tip of the spear june 2013 - arooji edit
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T i p o f t h e S p e a r
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Air Force Tech. Sgt. Heather Kelly
Staff Writer/Photographer
Air Force Tech. Sgt. Angelita Lawrence
Staff Writer/Photographer
This is a U.S. Special Operations Command publication. Contents are not
necessarily the official views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. Government,
Department of Defense or USSOCOM. The content is edited, prepared and
provided by the USSOCOM Public Affairs Office, 7701 Tampa Point Blvd.,
MacDill AFB, Fla., 33621, phone (813) 826-4600, DSN 299-4600. An
electronic copy can be found at www.socom.mil. E-mail the editor via
unclassified network at [email protected]. The editor of the Tip of
the Spear reserves the right to edit all copy presented for publication.
Army Col. Tim Nye
Public Affairs Director
Mike Bottoms
Managing Editor
Tip of the SpearTip of the Spear
(Cover) Retired Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Fred Aroojis stands sihlouetted in front of an MH-47. Arooji received U.S.
Special Operations Commands highest honor when he was awarded the 2012 Bull Simons Award in Tampa, Fla., May 15.
This lifetime achievement award, named for Army Col. Arthur Bull Simons, honors the spirit, values, and skills of the
unconventional warrior. Courtesy photo.
Adm. William H. McRaven
Commander, USSOCOM
CSM Chris Faris
Command Sergeant Major
Marine Corps Master Sgt. F. B. Zimmerman
Staff NCOIC, Command Information
Air Force Master Sgt. Larry W. Carpenter, Jr.
Staff Writer/Photographer
Arooji receives Bull
Simons Award ... 16
Arooji receives Bull
Simons Award ... 16
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T i p o f t h e S p e a r
By Mike Bottoms
USSOCOM Public Affairs
Special Ops guys come in all shapes and sizes.
When you look at Fred Arooji, you think you are
looking at a kindly grandfather. Standing about 5 feet 6
inches, weighing maybe 160 pounds and sporting gray
hair that has long resided on his scalp.
Arooji is all that, but he is also a guy who entered
Iran ahead of an American hostage rescue attempt in
April 1980, survived on his own for two weeks after the
mission was aborted, escaping only by his wits. A guy,
Retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Fred Arooji
(center) sits with his teammates in Iraq. Arooji
was selected as this years Bull Simons Award
recipient for his more than 30 years of
contributions to Special Operations. The Bull
Simons Award is USSOCOMs lifetime
achievement award, named for Army Col.
Arthur Bull Simons, honoring the spirit ,
values, and skills of the unconventional
warrior. Courtesy photo.
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who would become a Special Ops pilot, help pioneer
night vision goggle technology, and fly hundreds of
Special Operations missions during his more than 30years in Special Operations.
The hostage rescue mission in Iran became known
as Operation Eagle Claw and the mission planners
would have to bring in unique talent from throughout
the Department of Defense. One skill they were looking
for was Farsi language speakers.
Shortly after the embassy in Iran had been overrun
by so-called students, and at that point some 60
Americans were being held hostage, we quickly found
the need to have some Farsi speakers or Iranian
Americans, retired Army Lt. Col. Bucky Burruss, anEagle Claw participant, said. We searched DoD and
one of the ones we interviewed was a young Airman
named Fred Arooji and pretty quickly we recognized
that he was someone special.
Born in Iran, Arooji immigrated to America as a
child and enlisted in the Air Force in 1971. He served as
an avionics mechanic for RF 4 Phantom jets when the
call came out for Farsi language speakers. Intrigued,
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Arooji went through the interview process not knowing
the reason DoD was looking for Farsi speakers. Making
it through the interview process, Arooji was selected for
Eagle Claw.
I went through all kinds of training, and months
later General James Vaught (overall Eagle Claw mission
commander) called me in his office and asked me Areyou ready to travel? Arooji said. I said yes and he
said OK son, go and get your tickets to Tehran.
It was decided that we needed to send in an
advance party to do last minute reconnaissance and
Fred, as a native Iranian, had the tongue, had the eyes,
the ears, and had the sense of things happening in Iran,
so we asked him to be part of the advanced party,
retired Army Capt. Wade Ishimoto and Eagle Claw
planner said.
Vaught would be the overall commander, but the
commander on the ground would be Special Operations
legend Army Col. Charles Beckwith. Aroojis first
meeting with Beckwith was testy.
I was with Captain Bucky Burruss one day and
Colonel Beckwith walks in the room, big guy, huge, he
had a real raspy voice, Arooji said. He looked at me
and said That beard, that looks good, dont shave that
beard.
Colonel Beckwith turned to walk away, stopped
and looked at me and said Ill tell you what son, while
youre here, you keep your mouth shut, you
understand? I said yes I do. He looked at me again and
said No, you dont understand, this is my country, I
love my country, and I am not going to let any son-of-a-
bitch destroy it, so you keep your damn mouth shutwhile you are here and if I ever find out you are talking
too much Ill put you in a jail, or you will never see the
sun again.
Arooji continued, I stepped two or three feet
toward Colonel Beckwith, I looked him straight in the
eye and told him, sir, you know what the difference is
between you and me? He said What is it? I said, thedifference is you were lucky, you were born in this
country as an American, I earned mine and I love it just
as much as you do. He looked at me and said, Well
see, and turned and walked away. I thought I was going
to faint. Bucky turns to me and says Hey Freddy, he
really likes you.
Later that day, according to Arooji, Beckwith would
approach him in the chow hall and give him a big hug
and tell him You know what, you are a true American.
Arooji joined another Special Operations legend,
Army Maj. Dick Meadows, for the reconnaissance
mission in Iran ahead of Eagle Claw and where theyencountered significant challenges for which Aroojis
ingenuity would prove to be invaluable.
The mission was supposed to occur on the night of
April 24th and 25th, 1980. That particular day, the 24th
of April, Dick Meadows and Fred went by the
warehouse where the vehicles were stored and Fred
detected that a ditch had been dug across the driveway.
That was significant and there was no way those
Fred Arooji holding a stick of dynamite early in his career.
Courtesy photo.
Fred Arooji finishing a parachute jump. Courtesy photo.
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vehicles could be driven out, Ishimoto said.
I said, man what are we going to do? and about
10 or 15 feet away there were kids playing soccer, so I
said to Dick we need to give these kids a basket of
oranges and I then asked them to help me move some
concrete chunks into the ditch and they did, Arooji
said.
The ditch repaired, Meadows and Arooji waited for
the rescue mission to unfold. Unfortunately, the hostage
rescue mission was aborted when a helicopter collided
with a C-130 killing eight servicemen at the Iranian
staging area known as Desert One.
After it was detected, that in fact an attempt was
made, the media splashed that there were Americans of
Iranian descent involved with the mission this put
Fred under great danger, Ishimoto said.
We had no idea what took place. I dropped Dick
off at his hotel and I got back to my hotel and I turned
the TV on and I see they are carrying the bodies of the
individuals that got burned and the crash site burning,so I am in deep trouble at this point, Arooji said.
Arooji then went back to Meadows hotel and
took him to the airport.
We had a Mercedes someone had bought us,
so Dick told me, Take the Mercedes and head
to the Turkish border and well contact you
there, Arooji said. Well as it turned out, the
keys to the Mercedes were in the pocket of
another gentleman and he was on his flight
home. The only way in and out of Iran now was
through Tehran.
We had no contact with him after the mission wasaborted, Ishimoto said. I frankly thought I would
never see Fred Arooji alive again.
Arooji would spend a harrowing two weeks under
the constant pressure of being caught before he safely
made his way back to the United States.
When Fred got back he was still an Airman in the
United States Air Force, said retired Gen. Richard
Cody, former vice
chief of staff of the
U.S. Army and
commander of the
160th SpecialOperations Aviation
Regiment. When he
got back to the United
States President
Carter wanted to meet
him, and at that meeting President Carter said, Young
man, I believe I have just met one of the bravest of
young men in uniform.
After
I had received my awardfor the mission, President Carter asked me
what my wishes were and I said I wanted to be a
military pilot, Arooji said.
Vaught would work to ask the Air Force to grant
Arooji an inter-service transfer to the Army where he
would become a Special Operations helicopter and
fixed-winged pilot. Time would prove he was a natural
and born to fly.
Fred is the only
one in the world to go
from flight school to a
special mission unit,stay 24 years and
serve with
distinction said
retired Chief Warrant
Officer 5 Ned Hubard, fellow Special Operations
aviator. Hes a legend, shoes that will never be filled
again, a perfect safety record, never aborted a mission,
he is to be admired.
We had no contact with him after the mission was
aborted. I frankly thought I would never see Fred
Arooji alive again.
Retired Army Capt. Wade Ishimoto
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Arooji and his colleagues in the special mission unit
were assigned to test and teach the use of night vision
goggles to the big Army.
If you think about the 1980s and the type of the
night vision devices we had back then, you were pretty
much going from
20/20 vision to
about 20/200, saidCody. He was one
of the pioneers
working out
approaches to
buildings at night,
flying low-level
missions for hours
at a time under
these conditions.
Cody pointed
out one particular
mission during theIraqi war where night vision goggle technology and
Aroojis mastery of it saved a special mission unit.
During the height of the Iraq war, there was a unit
getting overrun, they couldnt get anyone there to pick
them up, there was no real landing zone, but there was
a small dirt road. Fred heard the call, turned around and
said, Ill take the mission and actually landed a rather
large fixed-wing aircraft on the road, picked these guys
up and got them out of there - all under night vision
systems, Cody said.
Fred helped develop tactics, techniques and
procedures for the entire Army and that is part of his
legacy he can be very proud of, said retired Army Maj.
Gen. Eldon Bargewell, a 2010 Bull Simons Award
recipient. Fred is
not this 6-foot-5,
250 pound guy thateverybody looks at
and thinks that is
a bad guy, but he
is in the sense the
way I say it he is
a bad guy, he can
do a lot of things
with a helicopter
and with a fixed-
wing aircraft that I
have never seen
anyone do beforeand that to me epitomizes a Special Operator.
Reflecting on his career and what makes a Special
Operator, Arooji summed it up.
The strongest part of your body has to be your
heart. It puts my heart in a different dimension to know
all the years of my military service I served with the
best, Arooji said. We dont look for pats on the back,
we dont live for what we did 15 or 20 years ago; we
live for how well we accomplish the mission today.
Fred is not this 6-foot-5, 250 pound guy thateverybody looks at and thinks that is a bad guy, but
he is in the sense the way I say it he is a bad guy,
he can do a lot of things with a helicopter and with a
fixed-wing aircraft that I have never seen anyone do
before and that to me epitomizes a Special
Operator.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell
Retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Fred Arooji (5th from left) poses with his family after receiving the Bull Simons Award May 15.
Photo by Tech. Sgt. Angelita Lawrence.
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By Mike Bottoms
USSOCOM Public Affairs
USSOCOM presented its highest honor, the BullSimons Award, to retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Fred
Arooji on May 15. The Bull Simons Award was first
awarded in 1990 and has since become an annual tradition.
The award recognizes recipients who embody the true
spirit, values, and skills of a Special Operations warrior.
Col. Arthur Bull Simons, whom the award is named
after, is the epitome of these attributes.
A career Soldier, Simons led Special Operations in
World War II and Vietnam. Born in New York City in
1918, Simons graduated from the University of Missouri in
1941 with a degree in journalism and served in the Pacific
theater in World War II. He rose to company commanderin the 6th Ranger Battalion and participated in several
amphibious landings in the Philippines. On one noteworthy
occasion, he and his men scaled a steep oceanside cliff
under cover of darkness and overwhelmed a garrison of
Japanese soldiers at the Suluan lighthouse.
Simons left the Army after World War II but returned
to duty in 1951. He completed the Special Forces Officers
Qualification Course in 1958
and took command of a
detachment in the 77th SF
Group (Airborne). From 1961
to 1962, as head of the White
Star Mobile Training Team, he
served as the senior military
advisor to the Royal Lao
Army. His familiarity with the
region would prove useful a
few years later.
In 1965, Simons returned
to Southeast Asia as a member
of Military Assistance
Command Vietnams Studies
and Observations Group.
Serving under then Col.
Donald Blackburn, Simons commanded OP-35, one ofthree operational directorates within SOG. For
approximately two years, he led OP-35 on an interdiction
campaign against the North Vietnamese Army along the
Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia. OP-35
interdicted the trail by inserting hatchet teams and
reconnaissance teams. The hatchet teams, composed of
Nung or Montagnard tribesmen led by a Special Forces
noncommissioned officer, conducted hit-and-run raids
against NVA units. The recon teams ran
long range patrols scouting the trail
but also snatched prisoners
when the opportunity arose.Simons left Vietnam in
1966, but he returned four
years later as the Deputy
Commander of Joint
Contingency Task Group
Ivory Coast the Son Tay
Raiders. The task force, commanded
by Air Force Brig. Gen. Leroy Manor, was formed in the
spring of 1970 after American intelligence had identified
Son Tay Prison, near Hanoi, as a prisoner of war detention
camp. After six months of planning and rehearsals, the task
force deployed to Thailand Nov. 18.
Two nights later, the task force flew into North
Vietnam. The assault group, led by Capt. Dick Meadows,
landed in the prison compound and killed approximately
50 NVA guards, but found the compound to be otherwise
abandoned. Meanwhile, Simons had landed with the
support group in an adjacent school compound, which was
teeming with Russian and Chinese soldiers. Simons and
his team killed or repelled
hundreds of these soldiers,
eliminating the principal
threat to the assault group.
The raiders executed theentire operation in 28
minutes, successfully faced an
enemy force of approximately
350 men, and left with only
two injuries. Although the
raid at Son Tay failed to
accomplish its principal
objective, it sent a clear
message to North Vietnam,
and the treatment of American
prisoners improved somewhat
thereafter. Simons retired from the Army in 1971, but hewas to conduct one more special mission. In 1979, Mr. H.
Ross Perot asked Simons to rescue two of his employees;
the Iranian revolutionary regime was holding them in a
Tehran prison and was demanding a $13 million ransom.
In April of that year, Simons led a civilian rescue party
into Iran and safely extracted the American hostages. Just
one month later, Simons suffered a massive heart attack
and died.
Previous Bull Simons Award recipients are: Mr.
H. Ross Perot, Army Gen. Edward Shy Meyer, The
Honorable John Marsh Jr., Army Col. Aaron Bank,
Army Lt. Gen. Samuel Wilson, Air Force Lt. Gen.
Leroy Manor, the Honorable Sam Nunn, theHonorable William Cohen, Army Gen. James
Lindsay, Air Force Maj. Gen. John Alison, Army
Col. Charlie Beckwith, Air Force Brig Gen. Harry
Heinie Aderholdt, Army Command Sgt. Maj.
Ernest Tabata, Army Maj. Gen. Richard Scholtes,
Army Maj. Richard Dick Meadows, Air Force Col.
John Carney, Army Maj. Caesar Civitella, Army Col.
Chuck Fry, Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, Army
Maj. Gen. John Singlaub and Air Force Master Sgt.
Scott Fales.