Delta Force

Delta Force, or formally 1st Special Operations Detachment Delta (Airborne), is a U.S. military counterterrorist unit assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command of the United States Special Operations Command.

Creation

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter sent a letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asking if the U.S. had an antiterrorist capability such as the German GSG-9 unit that had conducted a hostage rescue in Mogadishu, Somalia. Edward "Shy" Meyer, then Army Vice Chief of Staff, convinced GEN Bernard Rogers, then Chief of Staff of the Army, to create such a unit; it was an Army, not joint, initiative. Meyer tasked COL Charlie Beckwith to create a "ranger/shooter" type of unit that would be formally called First Special Operations Detachment Delta (Airborne), or commonly Delta Force, the unit was consciously patterned after British Special Air Service, with whom had served an exchange tour. It also reflected Beckwith's experience with MACV-SOG.

Beckwith, in a 1973 tour with the Joint Casualty Resolution Center, had proposed such a unit to his commander, BG Robert Kingston. In 1975, Kingston had been promoted to commander of the Special Warfare Center, while Beckwith, now a colonel, commanded the Special Warfare School. Kingston responded to inquiries from Meyer with a proposal from Beckwith, which was briefed to various senior officers, some of whom saw the proposed force as competition to the Rangers. He was, however, given the go-ahead in September 1977. While SAS has an advisory and guerilla leadership capability, it is not their primary emphasis.

Mountel, however, had developed a more general-purpose, clandestine operations and special reconnaissance subunit, called BLUE LIGHT, within his command, 5th Special Forces Group. Beckwith saw this as competing, and, when Beckwith made Rogers and Carter aware of it, BLUE LIGHT was cancelled. Mountel wrote,

It [Delta] was more a pastiche of techniques and backgrounds — some borrowed from SAS and some borrowed from the Vietnam across-the-border operations — and all blundered into a macho whole that did not square with what I thought I knew about counter-terror operations in the twentieth century.