I was excited, but I harbored doubts. Although I had served in special operations for much of the previous eighteen years, I was from the Rangers and had never served in either of the other units—“Green” (the Army’s elite commando unit) and “Blue” (the Navy SEAL special mission unit)—considered the crown jewels of the command and of TF 714. The week before, my thick in-box of paperwork had included the unit’s most recent Command Climate Survey, which tabulated a consistent complaint about the command: “Too many Rangers.” But it was not surprising, as Rangers, long viewed as the junior varsity of TF 714, continued to struggle in this small world to be recognized as equals of the more specialized forces they were increasingly serving alongside. This did little to bolster my confidence.
I was more worried, though, about rejoining the force at this particular time. I had deployed to Afghanistan after 9/11, but to my chagrin I had been stuck in the halls of the Pentagon for the invasion of Iraq the previous spring. I had missed the operations that helped topple the Taliban and later Saddam, which most people within the military probably judged TF 714’s greatest accomplishments to that point. Like any soldier who joined a unit after a major engagement, I felt I carried the stigma of not having been on hand for the trial by fire. But I tried not to worry about something I could not control.
Instead, as I sat on the stage, I looked at Annie. After I had left the Pentagon three weeks earlier, she and I had flown to Denver, rented a car, and spent twelve days in late September driving around Wyoming, hiking and sightseeing. In the years ahead, at dawn each day when I would retire to my room in Afghanistan or Iraq for a few hours of sleep, I would spend a few moments staring at pictures from this trip—Annie in hiking shorts and baseball cap, suntanned and smiling. The photographs, taped to walls between my combat gear hanging on hooks, promised sunny days after dark nights of war. From the front row of folding chairs at the ceremony, Annie caught my gaze. As she often did at public events when she could sense my thoughts, she mouthed the words “I love you.” So began what turned out to be the longest, most difficult, and most rewarding job I ever had.
* * *
When I returned with Annie to Fort Bragg, we came “home.” It was the fourth time we had lived there. But the feeling on base had changed. I had been at Bragg for the first year after 9/11, watched the increased security, and I had been among the first from the base to deploy. Now, as America finished its second year in Afghanistan and its sixth month in Iraq, the base was resigned to increased deployments. Thus far, casualties had been limited, and few anticipated they would rise significantly. But disturbingly, our effort, named the Global War on Terror, had no clear end in sight.
A few days after assuming command, I made a trip to Tampa, Florida, to see Generals Doug Brown, who led SOCOM, and John Abizaid, who had left the Joint Staff and was now commander of CENTCOM. I’d known Doug since the late 1980s when, as a Ranger company commander and then operations officer, I worked with him in his role as a special-operations aviator in the Night Stalkers, the aviation unit created from the Iranian rescue-mission effort. Our relationship was entering its second decade when several months earlier Doug called me, not long after he was selected to command SOCOM. He asked if I would take TF 714 that October. The phone call was an uncomfortable moment. Part of me had been hoping to command the 82nd Airborne Division, and I thought I might have been out of the special operations world for too long to be welcomed back by its purist circles.
“Sir, isn’t there a more logical choice than me?”
“There might be, Stan,” Doug responded. “But I want you to command the task force.”
I told my old friend I would be honored.
Now, in Tampa, I sat down with John Abizaid for his guidance, but also to get his approval of a technical but important tweak in our command relationship. Overseeing operations from North Africa to Asia, including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, John had what was then the most challenging job in the U.S. military. When I took over, TF 714 was commanded by a two-star, but one of its two one-star deputies was constantly in Iraq, running the day-to-day special operations there. Naturally, CENTCOM would be tempted to work directly with that deputy, rather than through me. But I wanted John to agree that I would be the commander of all my forces in his theater. No matter my location, I would be his single point of contact and of responsibility. It may seem an arcane point of military hierarchy, but intuitively I believed the unprecedented campaign TF 714 was faced, across a wide geographic area would demand as much unity and consistency in leadership as possible. I also sensed that my relationships with senior leaders and my physical presence downrange would enhance TF 714’s freedom of action, which would otherwise be difficult to obtain. On paper we had a wide legal berth; but the degree to which we could maneuver when the risks were high and costly would actually depend on the trust and confidence of those whose approval we sought.