Wanted (badly): more Green Beret recruits

Wanted: Someone who can move undetected through jungle brush. Prefer a person who can strike with the force of a "lightning bolt." Must be able to swim long distances in boots and heavy clothing. Ability to order food in Arabic optional.

This is the gist of a recruiting pitch the Pentagon is putting out as it looks for the next generation of its elite soldiers, the Green Berets, to fight the terrorist wars of tomorrow.

In a bold attempt to capitalize on a surge of patriotism and buttress its aging corps, the Pentagon is offering application forms to the man-on-the-street for the first time since 1988. And, like NBA scouts at the start of highschool basketball season, recruiters are fanning out across the country in search of 400 men with the right stuff to wear the green beret.

The elite fighting division had, for years, filled its ranks by headhunting the best and brightest volunteers from the Army. But the depth of talent just isn't there anymore.

"They're going to be looking for the captain of the football team and the guy everyone looked up to in high school," says "John," a broad-chested Green Beret from Miami, filling out his gear bag at Ranger Joe's surplus shop on Bragg Boulevard here. "Believe me, there are undiscovered naturals all over this country."

The Green Berets are even looking for volunteers willing to transfer from Navy, Marines, and Air force divisions. Perhaps at no other time, analysts say, has the military's focus shifted so dramatically from tanks and cannons to the kind of all-round American troops largely credited for the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"There's been some reconsideration, if you will, a tailoring of the future concept of our tactics in war," says Dan Smith, chief of research at the Center for Defense Information in Washington. "This training and recruitment for special forces is along those lines."

In a speech at National Defense University in Washington last month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted that more of what the Army often calls "military occupational specialists" are needed. "The department has known for some time that it does not have enough ... [of] certain types of Special Operations Forces," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

Green Beret forces today number about 6,000, spread out from Bosnia to the Philippines. They are an intelligent, strong, and lethal band of brothers, all young men, whom the administration has pegged as the most likely choice of spear tip for what appears to be a protracted stab at terrorists outside the US.

Their jobs include rallying and training local militias, gathering "intel," and tromping through jungles and deserts. These troops are seen by many as the epitome of American ingenuity and self-reliance.

Which is why only half of the recruits actually make the grade. After basic training at Ft. Benning, Ga., the new civilian recruits come here to Ft. Bragg, America's largest Army base, to undergo three weeks of rucksack marches and intense psychological tests.

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