#168: Precision Aviation Support - 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment COL Steve Smith & CW5 Pete Sullivan

The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment https://www.instagram.com/go160thsoar/ is America’s most lethal and versatile projection of combat power. When our Special Operations Forces require precision insertion, extraction and fire support, the pilots of the 160th deliver. Born from the need to develop an aviation regiment capable of anything, anywhere, anytime, the 160th SOAR is the only Special Operations Unit to have been deployed continuously since inception. To discuss the critical role of the 160th SOAR, their command team of COL Steve Smith and CW5 Pete Sullivan invited Fran Racioppi https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisracioppijr/ for a ride on an MH-47 Chinook and demonstration of the AH-64 Little Birds in action. From the tail ramp, we discussed the mission of the 160th, their interoperability supporting Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Army Rangers; and the various aircraft in their arsenal. We also explored the recruiting, assessment and selection process for pilots, crew and maintainers; the culture of an organization that has a no fail mission; and how technology is changing aviation as they prepare to combat both near peer adversaries and terrorist organizations. Watch, listen or read our conversation from the workhorse heavy lift aircraft responsible for the delivery of personnel and equipment in the harshest environments. Highlights 0:00 Introduction3:20 Mission of 160th SOAR4:23 Creating the 160th SOAR6:42 Interoperability of the 160th9:55 Assessment & Selection Process19:50 Support from Non-SOF21:50 Importance of Cross-training26:00 Preparing for the Next fight29:30 The role on unmanned aircraft31:18 Defining a “Nightstalker”34:38 Why join Army Aviation?39:35 Night Stalkers Don’t Quit Quotes “Our mission is to provide precision rotary wing support and ISR support to our SOF operators.”“A plan is only something to deviate from.” “The backbone of any great organization and what makes DoD so successful is our non-rated crew members, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted team.”“Your importance has nothing to do with your proximity to the target.” “The standard is a standard. Regardless of what your job is, if you can’t meet the standard, you won’t be employed in the Regiment.”“You can’t do precision if you do anything else.” “We can’t always look at one adversary because something else might happen that we have to react to fairly quickly.”“If we can increase our range, survivability, and lethality, we have a major advantage for any adversary.”“Manned and unmanned teaming is the future.”“Don’t let a speedbump become a roadblock.”“Not everything is going to go right the first time, but you can’t make the same mistake three times and expect to be successful.”“Our people are critical problem solvers.”“I’ve had the highest of highs and lowest of lows in the regiment, but because of the people I’m around, they’ve made it the best of the situation that it could be.” The Jedburgh Podcast is brought to you by University of Health & Performance, https://university-hp.com/ providing our Veterans world class education and training as fitness and nutrition entrepreneurs. Follow the Jedburgh Podcast https://www.instagram.com/jedburghpodcast/ and the Green Beret Foundation https://www.instagram.com/greenberetfoundation/ on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform https://pod.link/1558608802, read on our website https://greenberetfoundation.org/jedburghpodcast/investing-in-military-infrastructure-jumping-in-with-arkansas-senator-john-boozman, and watch the full video version on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@jedburghpodcast as we show why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge. The Jedburgh Podcast and the Jedburgh Media Channel are an official program of The Green Beret Foundation https://greenberetfoundation.org/.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Fran Racioppi?

  The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment is America's most lethal and versatile projection of combat power. When our special operations forces require precision insertion, extraction, and fire support, the pilots of the 160th deliver. Born from the need to develop an aviation regiment capable of anything, anywhere, anytime, the 160th is the only special operations unit to have been deployed continuously since inception. To discuss the critical role of the 160th, their command team of Colonel Steve Smith and Chief War and Officer 5 Pete Sullivan invited me for a ride on an MH47 Chinook and a demonstration of the little birds in action. From the tail ramp, we discuss the mission of the 160th, their interoperability supporting

• 0:45Fran Racioppi?

  Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and Army Rangers, and the various aircraft in their arsenal. We also explore the recruiting assessment and selection process for pilots, crew, and maintainers, the culture of an organization that has a no-fail mission, and how technology is changing aviation as they prepare to combat both near-peer adversaries and terrorist organizations. Watch, listen, or read our conversation from the workhorse heavy-lift aircraft responsible for the delivery of personnel and equipment in the harshest environments. The Jedberg Podcast is brought to you by University of Health and Performance, providing our veterans a world-class education and training as fitness and nutrition entrepreneurs. Follow the Jedberg Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform, read on our website, and watch the full video version on YouTube as we show you why America must continue to lead from the front, no

• 1:30Fran Racioppi?

  matter the challenge. Colonel Smith, Chief Sullivan, welcome to the Jedberg Podcast.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Thank you. Super excited.

• 1:38Fran Racioppi?

  We're sitting in an MH47.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  We are.

• 1:40Fran Racioppi?

  The modified one. This thing's badass.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:43Fran Racioppi?

  You flew us out here, Chief.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:45Fran Racioppi?

  It's an impressive piece of machinery.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  It'll get you out of hell in a quick heartbeat.

• 1:48Fran Racioppi?

  And it will also bring hell in a quick heartbeat.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:52Fran Racioppi?

  I was a Bradley platoon leader, and I used to say that that was like the most feared ground-based platform that we had because not only did you bring great firepower to the fight, but that ramp dropped and you had a whole bunch of pissed-off dudes running out the back. This is the aerial platform, I would say, of the Bradley.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It's the heavy assault aircraft for the regiment, and it will do more than you can probably imagine. It's more capable of a lot than you would think, and the way we employ it is like no other unit can.

• 2:21Fran Racioppi?

  And that's coming from someone with experience because rumor has it, you got like something like 30 or 35 deployments in this thing under your belt. Somewhere in there, that's how it, yeah. And it's brought me back every time and everybody else at the same time, which is more important. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you guys having us out here. This has been something that I've been looking forward to for quite a long time. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment is one of the premier organizations within our US military, within the Department of Defense. And we look at our special operations capabilities across the entire joint force, whether we're talking about the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, it doesn't matter. This is an organization that is called upon by any one of those service components to bring people into our nation's most dangerous and our most high-profile missions.

• 3:06Fran Racioppi?

  And you know, we're going to talk about the history here in a second, but you've been around 40 plus years and been involved in damn near everything that this country has done and led the way for so long. And so I want to kick it off by really talking about that mission of the 160th. And so what is the mission of the 160th? Our mission is provide precision rotary wing support and ISR support to our ground operators, our soft operators, the soft mission set. And that's really in a nutshell. Let's think about the history for a little bit. I mean, the organization, just much like SOCOM and the entire special operations capability of the US military was born out of these ideas that came out of like the, you know, early eighties.

• 3:45Fran Racioppi?

  And we had to build these capabilities for precision strikes. So just talk for a second about the formation of the organization and what the nation saw, why this capability was needed. Because we have a lot of helicopters in the Army. They just don't all happen to be like this one. No, you would, you would take it or you want me to go? It's great. It actually came out of the conventional aviation, the unit here already at Fort Campbell. And so volunteers from Fort Campbell, from the 101st, 159th and 158th built the bait, the building blocks of what the 160th. So it involved the aspect of Blackhawks, little birds, and really brought on the 47 capability a little bit later on, within the first couple of years. And then that formulated the historic brand of really where we started off as a small unit and it's grown into a battalion. And then then later is formed into a group.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  And then overall now years later, we're a complete regimen with two battalion, two operational battalions out of Fort Campbell. And then we have third battalion out of Savannah, Georgia, and then we have fourth battalion out of JBLM Washington. So we're spread, I think strategically to have two organizations on the east and west coast. And then the hub of that being here on the, um, the, the brown compound. And then where we currently sit today is we're out at range two nine, our operational range that we use a lot of our aerial gunnery. And we train with the ground forces out here. And so it's been super unique to have the infrastructure that Fort Campbell provides. Our partnership with the hundred and first, our relationship with fifth group, but then also the co-location of, you know, our operational ranges here.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  And then we have another mount site that we, we use. And so that's been able to be the, the base for our building blocks for who we are as an organization.

• 5:17Fran Racioppi?

  So the organization falls under the army and then we had a chance. I mean, it seems like yesterday, but I'm starting to realize it was like three years ago, but I think it was like episode 18. If I have it right, 17 or 18, we sat down with General Clay Hutmacher. And he was a former commander sat in, sat in your seat years ago as the commander of the 160th. And then went on to be the, I think the first commander for US SOAC. So US Army Special Operations Aviation, man, that falls under US SOAC. So you sit in an interesting spot because just like Green Berets and Rangers, you know, you were in the army, fall under special operations, Army Special Operations Command. But you're an asset of SOCOM and so you have interaction and you support the SEALs and the other service components.

• 6:01Fran Racioppi?

  Talk for a second about the interoperability because you know, we can, it's easy for me as a Green Beret to say, well, I only care about Green Berets. And I only care about the way we do things, but the reality is you don't get that option. You gotta worry about everybody.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So interoperability between the soft operator, that's a unique thing that each one of them provided a different aspect of how they would employ the aircraft. Statement that we say with the back of the aircraft is the aircraft, Pete and the crew chiefs, this 47, or you take a Blackhawk is the back of the airplane is the ground forces. That's their, their.

• 6:30Fran Racioppi?

  Workspace. We get customer input. We get ground force, which we call our customer. We're really customer oriented. We talk to our customer what the back of the aircraft needs to provide. Does it need to be able to have a retrans platform? Do you need to wire stuff so you can get some situational awareness? So each one of the ground forces have some uniqueness, what they want to be able to communicate, what they want to see, the situational awareness before they get on the ground. But the, the delivery mechanism is each one of them are relying on our flight leads, our FMQs and our BMQs to explain where they want to land on the X or land on a, you know, near the objective. And not a single one of them, there's not much deviation between a SEAL, a Marsoc, or you pick a, an RSOF operator.

• 7:12Fran Racioppi?

  They're expecting Pete to understand the ground scheme of maneuver and then be able to, to put them in the best position to affect that, that mission. And I think that's the uniquenesses that make them very interoperable. The ground force, there's only so many ways you're going to go inside the front door. Whether you want the ramp facing, if you want the nose of the aircraft facing directly perpendicular to the door. But a lot of that will happen where, where Pete can put this 47, where our Blackhawk flight leads can put a, a Blackhawk or a little bird go into a rooftop. So they're going to ask a number of different things, but that mission planning, that discussion that we have prior to actually lifting off the ground, that is not unique to any of the ground forces. They're all looking for us to give them the, the critical problem solving

• 7:52Fran Racioppi?

  that I think makes, makes our flight leads and our mission operators pretty important to the overall mission execution.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  I was gonna say like a plan is only something to deviate from, right? So like, once you start the battery, you start the aircraft, you know, bump plans happens, everything else, all those are determined. And while your, your mission planning co-located with the ground force, if that's the case. Every ground force will treat the same target differently. And so it's great to have the aspect of not what you did last time, but to hear the different avenue that you didn't maybe breach, what they're trying to, trying to do now, if that makes sense. You never take the same scenario and apply the same tactic. If the ground force scheme of maneuver, ground tactical plan dictates this, alls I want to do is best support their plan from an aviation aspect. They are my customers. They are my responsibility until the wheels are on the ground or the skids are on the ground for a little bird. And then when they're on target, They're my responsibility if there's a Kazakh to where I can get them out, whether it's hoist,

• 8:44Speaker 01

  ladder, rope, et cetera, or QRF, all the different things, all the, that's what makes, in my view, the regiment great because we will determine all of our contingencies in that mission plane scenario and our evaluations to get people to where they need to be in the regiment. All take those into effect, lessons learned and use those in the future for teaching points or lessons learned.

• 9:04Fran Racioppi?

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• 9:45Fran Racioppi?

  Well, let's talk about that for a second because we all know come out of special operations, the soft truths. And there's two here that apply to this world and we'll dig into both of them. But let's start with number one, people are more important than hardware. There's a lot of hardware within this organization, but you brought up people. Talk for a second about the selection and the assessment and the selection process for someone coming into the 160th.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Okay, so for enlisted officer or warrant officers, we have 66 MOSs, Military Occupational Specialities for the Army for enlisted. We have 17 for warrant officers and we have 22 for our commissioned officers. All of those MOSs-

• 10:23Fran Racioppi?

  Within one regiment?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  In one regiment. And I'll tell you something else later when I nerd out about HRC, Human Resources, S Command, but-

• 10:29Fran Racioppi?

  But when you care-

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Oh, because that might be your next assignment.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  So when you, all those MOSs that we hold all go through the same training pipeline. They all have the same vision mentality, toughness to complete our enlisted green platoon and our officer green platoon, commonly called EGP and OGP. Those durations vary- Based off MOSs and if you're an aviator or a crew chief, what aircraft you're gonna, you're gonna fly or crew in. But it can be a six to nine month process between the different MOSs after you've completed your three week ground phase of what we, what we call it, just our green platoon, if you will. I know I've used that term twice now, but that's shooting, medic, land nav, combatives, all that in the first three weeks, road marches, et cetera.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  And then, once they graduate from there, they will, if they're in aviation MOS, they will then go to their proper schooling that we house in-house.

• 11:22Fran Racioppi?

  So let's talk about the, the different aspects of that because we have the enlisted ranks, we have the officer ranks, and we have warrant officer ranks in, in, as Green Brays in the Special Forces Regiment, we have it here in the 160th. But I think it's probably a lot, almost more closely aligned within this organization than others. But talk for a second about the difference between the three and what are the jobs that are held by each one of those?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  So I'll start with a warrant officer first. So like in my career, I got here in 2005, along with the RCO, we were in the same Green Platoon class. What transpired, like for me to go through what I did, we have three levels of a pilot, an aviator in the regiment. You have a BMQ, basic mission qualified, you have an FMQ, a fully mission qualified, you have a flight lead qualified. A BMQ is somebody who just came out, graduated green platoon, successfully completed their six to nine month course. And then they are primarily a planner, learning the relationships, the responsibilities of what the FMQs and flight leads have to put up with. After say two to three years, maybe one to three years, depending on the seniority of that aviator who is assessed, and I'll get in the assessment process in a second,

• 12:27Speaker 01

  that they will be put up for an FMQ evaluation, which is usually offsite or what have you. And then there's contingencies laid in there. There's this, there's a script, there's a white cell, there's et cetera, to open up the guardrails and see which way the candidate will go. However, we also have to be responsible for that candidate because it ultimately relies, or it's a responsibility of flight lead to not make the person successful, but to make sure that they don't do something to the aircraft that's not proper. So after one to three years, if you will, as a BMQ, then you become an FMQ. And the difference between BMQ and FMQ is not the qualifications of the person, all the air refuel. Lane, the hoist, ladders, fast ropes, the BMQ is qualified in that. He is just, he or she is just not responsible for the aircraft when the customers are going out the back.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  So when you're an FMQ, you might be the pilot command of chalk two, or you could be the flying with the flight lead up front. But usually FMQs like to have their own aircraft so they can make their own decisions and they'll fly with a BMQ. Four to six years as a full emission qualified for FMQ, you'll be put up for a flight lead board. That is not guaranteed for everybody. And some people don't need to be flight leads. I don't mean that disrespectfully. There's people who can work on, who are engineers by trade and want to go into a different realm of like developing for the regiment. So that I say that that way, or some people would come maintenance, maintenance examiners and they want to go the maintenance test pilot course route. But either way, most of the people here will, will be FMQs and that is a successful career in the regiment.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  If you get put up for flight lead, that is, mine was 17 days long. It was, it was off contingencies, JPR gets involved. There's so many things that the white cell script regimental stands does that we plan them six to nine months out. They might cost a dollar or two and the flight lead is the one who the pressure is on. But if I had 10 aircraft on my flight leader valve, every one of those people in my briefings in my cell learned something that made them a better person. Just because of the reps, they got to see the experience, the air mission briefs that we go to, the rock drills, et cetera. Uh, you know, you're, you're working your duty day, you're working the ground force change and then plan at the last minute as per the script.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Just to tell you like, hey, we don't want to go there, but I know you only have 10 more minutes to plan, but this is what we want to do and you come together. It's hellacious, but it's fun. It's, it's, it's a lot of working and then some flying, but there's more working than flying, if that makes sense. There are injects for a reason because as you well know, something can change at last minute. You have to be able to develop a plan for that change for a real mission because the enemy gets a vote as.

• 14:53Fran Racioppi?

  And then with the fact of the progression of our warrant officers, backbone of any, any great organization, and I think what makes DOD, you know, so successful is our non-rated crew members, but our non-commissioned officers and our enlisted team. A majority of our formation, just like any soft formation is we are entrusted with the true operator mentality of our non-rated crew members. So the, the crew chiefs that man, man and crew this airplane, also man and crew the Blackhawk, and we also have crew chiefs and maintainers with our little birds. We, we did the exact same, you know, mindset with our MQ ones. But when you look at the organization, the two really pacing items for us are warrant officers. So the, the folks that are flying the airplanes, as Pete highlighted, we've got multiple MOSs,

• 15:38Fran Racioppi?

  warrant officers, and we have our tech warrants, and we have our aviation warrants, and they are the ones that we use as our technical experts, that we have a lot of continuity. Most of our warrant officers come to the organization. As Pete highlighted, he's going to serve his entire military career after assessing and, and being assigned in the 160, he's going to spend his whole time there. So the opportunity to stay with inside the regiment and do that. Our non-rated crew members are non-commissioned officers and are enlisted soldiers. They have an opportunity to get to about the E7 level before there's some, some career decisions. We have the opportunity to bring back a pretty good chunk, about 33%, I think is what talked to us, our major about. We have an opportunity to bring some of those back in an experienced level of transitioning from really coming

• 16:19Fran Racioppi?

  out of warfighter, of manning the, the airplanes, or managing, being a, a non-commissioned officer for one of our key staff. But at the E8 levels, when we move them into leadership responsibilities, first sergeant jobs, master sergeant jobs, lead section, so the NCOIC of our commo section. So that's where the, the really big cut for us. We're going to keep some of the talent, and, and we're really fortunate, we get to keep the top talent. But the truth is, we've got so much talent at the E6 and E7 level, that when it's time to make that professional transition, is not everybody can stay. And then that's been actually a luxury, because our ability to give back to Army Aviation, and really to the greater Army Force, as Pete highlighted with all the different MOSs that come through the regiment, is the success-

• 17:03Fran Racioppi?

  Best rate of non-commissioned officers inside the regiment that serve inside the regiment that are night stalkers and then they go back out to the rest of the force. They excel and we see them serving in multiple jobs as first sardines and then if if they decide to make it to go beyond that. Our selection rate or their selection rate to start major is extremely high. I think from the numbers it supports that we're we're above. DOD are really Department of Army standards where night stalkers are continuing to get promoted to the E9 rank. But as I highlighted, the ability to retain talent at the at the E7 level, we can maintain that. We keep a lot of our non-rated crew members in the aircraft to the E7 level, but at the E8 level it changes.

• 17:44Fran Racioppi?

  And then from a commission officer standpoint, it's a really unique thing and I don't know if there's many branches inside of the army that have the uniqueness of commission officers that go through and I'll focus on the aviation aspect, but I but it's not our secret weapon. It's the fact of all the other support MOSs from an officer standpoint that do that and I'll make sure I highlight that at the end. But the focus on the aviation MOS, we go to flight school with our with the counterparts. So we go at we're lockstep. We go to our first assignments and as commission officers and warrant officers and we start and we're both brand new. No different inside the 160th. If you graduate green platoon, if you graduate green platoon, as Pete and I did, we both went to our companies.

• 18:24Fran Racioppi?

  We're both BMQs and that's where things start to separate. There's a lot of sets and reps that are put on a warrant officer to to progress and make FMQ and become a flight lead. From a commission officer standpoint, it's aviation risk. It's understand we're training our commission officers to be air mission commanders to understand the scope and be to help and assist with second, third level contingencies. So we're building future army leaders and so all the sets and reps that you get in the company, staff positions, all those are building blocks to bring folks back to be battalion commanders because that's really where the aviation risk starts to happen at the battalion command level. It happens inside the conventional army aviation and it's no different here inside of that.

• 19:04Fran Racioppi?

  And then one, one thing that I I think is super important is, you know, we talk about a lot of what happens from the warfighter in the aircraft. But that I would would argue is is second. Legendary to the talent base that we have with all the support MOSs that are, as Pete said, every single person that serves in the 160th is a green platoon graduate, so they are a night stalker. There is no support staff that doesn't have sets as a reps as a night stalker. And so they carry the brand as well, if not better than than the folks that stay because they are going eventually promote themselves out of jobs and they're going to go serve in the greater army. And I think that's our way that we continue to give back to the brand. Well, that's special operations truth number five. So the second one that I mentioned a couple of minutes ago,

• 19:48Fran Racioppi?

  and that's that most soft requires non soft support. And so when we look at an organization like this, you're the could arguably be the most proficient pilot in the army, but this aircraft goes nowhere without a maintainer. That's right. Or a fueler. Correct. Or they're part of the unit.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And there are, you know, there's been times where they've flown with us, you know, on the missions because they need to be there because we might go do something and have to like, like leapfrog, jump, et cetera. So that, you know, they're counted as crew, they're, you know, they're on there, they're on the manifest. They're not, you know, my term, second class citizens by any means, like they some like our medics go where, you know, we don't have a medic kit with us today or anything else. But when this thing's outfitted with our medics, like that dude's going or that person's going with me. I'm responsible for that person, you know, and that's where it comes down to.

• 20:34Fran Racioppi?

  And we, you know, the conversation that we have a night stalker, one of our former regiment commander made it to the geo level, his conversation or his statement that he says many times is, um, your importance is, uh, has no, uh, nothing to do with the proximity to the target. And I will tell you that our night stalkers treat everything. But I think that judging your importance to the proximity of the target, I think each and every one of us, what's really unique is every single staff section has the same progression, BMQ and FMQ. So we establish a BMQ FMQ progression in everything from a refuelers to our ammo handlers, to our comms, to our logistics, there are BMQs and there's a progression pipeline. There's a SOPs of how it takes to move from being in a new night stalker to a seasoned night stalker.

• 21:19Fran Racioppi?

  And I think that is something they carry forward, not only inside the organization, but they bring to other. Of like how sets and reps and standardization will help overcome a number of things.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  It isn't say the standard is a standard, right? Like regardless of what your job is, if you can't like meet the standard, then you won't be employed in the regiment, if that makes sense. Like when you progress from like a BMQ to an FMQ, regardless of your MOS, like when you're in FMQ, you're the lead for the trip, for your specialty, for what you're supposed to do and you have, you know, they have to own that, which is not a bad thing, right?

• 21:50Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. How cross-trained is everybody? And I'm kind of asking, I guess from the pilot's standpoint, because there are multiple airframes. You mentioned a few of them. So you have the 47s, you have the Blackhawks, you have the little birds. Do you cross-train across the different aircraft?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  No, but you'll do like experiences like the case that we're going to talk about. Like one of those AHs is going to fly my 47 pilot that I flew out here with, and they're going to go shoot gunnery, case in point.

• 22:12Fran Racioppi?

  So the, and that's a great question. And when you look at how do you best leverage talent? A number of organizations would tell you that cross-training, so some of our MOSs will cross-train. So our ammo handlers and our refuelers, they look at trying to be interoperable. But I think the word that I started from the beginning of our mission is precision rotary wing support. You can't be precision if you do anything else. And as an individual that grew up in a company that did both ATPs, ATPs being both missions, attack and assault, as an attack and an assault pilot, what I would say is I was really good at, I felt like I was really good at both, but I was not what I think the Night Stalker needed to be, which is you need to be the most professional contributions to your platform.

• 22:55Fran Racioppi?

  So you need to be the best 47 pilot. I need the best little bird pilot. I need the best Blackhawk pilot. Got another little bird coming in. And that was on full display when we took off, because I gotta, I gotta give you credit. I've been in a lot of these helicopters, okay? And I've flown, well, I've flown with you guys. I've flown with the Hunter and first, the 82nd, a lot of them over my time in the military. And I was on the headset, flying out here. So I, it's okay. You weren't talking trash that bad. Mostly about the commander, not about me. I was good. It was you. But there was a point where you were testing the hover.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:29Fran Racioppi?

  And I looked out the back and I'm like, we're on the ground. And you guys are talking and you're like, we're in the hover and you're kind of going through the systems and everything. And I'm like, I've never been in an aircraft, in a 47 that was that immobile in the air. And the only thing I think to myself was like, I feel like I'm on the ground. It was that rock solid, which comes from decades of experience.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Decade of experience, a little, little help from our, from our systems. Yeah, oh yeah, fair, fair enough. But the aircraft will allow you, this aircraft will make the pilot look good if it's employed the right way.

• 24:04Fran Racioppi?

  From the MH60, we have two variants. We have assault variant, so deliver the ground force or cargo. But really our focus is delivering the ground force to the objective. And then we have an attack variant, we call the DAP. And that is for half support and then for CAS.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  In the little bird community, we have two types of little bird, the MH6, which is packs pure. And then we have the AH6, which is fires pure. And they don't really intertwine as far as a fires guy won't go fly lift and a lift guy won't go fly fires. That is their only job. Like if you're a fires guy, you're a fires guy.

• 24:33Fran Racioppi?

  Even though you're flying the same aircraft.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Same aircraft, different configuration.

• 24:38Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. Which goes back to the precision. Right. You ask about interoperability is a Blackhawk pilot, an assault Blackhawk pilot could fly in an attack platform, but that final, that finishing aspect, they don't train for. So they're not trained to pull the trigger. And now change to our techniques and procedures is a, an attack Blackhawk pilot doesn't do assault work. But they still, everyone have to land. So there's certain level of proficiency that they all have for, if you want to take an attack little bird pilot and land in a dusty HLZ, that absolutely is inside the capabilities. But landing to a rooftop and dropping off the ground force, that's probably not what you're going to do with an attack pilot and vice versa. You're not going to put in an assault pilot, somebody that is in fills and put them on a gun.

• 25:21Fran Racioppi?

  When faced with a challenge, Green Berets adapt, overcome and keep moving forward. Now's your chance to stand with them. Join the 1952 Society with a monthly gift of just $19.52 to provide critical medical devices for wounded, ill and injured Green Berets. Your support fuels their recovery, helping them return to duty or continue serving their communities. A Green Berets mission never stops. Neither should our support. Join the 1952 Society today and stand with those who stand for us.

• 25:53Fran Racioppi?

  We're having a lot of conversations about what's the next fight? And whether that's been in our conversations with the current and former sergeant majors of the army, you know, senior commanders, everybody's kind of on the same page that we don't know where the next fight is. We really don't. And we are, as a big conventional force, discussing things like large scale combat operations. The term WESCO is getting thrown out, but we know, and you know intimately, the risk of terrorism still exists. The counterterrorism fight is still there. And what we're, what I think the army and DOD is trying to do is really, is try to figure out, well, we're going to be employed next.

• 26:37Fran Racioppi?

  And the only way to really do that is train for everything. And so as we talk about the different capabilities, can you talk for a second about what are you looking at in terms of that next fight? And how are you preparing for everything?

• 26:49Speaker 01

  I'll say initially, the regiment has two missions, right? So we can't always look at one adversary because something else might happen that we have to react to fairly quickly. And that's our ownership and we own that. So we have different teams in our regiment that work and give us briefings, if you will, showcase what is going on in the world. But if we were only focused on Fran and Nick came out and did something out of the blue, like we'd be blindsided.

• 27:18Fran Racioppi?

  That could happen.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Correct. So we can't be so, and I, my term naive to think like we are going to do WESCO before we might go do something else for counterterrorism.

• 27:26Fran Racioppi?

  Right.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  So, you know, being able to adapt, being able to understand, being able to comprehend, knowing what's going on in the world. It's a greater responsibility than just WESCO.

• 27:37Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. And I would say that, so we have to look at the fact of denied area penetration and crisis response. You know, those two things, and they both can build upon each other. So modernization efforts to make us rapidly deployable and more lethal and more survivable in that environment will have some translation to a WESCO. And then also WESCO, if you make the aircraft more survivable and a denied area penetration and IADS. So when you're talking about it. Air defense system, us being able to penetrate an air, you know, that I adds platform, you pick the threat, you pick the enemy, those things that will make the aircraft survivable there will also translate to crisis response. So we live in those two spaces. But back to your question of like, how do you see the future for Lisco is what we can do is you highlighted

• 28:21Fran Racioppi?

  it's, we don't know. We don't know what the real next big horizon. But what we're doing for us is how do you make countermeasures for some of the systems that we know are across the world? So building countermeasures to that, being able to extend range. So fly further, fly longer, so crew endurance. And then overall, from our attack platforms is be more lethal. So if we can increase our range, increase our survivability and increase our lethality, we have a major advantage for for any adversary. If it's a counter V A O, it's absolutely, we got a, you know, high marks on that aspect. If you're looking from a Lisco standpoint of an your peer threat systems, they're more capable and to be survivable in that environment, it's going to take a number

• 29:03Fran Racioppi?

  of different modernization efforts to make this war machine that we're sitting in today, little bird and Black Hawk and an MQ one survivable in the next battlefield. And I think we're in alignment where where the army wants to go. How many systems do you put on the aircraft? Do those systems need to be layered with other things? And we're looking at those right now. So that's the space we're living in.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  And the only thing I'll say to that with like, with systems and hanging things on the aircraft, you know what it does? Takes away from the ACL for ground force people like yourself. So we can make this thing weigh 54,000 pounds and I can take nothing to the target. Or we can assume some risk somewhere and take off equipment and then so I can put more ground force on the ground. So the aircraft doesn't care about how much it weigh or what it weighs of. But if you have, you know, the ground force has a plan, I want to support that plan.

• 29:46Fran Racioppi?

  When we look at technology and how technology is coming into the aviation space, I actually had an opportunity to sit down with the former chief security officer at Boeing and have, you know, really detailed conversation about where's aviation going? How's technology advancing aviation? We're seeing prototypes and I don't think they're more advanced in prototypes right now. I think we're seeing unmanned rotary wing Blackhawks are flying with no pilot. How are you thinking about that? And how are you incorporating unmanned vehicles into the regiment? So I'm not an expert there. We have made a major shift from the global war on terror to where we're at now on the Lisko environment. I would tell you man and unmanned teaming is the future. We are looking at that. We're talking about is it a manned or an unmanned aircraft?

• 30:30Fran Racioppi?

  Or is it a selection of can you do manned or unmanned? Is there an aspect of you put Pete and one man platform? And then a bunch of unmanned systems, unmanned helicopters do fly along with it. So Pete is still the overall flight lead. And so we still see that the future flight leads inside the organization is a human will be in the loop. We do think that humans from a 160 standpoint, in the next 10 years, you will still have night stalkers in the mission. What they're surrounded by, their wingmen may be unmanned. And so we think there's an opportunity for the future. But where we sit currently in the next five years, there's not, I don't see many scenarios that we're taking a bunch of night stalkers out of the aircraft and putting that in an unmanned system.

• 31:14Fran Racioppi?

  Let's talk about the culture of the organization. The organization, as we talked about earlier, has really been at the tip of the spear across all of DOD since its inception. These aircraft flew the first teams that went into Afghanistan. And we talked about Alan Mack earlier, a good friend of mine and very close colleague of yours for many years, and really pushed the limits of these aircraft during that time and brought back so many lessons learned over the last 20, 25 years. The organization has also borne its share of loss. Because by definition, this is a high risk activity. And the margin for error, as you mentioned, is quite small.

• 31:56Fran Racioppi?

  Talk about the culture of the organization, what it means to be a night stalker. Define night stalker. And we've also thrown out the term NSDQ night stalkers, don't quit. What's that mean?

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Well, I'll start with the culture first. And as warfighters, trainable, who are lethal, that's what you want. And somebody who has a little bit of grit in the regiment. Adversity, like, don't let a speed bump become a roadblock. Like, understand how to navigate it, how to get around it. There, not everything is going to go right the first time, but you can't make the same mistake three times. Expect to be successful and I think that's just a part of life. The people we have here, the Al Max and because you mentioned them, but those people are, some of those people are still flying our aircraft and training our newest aviators coming in here and the crew chiefs as well. Our standardization instructor, CMSIs, our civilian mission standardization instructors and simulator instructors.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Like they have the legacy of the here's why, the things you don't see in our manuals and everything else of why something is written a certain way. So having that, as he refers to the gray beards in our community still like allow us to understand of why we're doing it a certain way. Which if it's still the right way to do it, but the people is what makes our regiment great. Like there's first and foremost, we can't do it without the people. The, just having the edge to want to compete, to want to win, to want to defeat. Like that's the mindset you have to have while you're here. And you know, to be proud of yourself, whether you showboater or not, like to understand what you did was something that, you know, could it come from the direction of the president? Like that's how important certain things are.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  And you know, whether you're humble or whether you're a showboater, there's a place for that to happen. Obviously a, just a certain place, but it's the people, I'm repeating myself, but it's, it's the people, it's the culture, it's who we are. Our Thor teams, like our strength coaches, our dietitians, our behavioral health, our medics who I've referenced earlier, like all those people make us great. And they all have the common goal and that goal is to win.

• 33:52Fran Racioppi?

  And I take it exactly add on to what Pete's saying is it's a shared purpose. You know, there's that, that statement that, you know, when, uh, when asked the janitor at NASA, what are you here to do? And I'm here to put a man on the moon. What we are here as night stalkers is to get the ground force on the objective and back safely. And that is to protect the ground force, to deliver that ground force plus or minus 30 seconds. That's our creed, plus or minus 30 seconds. We're customer focused, we're customer focused, purpose driven. And it's in our creed is night stalkers don't quit. There's multiple times where you see some of the most complex things that you can go to army aviation. I will tell you, our, our people can solve that. And then secondly, not only the purpose is, it goes back to the same thing that Pete highlights is our people are critical problem solvers from our maintainers.

• 34:36Fran Racioppi?

  To our ASD folks, our ammo handlers, to our commo, to our logistics, they're problem solvers. The comment I said this morning in a previous brief is if you give a night stalker a kite, they would still solve the problem. They'd figure out the ground, take the ground force to the objective with a kite. And I think that's something that makes this aviation organization super efficient, but also purposely driven to be able to solve that. So last night I was talking to my wife about, uh, sitting here and, and Jess said, hey, make sure you highlight the fact that your people, I've watched it, you give them a problem, there is nothing that given them uh, 24 to 48 hours, they're going to be able to solve that. And I think that's something we, we see every single day. In order to get where you're sitting now, you had to make a whole bunch of choices in your life and in your career.

• 35:19Fran Racioppi?

  He talked for a second, each of you about, first of all, why join the army? And then second, why put yourself up for assessment and selection and come to the 160th? You gotta talk first, cause being a, being a baseball player before that, you gotta at least talk the baseball thing, you know, as a professional baseball player before doing this. Significant. No big deal. Yeah, no big deal.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Full disclosure, boarding school kid, recruited to play baseball and football in college. Was a all-American in high school or in college, excuse me, at baseball. I did not play football in college. The draft after my junior year as a pitcher, the Astros, as a pitcher, did that for three years. Frankly hated pitching because I'm an extrovert and at first base, you know, when I was a first baseman, I, in high, in college, excuse me, you're not an umpire, a runner and a first base coach, so I could beat us with the entire game and have a good time. You put me on the mound and I'm miserable because I, not the fact that I can be by myself and everything else, but I was just, that's just who I am. Went back to school after the baseball, finished, got my degree, wanted to go work for the government, thought that'd be something I'd be good at. I felt like I was a fairly confident individual and then was 11 Bravo in the army.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  I lost a bet when I was an EIB grader to go to flight school. And so when I lost that bet, when like, again, I was an EIB grader, the bet was during EIB when I was grading. When EIB was over with, I put in my flight packet and then six months later I was picked up. And then went to Korea, flew 47th in flight school, Korea for a year, assessed from Korea with a guy named Al Mac. He assessed me and then I've been here since 2005 and I wouldn't change anything. I've had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in the regiment, but because of the people on around, they've made it the best of the situation that it could be.

• 36:53Fran Racioppi?

  And I think what I I've asked Pete this many times. So I'll talk Pete before I do that is also Pete to be an expert and want to be on a team. I think that's the highlight that I hear him multiple times. And then naturally, because he's a he is a natural leader, it makes sense to be in the best organization. If you're going to be in aviation, and I think Army Aviation as a whole is a phenomenal culture. Army Aviation is a cult. You can go to any aviation brigade inside the Army and you have tremendous culture. It's a high standards of standards matter in aviation. What I see here is we just have some, you know, some of the best and brightest that we get to bring in. When you get the fact of somebody like Pete that says, hey, if you're going to be in the organization and you're going to be in a top tier organization, naturally he's drawn to lead that and people want to follow Pete. What brought me here is I I came from very humble backgrounds of

• 37:38Fran Racioppi?

  from Western North Carolina. We grew up pretty poor. We had a ton of opportunity. My father served, my stepfather served. I saw a lot of things as a kid growing up. They got out of the military about when I was in fifth grade. Then I saw the community. I saw the friendship. I saw the camaraderie, the brotherhood, sense of belonging. So I think that was rooted in who I was as a young kid growing up. But in North Carolina, there was few opportunities. What I was looking for at the beginning is I was I was very selfish. I was looking for a way to help me get through college and the military offered that. But once I got in, I got hooked. I was hooked immediately from leaders that cared about me, leaders that opened doors, opportunities. It has truly been up until this point, it's been a meritocracy.

• 38:20Fran Racioppi?

  It's been a meritocracy. If you come in, you show up, good attitude, you take care of people, and you have opportunities to lead. I mean, I don't know another formation other than DOD are really being serving your country. Nothing's greater. I can't imagine working on Wall Street, making a ton of money, or working for some hedge fund when it talks about, you know, making money, or working for some small mom and pop thing, or even be an entrepreneur. Nothing compares to serving this nation. I mean, it's the greatest nation in the world. Hear it. Sometimes I think we don't always push it, but I was hooked very early on. But then I got around aviators and had an opportunity to Go aviation and there were some really, really bright, very influential leaders in my, in some of my assignments.

• 39:02Fran Racioppi?

  My first assignment was Honduras. Similar to Pete, as I've only done one other assignment other than 160th, I was in Honduras. During that period of time, I had a night stalker that was a battalion commander. It was very influential and said, hey, Steve, I think the 160 is a place you need to, you need to try out for. And I've never looked back. It has been a blessing for me and my family. It has been opportunities. And I will tell you, the young Steve, my version of myself, when I look back my life, I could have never scripted a more Cinderella story of somebody that grows up in western North Carolina. And then next thing you know, I'm the regiment commander. So I still have moments that I pinch myself and go, wow, I can't believe they picked me. I also have a little bit of, once in a while, I have some inferiority and imposter syndrome where I'm thinking, hey, Pete's going to come in and say, hey, they found out you need to leave.

• 39:46Fran Racioppi?

  But I think I'm almost past that now. But it has been a storybook career getting up to this point. It's not over. We are now at a position as unit leaders. All we can do is give back. And I think that's why we're sitting here today is we're proud of our organization. I think we are the best. And I hope every single person that serves in the, in DOD, I want them to have the same feeling. I want them to go, hey, the 160th is just another unit. Our unit's the best. But I will tell you, as somebody that loves this organization almost as much, Jess would kill me for this, almost as much as my family, because this is my family. So that's it. When you hear the term night stalkers don't quit, what do you think? How do you feel? Well, it makes me proud, obviously, first and foremost, but also with being proud is being the history that I'm trying to live up to for the people who can't now.

• 40:29Fran Racioppi?

  I think it's what early in our starting the organization, when ground forces saw night stalker solving problems and hey, you're just, you're not going to quit. I think the, what I see each and every day is we're trying to live up to that creed, to that motto. And that's a pretty hard motto to live up to is not quitting. And I see young men and women that come to this organization and they, they are brought in very early and they believe in it. They treat, as I highlighted earlier, they treat everything as a no fail. Driving out to range two nine, they set T O Ts. Our maneuver folks in a Hemet set T O Ts. Hey, I will be out there at 1200 and they will be out here at 1200, plus or minus 30 seconds. That mentality of treating everything as a real mission. You know, sometimes we have to tell them that it actually is not a real mission.

• 41:13Fran Racioppi?

  You could be a little bit late because we don't want you to get a speeding ticket. So sometimes we have to do a little bit of coaching of that. But for me, that motto, that's a hard thing to live up to. It's sometimes it's actually not a realistic thing because there are moments where the enemy has a vote. The environment has a vote, but when you live that kind of creed of you're going to treat everything as a no fail. That's a pretty magical place to be. What's next for the organization? So what's next for the organization is we're looking at the next horizon. You already brought up Lisco is how do we become more survivable in the future? How do we show our military leaders, really army leaders? That army aviation is a capable and survivable platform and survivable asset in the next fight. That's a tough thing to do when you're looking at the fact of a number of things.

• 41:56Fran Racioppi?

  It's that shows, you know, kind of drone warfare and the ability for small unmanned systems to be able to to make these airplanes vulnerable. So I think what we have to show is how do we use some of our other secret weapons, which is mission planning? So plan for three levels of contingency. Find places to hide, use terrain, use the cover of darkness and use the cover of bad weather to be able to give us a tactical advantage over our enemy. And that's what we're looking for for the future is how do we become more survivable? How do we become more lethal? And then how do we extend that so we can reach out a little bit further? So we can stay outside of the enemy's reach while we we put together the force and we employ that to be able to deliver the ground force.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  No, I think I think we have to be comfortable when we're uncomfortable. And some of that might be like in the weather over land, over mountain, you know, not being able to see out. But understanding that the aircraft has capabilities that as long as you employ those capabilities correctly, like you will be okay. You'll get the ground force on time, plus or minus 30 seconds.

• 42:52Fran Racioppi?

  Well, I'll tell you that the nation owes this organization a debt of gratitude. We were talking earlier this morning about what the nation has seen, which is a very small fraction of what this organization has done and continues to do. And we've seen the movies, we've seen the books, but it's the stuff never gets talked about that really affects our. National security as a country. And you mentioned that a lot of times what this organization does is when the president says, hey, we're going to go do something. And this is one of the first units out the door to go do that. I'll tell you that on behalf of my team and I, we are not immune to the fact that your entire organization put a lot of effort into bringing us out here today.

• 43:36Fran Racioppi?

  And we couldn't be more grateful. This is an organization that will always eternally be proud to have been in and around to be able to come out here today with you and have this opportunity. There's nothing like it. And it's a once in a lifetime experience that I actually never thought I'd ever do again. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate you welcoming us in and telling us the story because we also know that there's not a whole lot of organizations that have been able to sit across from you and talk about what this regiment does. And then we got a lot more work to do. And so I look forward to this. And it won't. And that's the environment that we live in and it will change. But I know under your leadership, under those who are coming up on you, we got nothing to worry about.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 44:13Fran Racioppi?

  Thank you.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 44:14Fran Racioppi?

  Appreciate it.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Thanks, Fran. Appreciate it.

• 44:19Fran Racioppi?

  American Jedbergs went on to form the foundation of the United States Special Forces and the Special Activities Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Thanks for listening to the Jedburgh Podcast, an official program of the Green Beret Foundation. I'm your creator and host, Fran Rychowi. Join us next week for a new episode on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check us out on YouTube for full episodes, highlights, and other long and short form content. If you like what you heard, give us a like and leave a review. Follow the Jedburgh Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X or Threads. Send your comments and inquiries to [email protected]. As former members of Special Operations Forces, the Jedburgh Media Channel, and the Green Beret Foundation remain committed to supporting all generations of US Army Special Forces and their families.

• 45:03Fran Racioppi?

  Thanks for joining us on this episode. How you prepare today determines success tomorrow.