JULIAN — The latest round of the Special Forces training exercise, Robin Sage, ended Thursday, with instructors springing into action the week before when an unidentified civilian drove into a pond.
Robin Sage is a quarterly unconventional warfare exercise that is the final test for candidates in the Special Forces Qualification Course, spanning multiple North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee counties.
Organized by the Fort Liberty-based Special Warfare Center and School, the exercise involves veterans, volunteers and law enforcement from the communities where the training is held, while candidates are placed in a simulated environment of “political instability characterized by armed conflict,” for “real-world training,” a SWC news release stated last month.
However, members of the cadre, who are instructors and leaders of the course, were faced with a real-world scenario mid-morning Aug. 28 in the Guilford County community of Julian.
Julian resident Mickey Keck, who volunteered his land to be used on the exercise, rapidly approached the cadre of the 1st Special Warfare Training Group on his all-terrain vehicle to tell them the exercise transportation agent was tending to a civilian whose vehicle became submerged in Keck’s pond, an Aug. 28 SWC news release stated.