How Delta Force came up with the grueling final test to select its operators

COL Charlie Beckwith, pictured at right, the founder of the Army's Delta Force wanted men as tough or tougher than the members of Delta's inspiration, the British Special Air Service. That's how he came up with "the Long march," a superhuman ruck march at the end of weeks of grueling training.

When aspiring operators are being screened for selection into Delta Force, a collection of the most elite soldiers in the Army, they have to pass a series of rigorous and challenging tests, including a ruck march that they begin with no announced distance, no announced end time, and no encouragement. If they can complete this grueling ruck march, they will face a selection board and possibly join "The Unit." If they fall short, they go home.

Delta Force was pitched and built to be an American version of Britain's Special Air Service by men like Col. Charles A. Beckwith, a Special Forces leader who had previously served as an exchange officer to the 22 SAS. Originally stood up in 1977, Delta was always focused on counter-terrorism.

Unsurprisingly, Beckwith got the nod to lead the unit he had helped pitch. He looked to the SAS itself for methods to winnow out those who might not be resolute at a key moment in battle, and embraced their stress event: a superhuman ruck march. It wasn't an insane distance, just 74 kilometers — or 40 miles. That's certainly further than most soldiers will ever carry a ruck, but not an eye-watering number.

But SAS candidates conducted this training at the end of what were already-grueling weeks of training. And on the day of the final march, they were woken up early to start it. But the real mind game was not telling the candidates how far they had to go or how far they had already gone. They were just told to ruck march to a set point that could be miles distant. Then, a cadre member at that point would give them a new point, and this would continue until the candidate had marched the full distance.

Beckwith told his superiors that he needed two years to stand up Delta Force, partially because he felt it was necessary to incorporate this and other elements of SAS selection and training into the pipeline, meaning that he would need to recruit hundreds of candidates to get just a few dozen final operators. President Jimmy Carter wanted a new anti-terrorism unit, and senior Army brass were initially loathe to wait two years to give it to him.

According to his book "Delta Force: a memoir by the founder of the military's most secretive special operations," Beckwith had to fight tooth and nail to get enough candidates and time for training, but he still refused to relax the standards. Beckwith successfully argued that, to make a unit as capable or better than the SAS, the Army would have to fill it with men as tough or better.

This couldn't just be men great at shooting or land navigation or even ruck marching. It had to be those people who would keep pushing, even when it was clearly time to quit. To make his argument, he pointed to cases where capable men had failed to take appropriate action because, as Beckwith saw it, their resolve had failed. He pointed to the 1972 Olympics in Munich where great German marksmen failed to take out hostage takers early in the terror attack because they simply didn't pull the trigger.

Beckwith needed guys who could pull the trigger, he knew that the SAS process delivered that, and he didn't want to risk a change from the SAS mold that might leave Delta with people too reluctant to get the job done during a fight. And so, the "Long Walk" was born into Army parlance. This is that final ruck march of selection. It's 40 miles long, it's conducted on the last day of training when candidates are already physically and mentally completely exhausted, and the rucksacks weigh 70 pounds.

Oh, and there is an unpublished time limit of 20 hours. And candidates can't march together, each gets their own points and has to walk them alone. And, like in the SAS version, they don't actually ever know the full course, only their next point. Finally, while the first classes conducted the Long Walk at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, later iterations had to conduct the exercise in the mountains of West Virginia, adding to the pain and exhaustion.

Even men like future Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who came to the course after the existence and general distance of the Long Walk were known, talked about how mentally challenging the uncertainty would be. He lost 15 pounds in the tough training that led to the march, and then he struggled on the actual event.

In his book, "Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom," Boykin says that he was exhausted by the 8-hour mark. Having started before dawn, he would still have to walk deep into the night with his heavy ruck to be successful, praying that every point was his last. But the next point wasn't the last. Nor was the one after that, or the one after that. The cadre assigning the points cannot cheerlead for the candidate, nor can they tell the candidate if they're doing well or if they're marching too fast. Either the candidate pushes themself to extreme physical and mental limits and succeeds without help or encouragement, or they don't.

In Boykin's class of 109, only about 25 people even made it to the Long Walk, and plenty more washed out during that test. Freezing in the weather and exhausted from the weight, terrain, and distance, Boykin did make it to the end of the course. But, interestingly, even completing the prior training and the Long Walk does not guarantee a slot in Delta.

Instead, soldiers still have to pass a selection board, so some people train for months or years, are marched to exhaustion every day for a month during training, have to complete the Long Walk, and then they get turned away by the board, are not admitted, and don't become capital "O" Operators. Delta Force has undoubtedly made America more lethal and more flexible when it comes to missions, but there are strict standards that ensure that only the most fit soldiers can compete in this space. And the Long Walk forces everyone but the most tenacious out.

Article by Logan Nye, from We Are the Mighty

Delta Force commando killed in Syria

The U.S. soldier killed in Syria Friday was taking part in a mission to capture or kill an ISIS leader, U.S. military official confirmed Monday. “Coalition forces, in an advise, assist and accompany capacity with our partners, were conducting a mission to kill or capture a known ISIS member when they were struck by an improvised explosive device,” said Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S. lead anti-ISIS collation. “This operation was part of the Coalition's mission to defeat ISIS, and we remain focused on our mission.”

Master Sgt. Jonathan Dunbar was assigned to Headquarters, U.S. Special Operations Command, which is the designation often used for the Army’s secretive Delta Force. The Pentagon described Dunbar as a “team member,” who had deployed three times in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The force going after the ISIS leader also included British commandos. Sgt. Matt Tonroe, a British soldier who served in the 3rd Battalion of the elite Parachute Regiment, was also killed in the explosion.

Article from the Washington Examiner

Lt. Gen. Bennet Sacolick retires

A rainy day in San Francisco set Bennet Sacolick on course to become an Army general, one of the nation's top special operators and a driving force in the nation's counter-terrorism policy. But after 35 years in uniform, including time in command of Delta Force and the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, Sacolick only recently took time to reflect on that career.

Lt. Gen. Sacolick, most recently the director for strategic operational planning at the National Counterterrorism Center, retired July 1, 2016. His last act in uniform was speaking to a Special Forces graduation in Fayetteville late last month. Now he and his wife, Joyce, have moved back to Fayetteville for a new chapter in their marriage. Sacolick plans to make up for more than two decades of constant deployments by staying in one place and working on the couple's dream home.

It's a marked change of pace for a man who, for the latter half of his career, has been focused on fighting terrorism across the globe. "I started as a private. I'm a three star general. I did something right. But I was a bad husband," Sacolick said.

Even before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Sacolick said he often was deployed nine months out of the year. After 9/11, he was gone for three of the first four years, serving in either Afghanistan or Iraq. "And she never wavered," he said of his wife. "She always adjusted so well. She's been through a lot. Now this is her time."

Passing the baton. In his speech to roughly 100 new Special Forces soldiers at the Crown Arena on June 23, Sacolick said the nation's counter-terrorism mission was now in their hands. He said they would be well-prepared and better positioned to make an impact in the fight than any other force in the world.

Sacolick would know. A Special Forces soldier for the last 30 years, Sacolick spent 15 years with 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, more commonly known as Delta Force, and that unit's higher headquarters, Joint Special Operations Command. He also served as deputy director for defense at the CIA's Counter Terrorism Center.

In his last assignment, at the National Counterterrorism Center, he helped craft the nation's strategy to combat the Islamic State and wrote several executive orders pertaining to terrorism on behalf of the president. Sacolick said the country is winning the fight against terrorism, but the retired general isn't without concern. He worries the nation - and specifically the military - could suffer from "special operations fatigue," and that the nation's elite forces could become the target in future budget cuts. The country can't accept that, he said. "I'm concerned that (the Department of Defense) doesn't embrace us like it should," Sacolick said. "I hope that's not the case."

The concern springs from a characterization of the threats facing the nation. To Sacolick, terrorism is the most significant threat. But military leaders more often place that threat below Russia, North Korea, China and Iran. "I look at the world through a counterterrorism lens," Sacolick said. And from that vantage point, he said he's less concerned about a North Korean nuclear attack and more worried about an "ISIL inspired knucklehead grabbing an AK-47 at Cross Creek Mall."

The FBI is "really good at keeping America safe at home," he said. But it's the role of special operations to combat terror where it grows, on every corner of the globe. "The threat is as complex and challenging as it's ever been," he said, citing a 10-fold increase in global terrorism in the last decade. "The sky is not falling, but I'm concerned," he said. "The world is more complex, more confrontational and more volatile than it's ever been. But that's the job of special operations - adapt and defeat."

'Accidental General'. Looking back on his career, Sacolick said he was proud of his efforts in helping the nation fight terrorism. But he said his most important responsibility in recent years has been building a new generation of leaders. "It's pretty rewarding," he said. "If there's a legacy, it's the people who worked for you, who you've influenced in some positive way."

Sacolick is quick to thank those who helped him, the former commanders, deputies and brothers in arms. But he'll also readily admit that luck helped propel him through the ranks. If he ever wrote a memoir, he said, it would likely be titled "The Accidental General." That's because there's one area of military service where Sacolick has a horrible record: getting the job he wanted. "Throughout my career, I never got the job I wanted," he said. "I always got a better job."

That luck began Dec. 8, 1980, the day a soaking wet Sacolick was sprinting from business to business in downtown San Francisco. Sacolick was in graduate school, studying to become an actuary. But the tall and lanky young man running through the downpour that day didn't feel good about that decision. "I was frustrated," he said. "I kind of kept waiting for something else."

He found that "something else'' as he ducked into buildings in a futile attempt to keep his suit from being soaked. In a recruiter's office, he came face-to-face with a poster of a soldier holding an alligator. "Go Ranger," the poster read. "I wasn't even sure what a Ranger was, but this San Francisco-based recruiter, whose annual quota was probably only one or two people a year, told me that the Rangers are stationed in Seattle, which sounded great," Sacolick said.

Until that point, Sacolick said he had never considered military service, but within a few months, he was a 25-year-old private in basic training. His first assignment came with the 2nd Ranger Battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington. There, he was selected to attend Officer Candidate School, and, once commissioned in 1982, moved to Italy to serve with the 509th Airborne Battalion Combat Team.

Sacolick's next assignment was the captain's career course, but the young officer was committed to leaving the service and returning to school. Instead, he met Fayetteville native Ed Reeder, another man destined to become an Army general. Sacolick may have been thinking of going back to school, but Reeder was dreaming of joining Special Forces.

Last year, Reeder retired as an Army major general, having most recently led NATO special operations in Afghanistan. But as a young officer, Reeder proved to be one of Special Forces' greatest recruiters as he convinced Sacolick to join him amid promises of language school, scuba school and action overseas. Soon, the two friends were serving together in South America with the 7th Special Forces Group.

Sacolick deployed with an Operational Detachment-Alpha, or A-team, to support counter narcotics missions in Peru, Colombia and El Salvador. But more importantly, he found what makes Special Forces so special. "There was not one special thing about us, but together as a 12-man team we did the most amazing things," Sacolick said.

Invasion changes plans. Sacolick was serving in Panama with 7th Group when his career was next shaped by happenstance. At the time, he wanted to join the Foreign Area Officer program, becoming a defense attache in Colombia and attending graduate school at UCLA en route.

In the days leading up to Operation Just Cause, he learned he was accepted into the program and mailed his acceptance letter and matriculation fee. But the American invasion of Panama would change those plans. "My battalion was already there," Sacolick said. "We weren't the invaders, we were kind of the invadees."

In the chaos, he said the Green Berets found themselves caught between opposing American forces, Army on one side and Marines on the other, who "fired up anything that moved." "It felt like all of Panama City was on fire - buildings were burning all over the place," he said.

Sacolick later realized that one of those buildings was the post office, which went up in smoke along with the paperwork for his new position. So instead of heading back to school, Sacolick moved back to Fort Bragg. He thought he would teach at the school where he would later command, the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. But that, too, wasn't meant to be.

Two nights after reporting to Fort Bragg, an officer Sacolick had never heard of called him with a job offer. The next day, Sacolick had a job interview in the officer's Fayetteville home. "I didn't know what I was interviewing for," he recalled. But within a week, Sacolick had joined what is arguably the most secretive organization in the Army.

Delta Force and Mogadishu. As assistant operations officer for Delta Force, Sacolick was the elite organization's most junior officer. But he wouldn't stay that way. Over 15 years, Sacolick rose through the ranks, eventually serving as the commanding officer and a task force commander leading the organization in Iraq.

In between, Sacolick deployed with the unit as part of Operation Desert Storm, where it was charged with hunting down Saddam Hussein's scud missiles, and to Somalia, where he helped plan the mission that led to the famed Battle of Mogadishu.

The events of that battle, depicted in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down," are now the stuff of Army legend. And on that Oct. 3, 1993, mission, Sacolick - who was promoted to major in Somalia - was to be the ground force commander. But days before the mission, Sacolick was called back to the United States. His father had died, Sacolick said. And it wouldn't be until days after the ill-fated mission that Sacolick would return to embrace his colleagues. "It was an exceptional group of people," Sacolick said. "I believe Delta enjoys such a great reputation because of its focus on character. It's not about shooting, it's all about building and maintaining good character."

In the 1990s, Delta Force underwent a transformation of sorts, Sacolick said, all aimed at preventing another "Black Hawk Down." The Battle of Mogadishu, "revolutionized how we did business," he said. Operators received better equipment, better body armor, and developed new tactics aimed at ensuring the force would never again be overwhelmed. "Something like that can destroy you," Sacolick said. "It made us better."

At the same time, the nation had an aversion to using the force after Somalia, he said. Leaders preferred to keep boots off the ground, relying instead on airstrikes. But if the Battle of Mogadishu helped propel special operations forward in the 1990s, it was the Sept. 11 attacks that has defined it ever since.

Sacolick was chief of current operations for Joint Special Operations Command when the attacks occurred. At the time, he was flying into Bosnia as part of a training exercise with other special operators. The men weren't sure at first if the news of the attack on the Twin Towers was part of the training scenario. The exercise was soon canceled, and Sacolick and his men waited for what would come next. "We all just sat there, kind of numb," he said. "We were all thinking worst case."

Afghanistan and terrorism. Like it did for many soldiers, Sept. 11 proved to be career defining for Sacolick. And it all started, Sacolick said, about a month after the attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington. "By mid-October, we were gone," Sacolick recalled. At first, the soldiers deployed to Qatar, he said. From there, they pushed into southern Afghanistan. At the time, no one was thinking the war in Afghanistan would become the nation's longest, or that special operations forces would carry so much of the load. "We had that mind-set that we'd go in, transition to conventional operations and pull out," Sacolick said.

That wasn't to be the case, but Sacolick did return home in January 2002, not of his own accord, but because of a battle with Hodgkin's disease. Before falling ill, he believed he would be the next Delta Force commander. The cancer could have derailed Sacolick's career. "I kind of thought that was it," he said. But instead of giving up, he fought. After surgery, Sacolick underwent seven months of chemotherapy.

Most of 2002 is a blur, he said, but by the end of it, Sacolick was again healthy and cleared by doctors to command a month before the Army was set to make its decision. In 2003, Sacolick was preparing to take command of Delta, but first had to report to the Army's War College. He planned to attend the year-long course before returning to Fort Bragg to assume command.

But as they often did in Sacolick's career, plans changed again. "It was a shock," he said. "I was there 10 days before I was called back to Fort Bragg." As Delta Force leaders were planning their part of the Iraq invasion, the then commander suffered an aneurysm, Sacolick said. Army leaders gave him 30 days to assume command and lead the organization into war. "It was like a whirlwind" he said. "I inherited an organization in combat. I moved back in and, a month later, I'm in Baghdad."

That was April 2003, Sacolick said. But it also would be the beginning of yet another transformation for the unit. Delta, and JSOC as a whole, perfected its mission in Iraq, Sacolick said, moving away from "tracking people by moving pins on a map," to using unmanned aerial vehicles, like the MQ-1 Predator, to help "find, fix and finish."

"I like to believe that the things (Joint Special Operations Command) does so well started right there," Sacolick said.

Article from The Fayetteville Observer

MSG Joshua Wheeler - Secretary Carter say's 'Combat' death does not mean 'combat role'

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said it was hard to describe in detail what happened in the moments leading up to the Thursday death of Army Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, the first American killed in action in Iraq since 2011.

"This is combat, things are complicated," Carter told reporters Friday, while declining to offer a full account of the fatal commando raid involving dozens of U.S. special operations soldiers targeting an Islamic State detention center in Iraq. "Combat" is a term that Carter and many military officials have studiously avoided using over the past few months in an effort to comport with President Obama's vow to keep U.S. troops out of combat in Iraq.

But Wheeler's death this week from a gunshot wound in a firefight against hostile enemy forces is fueling new questions about whether U.S. military operations in Iraq have quietly expanded into a combat mission.

Carter on Friday took pains to explain how Wheeler's death does not mean that the entire force of 3,500 U.S. troops in Iraq is involved in a combat mission. "It doesn't represent us assuming a combat role," Carter said at the press briefing at the Pentagon. "It represents a continuation of our advise-and-assist mission." "We do not have combat formations there, the way we did once upon a time in Iraq," he said.

SFA Commo Sergeant Comment: Throughout Special Forces social media sites, the vast majority of participating former, retired and active duty Special Forces soldiers see the US Government response and comments on MSG Wheeler's death being "not combat, but combat support" as diminishing Wheeler's sacrifice and a belitlement of the risks of the larger Special Forces contribution as advisors.

In the case of Wheeler, Carter said initial plans for the raid did not call for putting U.S. troops into a direct combat situation, even though dozens of U.S. troops had joined with Kurdish fighters in several helicopters to head to the Islamic State prison compound. "As the compound was being stormed, the plan was not for the U.S. advise-and-assist and accompanying forces to enter the compound or be involved in the firefight," Carter said.

"However, when a firefight ensued, this American did what I'm very proud that Americans do in that situation — he ran to the sound of the guns and he stood up," Carter said. "All indications are it was his actions and that of one of his teammates that protected those who were involved in breaching the compound and made the mission successful." "Again, it wasn't part of the plan, but it was something that he did," he said. "And I'm immensely proud that he did that."

On Friday, the commander of U.S. military operations in Iraq issued a rare statement directly rejecting any suggestion of mission creep. "U.S. forces are not in Iraq on a combat mission and do not have 'boots on the ground,'" said Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, head of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve. "It is important to realize that U.S. military support to this Iraqi rescue operation is part of our overarching counterterrorism efforts throughout the region and does not represent a change in our policy," MacFarland said.

Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey said parsing the terminology used to describe the U.S. role in Iraq is not helpful. "We have thousands of forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan," McCaffrey said. "We're conducting active air combat operations throughout Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. We have huge CIA involvement to include with paramilitary forces in Jordan and elsewhere. And we have Congress and the White House both playing political, arcane games with each other over the description of what these forces are doing." "It makes no sense," he said.

McCaffrey applauded the troops who successfully executed the raid, saying the U.S. should view the prison raid as a "one-off operation of great complexity and success."

Wheeler was among dozens of special operations soldiers who joined Kurdish peshmerga fighters in the raid Thursday morning, which freed about 70 Iraqis who were imprisoned by Islamic State group militants and faced imminent execution, defense officials said.

Wheeler, who joined the Army in 1995, was assigned to Headquarters, U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He is the first American service member killed in action by enemy fire while fighting Islamic State militants.

An Oklahoma native, Wheeler served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, deploying three times to support combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, before being assigned to Army Special Operations Command headquarters. He deployed 11 times after that to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to information released by the Army.

Even as the debate swirls over the role of U.S. troops in Iraq, top officials still believe the advise-and-assist concept remains viable, and that putting U.S. troops alongside Iraqis and other foreign forces improves their capability.

"My experience, plus my reading of history through other operations is that the indigenous force or the force you are advising typically performs better when advisers accompany them out into various operations," Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said in a interview with Army Times in early October. "On the other hand, you've got to weigh the complexity of the situation and the risk associated to the force, and there are judgment calls," Milley said.

"The question leaders must ask is whether the risk of advisers going forward is worth the benefits of improved performance in Iraqi troops," he said. "Those are tough questions, and those are judgment calls, and they involve people's lives."

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales dismissed arguments that the U.S. is stepping up its combat role in Iraq, saying this week's raid was a "dramatic exercise" of the military's ongoing counterterrorism operations ongoing in Iraq. "There's nothing strategically 'out of the paint' with this," Scales said. "It's unrelated to the advise-and-assist mission. To suggest that somehow this is an escalation of American involvement is simply not true."

Article from Military Times

Lt Gen James Vaught, Who Led Iran Hostage Mission, Dies at 86

Lt. Gen. James B. Vaught, the commander of the Carter administration’s disastrous April 1980 mission aimed at freeing more than 50 American hostages held in Iran, died Sept. 20, 2013 in Conway, S.C. He was 86. This is an article from the New York Times, By Richard Goldstein.

Wreckage in the Iranian desert from the disastrous raid to free American hostages in April 1980. General Vaught’s body was found in a pond in Conway, near his home in Myrtle Beach. He drowned, evidently after falling out of his small boat, and an autopsy also revealed signs of cardiac disease, a coroner, Robert Edge, told The Associated Press.

General Vaught, a combat veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars and a graduate of the Army’s commando-style Ranger school, was chosen to oversee an unconventional, risky and complex operation to rescue hostages taken by Islamic militants who overran the American Embassy in Tehran in November 1979.

Some 90 commandos from the Army’s Delta Force, who were transported in Air Force planes, and Marines flying eight Navy helicopters from an aircraft carrier were to rendezvous at night in the Iranian desert. The helicopters were to fly the Delta Force troops to a site near Tehran, where they were to be transferred to trucks the following night, sneak into the Iranian capital, extract the hostages from the Embassy and bring them out of Iran aboard the choppers.

General Vaught, who had overseen the training for the mission, was at a base in Egypt to monitor the raid. Commanders from the Army, Air Force and Marines were at the rendezvous site.

The mission, designated Operation Eagle Claw, was months in the planning and had been approved by President Jimmy Carter and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the raiders never got close to Tehran.

Mechanical and communications failures and an unforeseen sandstorm put three of the eight helicopters out of action, leaving one fewer than the minimum of six needed to fly the Army commandos from the desert to the Tehran area. That caused Mr. Carter to call off the operation. Then one of the helicopters preparing to depart crashed into a parked Air Force transport plane, causing an explosion and fireball that killed eight servicemen.

Mr. Carter took responsibility for the mission’s failure. A report by a Pentagon commission listed numerous problems in the planning and execution of the mission and cited a lack of sufficient coordination among the service branches, though it did not assign blame to General Vaught or the commanders under him.

Ronald Reagan made the failed mission an issue in defeating Mr. Carter in his bid for a second term. The hostages were not released until the day Mr. Reagan was inaugurated, 444 days after they were taken captive.

In an interview with Newsday in 2005, General Vaught touched on inter-service rivalry. He said he had sought to inspect the Navy helicopters while they were being prepared for the mission aboard the aircraft carrier Nimitz, but was turned down by the Joint Chiefs.

“I was told it was the Navy’s job, and it was perfectly capable of preparing and repairing them,” he said. “I had no authority except over the Army guys.”

James Benjamin Vaught was born in Conway on Nov. 3, 1926.

“I am a direct lineal descendant of Francis Marion,” he told the Conway-area news site Grand Strand Daily.com in 2011, referring to the South Carolina militia commander known as the Swamp Fox for waging guerrilla war against the British in the Revolutionary War. “Some of those unconventional warfare genes carried through the years.”

He attended the Citadel in Charleston, S.C., for three semesters before being drafted into the Army and obtaining a lieutenant’s commission. He served in the post-World War II occupation of Germany, was an infantry company commander in the Korean War and a battalion commander of helicopter-borne troops in the Vietnam War, taking part in the liberation of Hue and the relief of Marines who were besieged at their Khe Sanh outpost.

General Vaught held a senior administrative post at the Pentagon when he was assigned by the Army chief of staff, Gen. Edward C. Meyer, to command the Iran rescue operation. Sixteen months after the failed raid, he was promoted from major general to lieutenant general and became commander of American and Korean troops in South Korea. In announcing the appointment, General Meyer called General Vaught “a very confident, very capable general who has been a superb troop leader.”

General Vaught retired from the military in 1983.

He is survived by his wife, Florence; his daughter, Cathryn Vaught; his sons James Jr. and Stephen; a brother, John; a sister, Vina Floyd; his stepdaughters Marian Davis and Lee Glasgow Watson; four grandchildren, three step grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

General Vaught was quoted by The Washington Post on the 25th anniversary of the aborted raid as having been devastated by the feeling he had “let the country down and left the hostages there.” But he called the mission a “successful failure” since it used technology, including satellite communications and night-vision goggles, that proved valuable in future operations.

The fragmented command structure exposed by that failed raid also led to the creation of a multiservice Special Operations Command that included an elite Navy unit focusing on counterterrorism. Thirty-one years after the botched hostage-rescue mission, the men from that unit, SEAL Team 6, killed Osama bin Laden.