European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 29, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                First u s representative so meet Wilh Kochi mirth Bank lenrt1 1o  his personal Oss c pc nonce bul is Quick la Pool out thai Csc spill what Iho army May say Ohio rally. The Given berets Are a direct descendant of thai forerunner of Iho Central intelligence Agency. Ive look thai legacy of m c Oss and used it As our building  Bank said ii was our foundation we Are the oils Nimg of i Coss ii Oss As an organization is the Parent. Certainly Aaron Banks is the doctor who delivered special forces kicking and screaming into the ranks of a suspicious army. From an obscure desk deep in 1he bowels of the Pentagon buried in a newly created psychological warfare office Hal would Lacr Espro Rel to fort Bragg , Banks headed the special operations Branch. He was Given the Lask of convincing a staunchly traditional isl army to adopt an unconventional warfare Force much of his time he said was Dovold to blushing aside the doctrinaire traditionalists and the doubting Thomases Alt who claimed int us  warfare was a Sirny dirty underhanded Type of activity and the it if it Woie ovoid revealed int the army indulged in such activities it would he stigmatized  Banks was nol alone. Several of Lect senior officials some Oss veterans also were pleading the Case for an unconventional warfare element and eventually the army chief of staff gon. J Lawton Collins approved the concept approval was one thing Fielding a 2.500-Strong battalion something else when activated in june 1952 the first unit the 10lh special forces group airborne consisted of Banks its commander a warrant officer and eight enlisted men. At Aboul the same Lime however the army deactivated its Ranger battalions leaving some highly trained commandos without a Job. Like Moths to n Street lamp Many were drawn to the fledgling special forces unit. The Day i activated the outfit there was a Stampede Iron the whole 18lh airborne corps to Volunteer. Since the rangers had been Deal Ivald. The in rangers were roaring to gel in Banks said then like today Only a Lew would make the final Cut. Those who did would learn a whole new concept o warfare one that required nol Only combat prowess but also learning the language culture and customs of a targeted area a Soldier volunteered not once bul three times according to Banks. He volunteered Lor jump school to operate behind enemy lines and to serve in civilian clothing Wilh All thai entailed if captured. The raining was competitive and dozens of Good soldiers were weeded out because they weren t the right Typo Tor ouf kinds of  Banks said. Walnty was what we wanted we did t want Gung to  in november 1953, about Hall of the original complement led by Banks Dean Rod Lor bad Tou. A bavarian Village or god m the Hills South of Munich there starting from Zero the men who would later become presidential Pels and the topic of a nil song began scratching Oul their own legend and while the army eventually would Trace its official lineage to the 1st special service Force a joint u s and Canadian unit from world War ii Banks begs to differ. From Day one. He says the unit had no Iraq neg manuals no precedents to draw trom Lor standards traditions techniques doctrine or concept. We had Only one thing the legacy left by the special operations Branch of the Oss that i and several other Oss veterans brought to the  Banks said no matter what Iho army says. They the Oss were our operational  making the mean by Charlie Bowden Munich Bureau w Hen col Aaron Banks formulate the Pablo of organization and equipment or the army s first special forces unit he admits drawing extensively on Iho makeup of units of the Ohice of strategic services that operated behind enemy lines in world War ii. Although the unit was formed along Trade Honan army Linos Wilh companies battalions and groups from the beginning the Basic operational element for the special forces was the 12-Man detachment More popularly known As the a team this concept relatively unchanged 36 years later was loosely based on Iho Throe Man Jedburgh teams and the 32-Man operational groups of the Oss. Said Banks a Veteran of three Jedburgh drops into occupied France to was All based on  Banks said during a recent interview in bad Totz. Wesl Germany. The first and current Homo to Europe s special forces contingent in an attempt to Field the Greal Osl number of teams from the spaces he had been Given to said i look a Happy medium Between the  while Banks staunchly defends the Oss special forces link he readily admits that the so called Green berets have Seco written their own worldwide legacy from daredevil Rescue missions in the Congo to civic action deployments in latin America. But it was in the steamy Jungles of Southeast Asia Hal the rapidly expanding Force of Snake eaters would make their Mark on modern military history. In Vietnam alone Lor example. A teams established More than 250 outposts throughout the country and trained thousands of indigenous forces through ils civilian irregular Welense group program Somel rmes called the Village defense program. Author and retired army Captain Shelby Scanlon in his lengthy Book Vietnam older of Bailie credits the special forces detachments Wilh directing nearly 100,000 civic action projects during roughly 10 years in Southeast Asia their roles As advisers and trainers later changed into Mobile strike forces Rescue and recovery operations and Coos Border reconnaissance missions. In military measurement of Success medals the special forces record in Vietnam was lops although costly. Green berets accounted for More than 14,000 decorations including 17 medals of Honor 814 Silver  2,658 purple hearts. Of the Doad sled on the Vietnam memorial in Washington 544 were special forces members. Bent training at it. Bragg 12-Man units called a teams Are the Basic special forces operational elements. And Why the Green Bercy initially. Banks said the idea was to bring the unit in line with elite British and French special operations units. The British were wearing the Maroon Berot. The French had a Green Beret. What did we have a service Cap. I left that we deserved a  Banks formally requested similar headgear Toi his units. The army turned me Down they said there would be no distinctive hems of uniform for any army unit but a pair of officers thought differently in his Book. Inside the Green berets former special forces commander Charles Simpson credits Herb Brucker and Roger Pezzelle with making the Beret the unofficial and illegal Cap of special forces. Actually Tho first ones were Black primarily because that was All that was available. Eventually All soldiers had berets but wore them Only in the Field. Later copying the canadians soldiers began ordering bulk shipments of a Green version from a Canadian knitting Mill they did t Wear them on  Banks said of those Early Days Only in the Man Euver area and i did t give a Damn. If in was oort Lor their morale lot them Wear  the army however took a dim View of the rogue gis in their Little beanies. At Forl Bragg . Tor example in was a court Marl of Llense to to caught wearing the Berel. Then in 1961. Brig Gen William Yarborough commander of the special warfare Center had his troops Wear the Berel during a presidential Visil by John f. Kennedy when they passed in review Belore the president he Tell in love Wilh  Banks said. Shortly thereafter the army authorized the Berel although units had been wearing the Caps for nearly a decade. Old timers including Banks Etedal the decision to Kennedy he awarded the Green Borel to special forces Banks said adding that both the rangers and airborne units today also sport berets. We introduced the Beret into the United states army bul it look a president to give the initial  saturday october 29.19bb the stars and stripes Page 17