Special operations are nothing new to the American soldier. Before Green Berets were teaching counterinsurgency to foreign armies, there were grim-faced men stalking the enemy in woods and swamps during the French and Indian War. Known as Rogers' Rangers after their commander Major Robert Rogers, they were the first of America's unconventional forces.
Though the era they lived in was simpler than the present age, the skills necessary to become an elite soldier were the same. Rogers' Rangers fought in terrain that normal men shunned. They crept up on an enemy with the stealth of a slithering snake, and delivered blows with the lethality of a Cobra bite. "Move fast and hit hard," Rogers told his men, and they obeyed, thereby setting the standard for generations to follow. The tradition continued during the American Revolution with Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox who led daring guerrilla raids on British forces in South Carolina and Georgia. His troops harassed the enemy with a success out of all proportion to their small numbers because Marion used the element of surprise to its greatest potential.