Delta Force escapades with Poland’s elite GROM special operations unit

All countries nurture what they consider to be their most elite unit. If Poland had a Delta Force it would be GROM, or Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego, which means Operational Maneuvering Response Group. GROM is lauded as the country’s most elite unit and is assigned the most difficult missions. Some even liken it to the CIA.

Delta has enjoyed operating with many American-friendly countries across the globe. I had the honor to serve in Delta during a visit by GROM to the Unit that was followed by us taking a trip overseas to train with the men of the GROM.

I don’t mind acknowledging the value and potential of the GROM in fighting terrorism, and was in awe daily of their ability in a variety of special operations missions. Even during the ubiquitous operational bloopers, I understood that no organization is entirely free of them. I cite the following humorous occasion during a tour of a deep underground facility led by a member of GROM.

On our way to ending the tour of the facility, the lights unexpectedly went out. We had no light sources, save one book of matches that our tour guide carried to light his cigarettes. He struck a match and scrambled along the path towards the exit – that is, until the match burned out, at which point he struck the next match and we scrambled for the life expectancy of that match, and then of the next, and the next… until we finally made it out of the tomb of the damned.

It was funny in retrospect, though we were down to only two matches left in the box, one of which the GROM guide shakily used to light a much-deserved cigarette. All of us tough guys slapped each other on the backs and reassured one another that we were not scared at all during the minor crisis. I made no bones about being more than just a little concerned, an emotion that the other men poo-pooed in haste.

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Another rib tickler event was during live-agent medical training that featured live wounded goats as medical patients. Some operators have no stomach for the event, though the value of the training was never disputed.

Well, during that event, something may have been lost in translation because when the support staff arrived at the training site in a lory… they had a 200-pound hog loaded in the back.

Why should it matter if it were a pig or a goat, we thought, and with that, we proceeded to train with a hog as our patient. Wounds were inflicted on the hog and it was our task to save its life, which we did.

And then we discovered why the Poles had used a hog instead, when, at the culmination of the day’s medical training events, there was a sudden but well-planned luau featuring roast pork with all the trimmings – aloha!

Polish was a language that I found too difficult to learn with the few weeks’ notice that we had before our deployment to the country. I decided then that I would make better use of my few weeks to just memorize essential tourist Polish phrases from the Language 30 series booklet and cassette tape pair that I had in my complex foreign language studies library. I listened to the tapes and repeated the phrases on my drives to/from work, in my free time during the workday, as well as time in the evenings.

During our stay with GROM, I found very little time to interact with the locals and instead used my many set phrases merely to entertain our Polish GROM counterparts.

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On one occasion we found ourselves in a blacked-out MC-130 Combat Talon aircraft hooked in with safety lines to the floor in a completely dark scenario en route to a remote site. On that boring ride, I let loose my incidental traveler’s phrases for the entertainment of our Polish counterparts who were seated in the far back of the aircraft:

“Excuse me, do you have spare parts for this American car?”

“What time does the train to Gdańsk depart Warsaw?”

“Is there a doctor anywhere near for my sick friend?”

All this was accompanied by roars of laughter from the Poles. I was jazzed, as their laughter meant that they could understand me, so my efforts in study were not wasted.

“Can we go out together this evening to see the city sights?”

HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA..!

I was a hit.

“Thank you, thank you… I’ll be here all week, and don’t forget to tip your waitresses!”

For all our efforts we were finally awarded a HALO parachute jump with the Poles to earn the GROM jump wing badge and sport it proudly on our dress green uniforms. 

The jump was colder at altitude than we were used to back at Ft. Bragg, NC. I vividly recall my Team Leader gliding over to me during the free fall with his large black mustache completely caked in white icy frost as the moisture in it had frozen. Chunks began to break off of it as we fell nearer to the ground, and soon he was back to his usual state.

Was GROM up to par with Delta? I’ll answer by saying that, in its element, GROM is a most capable fighting force, and Poland should be proud to foster its existence.

By Almighty God and with honor,

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