8th Special Forces Group (United States)

8th Special Forces Group
8th Special Forces Group beret flash
Active	1963–1972
Country	United States of America
Branch	United States Army
Role	Counter-Insurgency training for Latin American armies
Garrison/HQ	Fort Gulick

The 8th Special Forces Group of the United States Army was established in 1963 at Fort Gulick, Panama Canal Zone. The primary mission of the 8th SFG was counter-insurgency training for the armies of Latin America. Some training was performed under the sponsorship of the School of the Americas, also located at Fort Gulick.

Organization

The 8th's full designation was 8TH Special Forces Group (Abn), Special Action Force, Latin America. The 8th was the US Army's only full SAF. In addition to the two line Special Forces companies, the SAF included a Military Intelligence detachment, a Medical detachment, a Military Police detachment, an Engineer detachment, an Army Security Agency detachment, and a Psychological Operations battalion.

Special Forces at this time didn't use designators like "battalion". A Special Forces company (which later became a battalion) was commanded by a Lt. Colonel and was designated as a "C" team. The 8th had 2 "C" teams. Each "C" team had 3 "B" teams and each "B" team had 5 "A" teams. The 8th SAF also operated the NCO Academy, Airborne School and Underwater Operations School for the US Army Southern Command (USARSO) and provided support for the Jungle Warfare School at Fort Sherman, later renamed the Jungle Operations Training Center to be politically correct.

Subordinate units

Company A of the 8th Group was tasked with developing and maintaining a High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) team, Detachment A-13, that was prepared to make covert free-fall entry to denied airspace by jumping from altitudes in excess of 30,000 feet. The team trained at the abandoned airstrip at Rio Hato, Panama, and conducted the first HALO school outside of Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, at Fort Kobbe and Howard Air Force base, Canal Zone, in 1970. The HALO team also had a good-will mission as the "Jumping Ambassadors" and conducted exhibition parachute jumps at carnivals, festivals and other public events throughout Latin America.

Notable operations

A Mobile Training Team from the 8th Special Forces Group trained and advised the Bolivian Ranger Battalion that captured and killed Che Guevara in the fall of 1967.

Prior to that time, Mobile Training Teams from the 8th Special Forces Group trained counter-insurgent units in Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador that killed three of Che Guevara's best friends and Lieutenants that he had personally dispatched to those three nations to foment revolutions.

Mobile training teams from the 8th Special Forces Group also assisted the Venezuelan Army in the construction of their jump school. They trained the first students and the cadre for following classes.

At the U.S. Army Airborne School at Ft Sherman in the U.S. Canal Zone, a team of the 8th Special Forces Group trained Guatemalan airborne personnel.