[Basenshukai]

Operators and Soldiers:

The term "operator" is rarely used inside of the US Army Special Forces (SF) community. At least, not in a formal sense. In passing, a team member may be referred to as a "true operator", and that may imply that his professionalism is at its peak in every respect, but that is about the extent of where I've heard the term used by other SF Soldiers.

At times, when working with organizations outside of the US Army SF community - like in a joint environment - other service representatives may use the term "operator" (again, informally) as a way to distinguish a Special Forces Soldier from others within the context of an operation. For instance, a US Navy Surface Warfare, or Special Warfare officer may say, "So, you can infil a couple of your operators here, while this squad from the infantry platoon secures this access to the objective ..."

The term, as I have experienced it, has become a sort of verbal short hand for referring to SF Soldiers by some outside of the community. Again, it's not a term that I've seen used by us, referring to ourselves. More commonly I've heard "team guy", or "team mate" used than the term "operator". I've seen the term "operator" more commonly accepted and used within the Naval Special Warfare community than anywhere else. But, it makes sense to me as they are not technically Soldiers - in the Army sense - and the term "commando" is not used much outside of Europe when referring to SOF.

Combat:

Looking at the common operating picture at the macro level, most of SOF is heavily involved in current operations in either offensive or shaping operations designed to fulfill some operational or strategic goal. Both offensive and shaping operations involve a degree of risk relative to the mission, enemy, terrain ,troops available, time available and civilian considerations (METT-TC) influencing the situation.

Let us not forget also the second and third order effects that can result at the diplomatic/political level when operating at the operational, and more commonly for SOF, at the strategic level. As these latter risks increase, they typically tend to increase the restrictiveness of the rules of engagement, and other operational constraints and limitations that, while safeguarding the over-arching goals of the mission, may also place the SOF personnel in situations of increased risk.

As of late 2009, US Army SF shared nearly 78% of all combat losses for all of SOF; not including any losses to special mission units. US Navy SEALs, by comparison, had the remaining 22% share of that tragic statistic. Direct combat employment is relative to the SF Group involved because of assigned areas of responsibilities, but I will not make that analysis here. Because of this, some SF Groups are more at the tip of the "direct combat" spear than others. But, all are involved in the overall effort of current combat operations, whether that'd be offensive or shaping operations.

In the end, if a person is assigned to a US Army Special Forces unit as a qualified SF Soldier, the chances of being involved in direct combat is, in my personal estimation, probably about 80%.