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20th Special Forces Group 

Home > Groups > 20th SFGA

The 20th Special Forces Group is an Army National Guard unit based in several states in the eastern region of the country. The Group headquarters is located in Birmingham, Alabama. The three battalion headquarters are located in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The line companies are in states along the east coast and eastern region of the country.


Desert Storm Activation

The first large scale activation of the 20th Special Forces Group took place during the first Gulf War. The unit was mobilized and based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina for training. The 7th Special Forces Group supporrted and validated the training. The war ended quickly and the 20th Group was soon deactivated. Some individual members did particate in the conflict as augmentees to other Special Forces groups or organizations.


Provide Comfort

As many as 50 [1] individuals served as augmentees to the 10th Special Forces Group and deployed to Turkey and northern Iraq during Provide Comfort.


Haiti

20th Group provided several rotations of companies to the operation in Haiti during 1995.


Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)

The 3rd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group deployed a signiificant number of its battalion headquarters to augment the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - Afghansitan (CJSOT-A). At the time the CJSOTF-A was led and manned by the 3rd Special Forces Group. The 3rd Battalion also provided companies to the fight in the early states of OEF.

The 20th Special Forces Group headquarters and support staff was activated in the spring of 2002, trained up at Fort McClellan, Alabama (and elsewhere), and then deployed to Afghanistan to lead and man the CJSOTF-A. It was augmented by several officers and NCOs of 7th Special Forces Group. In addition, the 1st Battalion deployed to K2 in Uzbekistan and basing AOBs and teams throughout northern and eastern Afghanistan. At the same time a battalion of the 19th Group was based at KMTC just north of Kabul to train up the initial battalions of the Afghan National Army. The 2nd Battalion, 7th Group was based at Kandahar. 2nd Battalion 20th Special Forces Group would replace 1st Battalion at K2 in 2003. At this point the entire had deployed to Afghanistan.

The 20th Special Forces Group would continue to deploy its companies and battalions to Afghanistan for almost two decades. In addtion, numerous individuals would serve as augmentees to several different organizations in Afghanistan over the years. The 20th Special Forces Group headquarters and support company was activated in 2011 and deployed to Afghanistan to augment the CJSOTF-A, and CFSOCC-A.


Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF)

Several individual augmentees from the 20th SFGA served with various units in Iraq in the early stages (2003-2004) of the conflict - to incluide the CJSOTF-AP. Eventually almost all of the 20th SFGA battalions and companies would rotate at least one time through Iraq from 2006 to 2011.


Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR)

Several companies and numerous individual augmentees would deploy in support of OIR to Iraq.


SOCCE HOA

For several years the 20th Special Forces Group manned the Special Operations Command and Control Element (SOCCE) Horn of Africa (HOA) located at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti. The manning for the small unit, working for SOCAfrica, was minimal requiring an 06, 05, SGM, and several senior staff officers and NCOs.

 


References

Read about the history of early reserve component Special Forces groups and units.
https://www.specialforceshistory.info/groups/reserve-component-special-forces-groups.html


Footnotes

[1] For the number of personnel augmenting the 10th Special Forces Group during Provide Comfort see page 49 of a paper posted by the U.S. Army War College entitled Reserve Component Special Forces Integration and Employment Models for the Operational Continuum, by LTC Wayne Morgan, USA, 1992. (PDF, 59 pages)
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a251195.pdf

 

 

 


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