well, that's what separates it, right? So, so that's where we're going. So prior to this, when I said E for promotable, why maturity, right? You have a guy coming from the range of battalion. That's fantastic. We also get a guy like, like our national security advisor right now, Mike waltz, tremendous, tremendous combat leader. I was, I was on his team when he was a team leader, and I was in his company in Afghanistan, but somebody like that, Ted had been a tanker, and he went to selection, it didn't work out, and he went back to selection. The guys that go back the second time are the guys you want. Those are the guys that you want, right? And but he was a 10. Anchor, right? And you get guys from all these different units that bring that experience, this bunch of experience from different parts, from Marine Corps, like we talked about, and from all these places, like we had some Navy guys. We went to Iraq, and we had two, two boat squat, you know, brown water, Navy guys with little boats prior to going. And they went to SF selection, Q core, and they're on our team, so you get that kind of mix, that diversity, right, of background, but it's maturity, because when you're dealing with a gorilla force, right, when you show up to deal with a gorilla force, that grill leader is really not interested in you, right? He's, he's been fighting for since he was 12 years old, right? Do you think he needs, do you think he really needs to have you tell him how did how to be better? No, he wants your guns. He wants your money, right? So you may not survive the night, to be honest with you, so you can't wonder. You have to know how to relate to these people, but you have to get know how to manipulate them and get them do what you want, right? So a good way, I'll give you a good example of that is, well, you know, you say, you know, you know this guy here is your girl leader, like, hey, we prior to the war, we don't have much combat experience. You have all the come. What about we come out with you tonight, you know, we'll do a raid. Watch you do a raid tonight, and we'll watch you, and then, and you know, we'll learn from you. And you go out, and you watch his RAID, which is probably half crazy, whatever may be, and then you come back. And then, so why don't you come watch us, right, or with a trainer, and then see, and then he gets the idea, right? So you're, you're manipulating him right by with and through, right, right? So that takes maturity, right? That takes a guy that's more than just a, you know, more than just a just just a hitter, but, but I, but I resent that also, like, I'll give you like, the old adage, you know, where you know, that's what gets lost, right? Train, the teacher, advisor, which is great. That's what we really are. But you have to have the ability to what to lead, and you have to be willing to lead. And if you don't set the example, they're not following you, you know, I mean, you can't train them in three feet of water and you throw them in the deep end of the pool, right? You know, because they're not gonna get no respect like that. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta lead them from the front, or be willing, right? Be willing. And if you have the right guys, and you let them, they'll beat you to that breach point. They'll beat you. They'll beat you, because you build that bond. Without that bond, you can't get them to do what you want to do, right? So SF is kind of like uniquely positioned for that, not that other units can't advise, because they have to have a good friend of mine was in regular Marine Corps, and he was in Iraq, and he gave him, like, a squad, like, you know, squad of like, reserve, like support guys, you know, they had to run, you know, I mean, and they had a couple Iraqi soldiers with him, and, you know, so they're put in environments they're not familiar with, but we're, we're very familiar with that. And the real good SF guys like, and I've been around guys way, far better than I'll ever be, believe me, they that's what they did. They become them, but they remember who they are, but they're they lead they they can influence them and lead them, and they're willing to sacrifice for them, right? And that's how you get people to follow you. So
Ben Derrick 52:50
do you believe this is a very unique man that can do this, or do you turn a man into this? I
Frank Rossi 52:57
think there has to be some inherent attributes, right? You know I mean, but I mean, if you have the ideal guy, and the way they used to do it is, first of all, you want somebody super hard, right? Super hard. And then you want someone mature. You need that mix so that that might be a little unique in that, right? And you want someone that's hard, but not hard in the way that you have to motivate him, like you have to yell at him to be hard. No, he's hard because he's making this conscious decision that this is the way he is, if that makes any sense, right? So if you have that to work with, and you got a team player, the key is a team player, right? Because in this kind of a mix, it's got, it's all about the team. There might be 60 only or 12, and that's all you have, right? It's got to be someone that's super unselfish, you know, and super willing to do, you know, whatever it takes, right? So I think that's, I think you have to start with that, you know, inherent kind of mindset or and then, and then you and then you give them the skills behind the develop the skills behind that, right?
Ben Derrick 53:53
I asked this question with culture, you're in a unique situation and that you're, you know, you're rolling the debt, you're kind of guiding a lot of what the next generation of GB is going to be, yeah,
Frank Rossi 54:04
and I have, and that's where, that's where I'll come back to your question. I'll circle back you said, what happened in the middle of GWA? Well, we were successful. We were very successful, right? We went from nobody knowing who we were, right? Basically, all of a sudden, we're in, we're in, we're in, like, newspapers now, we're in magazines now, Special Forces, Special Forces, horse soldiers, right? So now, and now you have generals, like the one that came in, they're a colonel, and they're like, Who are these guys? Let me show me, these guys. And like, here they are. They're all laid out. He goes, Okay, what's this? Is a company. How many? How many teams? Five. Okay, five teams. Cool, 12, yeah. How come only 10 here? How come only eight? Well, like, you know, it's just soft, the soft imperatives, and what they they tell you about all this, you know, soft truths, right? Men before machinery. And you know they're willing and but it's not really true. You know, I mean, and you know, I challenge it, because if you have imperatives, right, then you stand by them. If you have soft truths, you stand by them, right? You don't lower standard. Is you can't lower standards because you're really you're you're subverting yourself. You don't even realize it, right, because you're not as effective, right? And then you and then, yeah, and the bottom line is, the real good guys aren't coming like they're not coming there. They want the real good guys want to go to where it's hard, the harder you make something to make, that's when the good people come. They want to be part of something like, cool, badass, like, I have to earn it. I'm with the right people. They don't want to come something easy, right, right? So they so they kind of like, they kind of like, undermine themselves and not realize it. So these guys are in there. Well, we need more of them. What do you mean, anymore of them? Well, we can't. We need more. And then give me a sick, you know, 16, right? Company with 16, then it was another battalion. Then it was and then they started to, they started to prostitute the the selection. Course, yes, they did. And and anybody that tells you different is lying to you, and it go, and it goes on now, on and off, but they, they straight out lie. That's I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sugar coat it, because it's like the Emperor wears no clothes, right? That's what we're talking about, right? Because I know what right looks like, and there's a lot of guys in the right looks like, okay, we know what fair looks like, and then we know when the standards change and when the standards change, because you need numbers and a unit that says that we don't, we don't go by numbers. That's called lying, deceit, right? And that's what happened. They did all kinds of crazy shit. They made a two week course, two week course. So you're telling me, a two week selection course is the same as a three week selection course, or they made some of the gates different. They lower rock weights, they did all kinds of stuff. I mean, you know, I know it. Everybody knows it. They can. They'll lie to your face right now. You bring someone in here right now, and they'll tell you, he'll tell you, that's all, it's all, but it's there, and we all know it, right? Kind of like Ranger School, right? Like the girls made the Ranger School, like we Yeah, they definitely right. You're definitely made. We know. We know what happened. It's there, it's right in front of you. And I want opportunity to open anybody. But here's the standard. Meet the standard. If you don't meet the standard, you can't be here. That's not the way we work, right? In reality, they wanted numbers and they got numbers, but when you do that, you subvert yourself. So my my position, and I'm in right now is I'm just gonna I'm gonna be true to what I was told to the people before me. That's all like I have to respect the people that are before me, people better than me that gave me my opportunities, that made me if I was halfway decent, what I did because of them, I have an obligation to them all the way back to my uncle, all the way back to those guys, to make sure that if I put someone there, and I say, if nothing else, this kid can this kid's got the attributes we're looking for, and the kid is hard, and then if he makes it, he makes it, he doesn't make it. But the bottom line is, we don't need numbers. We don't need people. I'd rather have a six man team of everybody the same way than carry three or four or five people of dead weight, and they don't get it. And you can argue with them all you want, and it's not going to matter. So now we're way bigger than we ever been, and they wonder why, there's a problem, right? Right? We're doing missions that are just, listen, you know the special mission units, they get a certain amount of missions. They don't, they don't just get no they pick their missions, right? These are their missions. Well, we're the same way. So what's our specialty? Where are we supposed to fit in? This thing targets us there. Keep the standards the same, you know, set it the way it's supposed to be, and run with it. Now, I will say that I hear and I observe, it is getting better. It's gotten a lot better than the middle of the war. It's starting to it's starting to come back this way, and hopefully now new administration, new leadership. Maybe it'll come all the way back. So it's better now than it's been, you know, I mean, I would say any young kid that wants to be part of a unit with a tremendous history, a tremendous like, a quiet professional history, and do extraordinary things like, I mean, really cool things, work with foreign you know, leading foreign forces and, you know, building capacity with foreign forces, you know, doing things like a little outside the box, from a little different angle. I think, you know, this is still a great place to be, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere
Ben Derrick 58:48
else. Yeah, yeah, the way that you put it, you know, if I weren't 45 and knew I couldn't make it, I'd sign up and you fire me up. Listen to this conversation. More
Frank Rossi 58:56
people that don't make it should make the good guys want to come right, right? When you hear those attrition rates, 75% man, then the studs, the studs are running towards that, right?
Ben Derrick 59:05
Yeah. But you have to know the point you've made today really well, is that you have to know your history and you have to know yourself. I mean, it comes down to those two things. You got to know the history of SF, and you need to know yourself before you go up to a process like this, at least to some degree, because you're gonna have to face yourself through these different iterations, right? You're gonna learn what you're made of. And
Frank Rossi 59:29
that's my point. So selection kind of played to my strengths, right? You know, because I, you know, I'd gone to a brutal junior college football like a brutal program, and it was mentored by, like, the one of the craziest coaches ever, real famous guy, Norton, part of all that legacy. But it was all about being, like, super, super hard, right? And then, you know, all those things and physically, so that kind of played into my strengths, right? But when I got to the Q Course phase one, I didn't have no strengths. I was struggling because then you had. Guys that had prior service, they could do land nav, and even the guys that could do land nav, like you've heard of the star land nav, course, right? Yes, I don't know if they're doing it now. I don't want to know nothing about it, because just it'll just break my heart. But I remember that craziness, you know, five points in nine hours, or whatever it may be, starting to dark. And, you know, and, I mean, and I remember my first night of that was in February. Think February 8, there it was raining. There was no moon. It was hailing. And they and it doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. Sorry, bad luck. This is the way it is. And they launched everybody. I remember 120 guys, phase one, and 20 dudes. 20 dudes were first time ghosts, 20. And it was bizarre, like, like, so that's the kind of but that and me forget about I'm so I did it three times. I mean, so I can't believe, like, I can't believe I did it like, I still I can't like I was, I was stuck in, as we call these bones, fork, millstone Creek. I was in millstone creek for like, not, like, the whole nine hours freezing to death, knocked unconscious, from my kid that you're like, you'd see flares going up all over the place. I'm not making this up, right, like it was like, and I'll never forget, in selection, I had a ranger Lieutenant from the Ranger Battalion, good kid, and he was behind me, and we just did sand roads in my selection. And it was they just, they just did so much mileage and so much tear yourself down, right? But it was sand and it was easy. The land that was easy, right? You just got to kind of count your pace count. Maybe you'll miss a road that's not there wasn't nothing like the star. But one day they did the star as a test. I didn't know what it was. They just launched us into the woods, right? I'll never forget when we got back, we're all lines up. He had no sleeves on, no sleeves from his shoulder down. There were scrapes all over his body, right? He is. His eyes were all like, like, puncture marks, and all his face. And he was sitting back there and going, what the fuck is going on around here? What the fuck is going around does anybody care? I could have died out there. Juna peralia fell down a cliff. I couldn't get back up. He goes, Listen, Rangers. Goes, like, holding your arm, but holding your arm behind your back for, like, for 60 days, just like punching the face for 25 days. He goes, This is insanity. He goes, but I'll never forget that. Like, that's but the star was five times worse. So su t like that, you know, I wasn't that wasn't my but what got me through was just being, you know, just trying to do extra and just trying to do the right thing. But other kids had more other guys had more talent, more skill, more experience, right? So it was a it was a great process, you know, I mean, and that's what we're looking for today,
Ben Derrick 1:02:29
yeah, well, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to sit down. And I always do something that makes every man uncomfortable, but I do it anyway while they're behind Mike, thank you, sir, for your service, your sacrifice, for running towards the fight. You are an elite American, and I wish there were more of you. Well, it's
Frank Rossi 1:02:48
been my pleasure. I should be thanking you to let me do it. But I do want to cover one more thing, sure, like when we talked about the OSS, I didn't mention the Ginny mission, which people don't know historically, what that was. Well, the genie mission was my uncle's unit. There was a bunch of railroad. Month casino was going on. There's a bunch of railroad tunnels, right, that the Germans were supplying through. And they tried bombing them, but because of the mountains, they couldn't get it to, couldn't get to them. So they had, they had to send a commando team in. So the first Genie mission, you know, they went out, and they went out in PT boats. Then they got into rubber ducks, and they got in there, and they got close enough, and they they, there were so many Germans around, they couldn't get to them, right? So they came on back, and there was a second Genie mission. Genie mission two. And during that time, Hitler put out an order that any any combatant fine behind enemy lines would be considered a spy, right? Which is illegal, right? Because if you're in uniform, you're not a spy, right? And they wore uniforms. They didn't wearing signatures, but they wore like, fatigues. So the second mission launched and and they they got on land, and they buried their boats, and they hit, they hit an old barn, and the next morning, the next night, they were going to go out and try to blow up these tunnels. And a lady had noticed their boats, and they called it the fascist authorities came. And then the and then the Gestapo came, you know what I mean? And they came. They had a little firefight, and they got these guys. And I think it was, I like to say it was, it was this whole, all 17 of them, and general Dozier, who was a professional German, general Ben, knew the rules, knew the G league convention. Had those guys executed. They lined them up, and they're executed. That's the first war crime of World War Two, of World War Two, and when they had the the Nuremberg trials, he was the first one executed. Nuremberg trials. If you look up general Dozier, they he killed 17 commandos. You know, they were commandos. They had, you know, uniforms on and and it was a war crime, and he was executed. But that's the kind of missions that were going on that people don't who knows about that? That could be, that could be like the the guns and Navarone type movie they made, but this was like an American team that did that, and that's all lost in history. So
Ben Derrick 1:04:59
I think it should be. Ben Jim, 90 more well. Thank you sir for your time today. Okay,
Frank Rossi 1:05:03
fantastic. I appreciate
Ben Derrick 1:05:07
it. Thank you for tuning in to the soldier fund podcast. If you're inspired by the stories of these elite citizen warriors and want to support their mission, visit us at the soldier fund.org your contributions help us to continue to back the Special Forces soldiers of the National Guard as they fight around the world until next time, stay committed to stand with those who serve you.