t a small compound inside U.S. MarineCorps Base Quantico in Virginia, inthe shadow of the FBI Academy, fed-

eral law enforcement's most exclusive tac-tical operations team quietly trains.And trains.And trains.And trains.

They're members of the FBI HostageRescue Team (HRT), and they'd rather notsee any reporters, but they quietly acceptthe presence of one as they go about theirbusiness.

Next to a parking lot, a small group fireslive ammunition on a compact outdoorrange, practicing magazine changing drills -over and over.

At the team's Tactical Firearms TrainingCenter (TFTC), where the operators prac-tice close-quarters battle, a row of doors -dozens and dozens of new doors - are stillwrapped in plastic. The doors get kicked,beaten and blown up during training. Andthen more doors are brought in.

"We go through 30 doors a day, easily,"said HRT unit chief Charles Pierce.

The hangarlike facility is dominated byan overhead grid of steel beams with rub-ber- coated walls that slide into differentroom configurations. Cameras and micro-phones are affixed to the grid, and a cat-

2009/February-March/Vol. 10. No. 1 www.TSJOnline.com

TSJ COVER STORY

The quietprofessionals

ABY GINA CAVALLARO

Training the FBI’stactical elite

An FBI Hostage Rescue Team member practices reloading riflemagazines in this scene from a video about the team’straining regimen at Quantico, Va. To see the whole videoonline, go to www.militarytimes.com/multimedia and enter“FBI, agents, military” in the video search field.

- SHEILA VEMMER, TSJ

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walk for observers straddles the maze.During live-fire exercises, lethal frangi-

ble bullets are pulverized when they strikethe rubber facing, which is designed toavoid fragments and ricochets. After aflash-bang grenade is popped, the billowingplume of acrid smoke wafts out throughthe building's gaping side openings.

On the other side of the catwalk, highabove the ground floor across from theclose-quarters battle grid, a mock-up of acommercial jetliner is used for aircraft res-cue training.

Inside, a ghoulish collection of manneq-uins missing chunks of heads, arms andtorsos awaits the next exercise in a half-litcabin that is outfitted with canned audiorecordings of screams, blasts and gunfireand a smoke generator for simulatedchaos. At the far end of the TFTC, a four-story tower with interior and exteriorstairways and an elevator allows operatorsto practice fast roping, hoisting, differentbreaching techniques and hostage rescue.

At the Tactical Helicopter Unit'shangar, a climbing wall is scuffed andworn from so much use, and the aviatorsfly every day.

And then there are the dogs. They'refurry, eager, low maintenance, and they'vebeen on the team for only a month, soeveryone's still learning how to train withthem. One is a 70-pound black Czech shep-herd named Booger who, one operatorsays, "acts like all the new guys." During arecent briefing before a fast-rope trainingexercise, Booger's new-guy status was onfull display when he was singled out forbeing unable to contain his excitement.Sitting on the cold cement in front of thehelicopter amid the legs of two dozen menclad in olive drab tactical gear, Boogertrembled and wept so loudly his handler,Stan, yelled at the dog and then invitedhim to sit at his side in the helicopter'sdoorway. Booger licked Stan, who wipedthe slimy kiss from his mouth and kept ontalking. Booger kept on shaking. For thedog, it's all about the game.

"If you feel like you're throwing themout of the helicopter, you are - and that'sOK. They've done it before," Stan told themen of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team,who were introduced to Booger and hiscounterpart, a Belgian Malinois namedFreddie, in mid-December when theyarrived at the team's compound fresh from their own training at an undisclosedlocation.

The HRT's training calendar nowreflects the presence of the dogs, who livewith their handlers but spend their work-

ing days mingling with the men and theadministrative staff, their new "pack" offriends, at the compound. The addition ofthe dogs has already altered the tenor ofthe team's training sessions as team mem-bers get used to thinking of them as coun-terparts, operators with the same highstandard of training and abili-ty to engage in dangerous activities.

Aside from the possibilityof receiving an unwanted lickon the lips from one of them,the dogs' natural behavioraltendencies and tactical usesare being woven into theoperators' psyche and openingnew possibilities for the teams'performance capabilities.

"Everyone's learning howto add them into everythingwe do," said Freddie's han-dler, Paul, who, like Stan, pre-ferred to keep his full identityconfidential for operationalsecurity reasons. "It's achange everyone's been infavor of, and now we haverequests for training missions from peoplewanting to know how the dogs can beused."

Booger, as the more social of the two,will be tasked primarily with protectiondetail, while Freddie has a more aggressiveoffensive capability, the "bite dog" that canimmobilize a man of any size.

Training will remain the same as italways has, said Paul, and "the goal is to integrate the team completely."

AN EXPANDED MISSIONThe HRT was created in 1983 in response

to a counterterrorism capab-ility gap in fed-eral law enforcement. Specialweapons action teams werestood up 10 years earlier, but inthe early 1980s a wave ofdomestic and international ter-rorist events forced the FBI to go a step further inits capacity to react.

Today the HRT is one of themost coveted assignments inthe FBI and by far the mostdifficult to get because of thehighly discriminating and diffi-cult qualification and selectionprocess.

"There was a recognizedneed in the U.S. government to develop a tactical capabilitythat gave the civilian lawenforcement community acounterterrorist community

comparable to that that exists in the mili-tary," HRT director Steve Fiddler said. "Theselection process is one that identifies anindividual with certain traits that we havedetermined over the years makes a verygood tactical operator."

Hijackings, prison riots, manhunts andright-wing extremist cases domin-ated the

Training & Simulation Journal Feb/Mar 2009 © Army Times Publishing Co.

“RescuingHostages isbut a part of the fullrange of capabilitiesthat we trainand are prepared torespond to.”STEVE FIDDLERFBI HOSTAGE RESCUE TEAMDIRECTOR

team's activities in the years after it wasestablished. In the 25 years that havepassed since the creation of the HRT,Fiddler said, "rescuing hostages is but apart of the full range of capabilities thatwe train and are prepared to respond to."

Many of the team's operators come inwith a military background, but few peo-ple make the cut and fewer still are inter-ested in the HRT's demanding lifestyle, sothe team is chronically understrength,Fiddler said. In 2007, the team launchedits Tactical Recruiting Program (TRP)seeking applicants who could potentiallyqualify based on their military experience.

The requirement to attend the FBIAcademy and work first as a special agentin a field office still applies, but recruitsbrought in through the TRP can try out forthe team earlier - after two years as anagent instead of the usual three.

The team's mission expanded in scopeand importance in the wake of the Sept.11, 2001, attacks on the United States, par-alleling the military's elite special opera-tions teams in the frequency of its deploy-ments and focus, with the subtle differencethat HRT operators are law enforcementagents with responsibility for makingarrests, processing scenes for evidencerecovery and testifying in court, at homeand abroad.

The HRT uses some of the most sophis-ticated law enforcement equipment avail-

able in firearms, technological tools of thetrade, enhanced viewing devices, opticalsighting devices on weapons systems,stand-alone night vision equipment, ther-mal imagery, sophisticated breaching tech-niques and a growing aviation capabilitythat includes the addition of eight BlackHawk helicopters.

In early 2006, the HRT created itsnewest small unit, a mobility team thatdelivers and extracts operators in a varietyof conveyances. Booger and Freddie arejust the newest resources in a tactical tool-box that looks more like the military'sarsenal all the time.

More significant than the tools, however,is the men's uncompromising commitmentto one another and to a year-round trainingschedule that drives their culture of excel-lence. Today, when they work beside theirmilitary counterparts overseas, Pierce said,the coordination is practically seamless.

"Our relationship with [the military] hasalways been strong. Now those relation-ships are at heights that have never beforebeen experienced because of our jointefforts," Pierce said.

Members of the Hostage Rescue Team, including a military work-ing dog, head for a helicopter during a fast-roping exercise.

A YEAR IN THE LIFEIn each day's schedule, Pierce said,

there is a two- to three-hour block forlunch and a workout in the team's gym oron the grounds of the vast military base.But the "bread and butter" training events,according to Pierce, are close-quartersbattle, firearms and sniper training.

"Those are our core skill sets. The otherthings are built around that," he said.

The specialized demands of the tacticaloperator require a higher level of stamina,physical prowess and dedication than thatof an average FBI agent because of the on-call nature of their jobs and the extremeconditions in which they often find them-selves at any given moment. So HRT oper-ators commit themselves to long-termtraining challenges that condition them tosustain missions that can pop up on amoment's notice and last up to 80 days.

"We have to maintain the judgmentrequirements to stay on the edge of tactical decision making for long periodsof time without a reduction in the mentalattitude towards the successful completionof that mission, especially when it's a longduration," Fiddler said.

The team typically works a five-dayweek when they are not deployed andwork through a 120-day training cycle that repeats three times a year, with some minor exceptions. For example,every other week, there is one day allottedfor gear maintenance and discretionarytime to be used by team leaders is builtinto the routine.

The number of men on the team is wellunder 500, though Pierce would not elabo-rate on an exact figure.

The team regularly trains for coldweather and maritime operations, urbanand rural operations, medical emergencies,insertion and extraction with fast ropes,hoists and rappelling.

The team, including the dogs, lives totrain. Members regularly exchange lessonslearned, techniques and training scenarioswith their military counterparts to closelyalign their operating procedures.

"It's all to get us into a position wherewe can accomplish our mission, and we'vegot to be able to do that in any environ-ment," Pierce said.

But unlike the military, whose aircraftare not always in the same location as thetactical operators, the HRT's TacticalHelicopter Unit is literally right out thefront door on a low hilltop and a new rampis being built for the delivery of the BlackHawks.

"The nice thing about it is if all of a sud-den a call comes in and we're put onstandby for a mission in San Francisco fora helicopter insertion, we can walk up thehill and say, 'This has come in and this iswhat we want to work,'" Pierce said.

HRT operators can be called upon to do quick deployments for special missionsor they may schedule 120-day deploymentsoverseas. Other events that require an HRT presence, like this year's massive,multi-event presidential inauguration inWashington, D.C., Pierce said, "are more

obvious."The HRT also participates in at least

one major combined exercise every 12 to18 months that involves a variety of govern-mental entities such as the FBI and thedepartments of Defense, State, Energy andHomeland Security.

Combined exercises can be tailored forspecific scenarios, such as a hijacking,which would involve agencies such as theU.S. Transportation Safety Administrationand the Federal Aviation Administration,Pierce said.

Others also include foreign operatorsand governments, which has engenderedcloser ties and a good return on the invest-ment. "Interoperability with all these agen-cies is much more robust than prior to9/11," Pierce said.

The team travels around the country a few times a year for a variety of schedu-led specialty training, like ice climbing, mar-itime operations, desert environment opera-tions, all of which will now include workingwith the dogs, who have their own tacticalbackpacks and personal wear items, likevests with clips and hooks for hoists anddrops, and cold-weather booties. Booger,Stan told the group during the recent fast-rope exercise, "tends to hold on as he goesdown, he'll try to hang on to the skid."

Not one to disappoint, Booger did, infact, extend his paws toward the aircraft'sframe before descending to the ground on a special tether, then wildly wagged his tailas if to say, "Let's do it again," keeping withthe team's relentless training mantra.

Training & Simulation Journal Feb/Mar 2009 © Army Times Publishing Co.