Head of Special Forces Aims to Change Army Doctrine

Key Leader at the Army’s Special Warfare Center and School wants Special Forces to return to original mission

The stereotype that the Special Forces are just designed for killing does not rest well with Maj. Gen. Bennet Sacolick.

Sacolick is head of the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg. In an interview last month with military.com, he is making it a priority to clear up misperceptions about Special Forces by proposing changes to Army doctrine.

"It was absolutely so apparent that he had no idea what SF guys do," Sacolick said, referring to a civilian professional who spoke off the cuff about the Special Forces as a whole. "The fact is, we're the only force specifically trained and educated to train and work with indigenous forces. Not hunting them down and killing them, but working with them to build partner capacity."

Thanks to many movies, the average person might have the impression that since the 9/11 conflict, the sole purpose of the Special Forces is to snag high-value targets and confront terrorists and insurgent leaders in lightning raids at any cost.

"I hate analogies like the pointy end of the spear. We're not designed to hunt people down and kill them," Sacolick said. "We have that capability and we have forces that specialize in that. But ultimately what we do that nobody else does is work with our indigenous partner nations."

Sacolick is no stranger to the special operations community. He hopes to transform the image of the Special Forces by getting back to basics by proposing change to the Army’s doctrine.

"Somehow over the last 10 years we maybe became a little too disengaged with the Army," Sacolick said. "So now we are reengaging with the Army . . . and talking about [what we do] outside the battlefield."

During the past decade, the Army has gone from deploying Special Forces to 91 countries to around 45 today. Sacolick conveyed he would like it to drop further. 

"I have a generation of young men who are about to assume command of Special Forces battalions that know nothing but Iraq and Afghanistan," Sacolick said. "We're going to have to retrain a whole generation of officers."

"I'm pretty comfortable that once we get relief from Iraq and Afghanistan . . . we'll start sending these guys out to [other] countries and they'll pick up that mission again," Sacolick said.

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