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Banner illustration for An Institutional Home for ARSOF Robotics: Establishing a SORD-Training Company for Standards, Training, and Doctrine (Illustration by Special Warfare Journal staff.)An Institutional Home for ARSOF Robotics:
Establishing a SORD-Training Company for Standards, Training, and Doctrine

ARSOF requires a dedicated institutional organization to develop, standardize, and sustain robotics training, doctrine, experimentation, and Special Operations Robotics Detachment (SORD) support. Currently, these functions are scattered across schools, MOS pipelines, ad hoc initiatives, and unit-level efforts. Each group builds SORD capabilities independently with its own standard and its own assumptions, which means the force has many versions of "trained" and no agreed definition of it. Standardization of institutional training is an explicit role at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS). A SORD Training and Integration Company (SORD-T) within SWCS would provide the missing connective tissue between MOS pipelines, advanced robotics courses, operational detachments, and emerging technology. This article is not focused on any singular course it presents a force-design proposal, focusing on a sustainable, neutral, institutional home for robotics capability generation.
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Tag: SOST

May 15, 2025

Austere Resuscitative and Surgical Care Teams: Supporting Far-Forward Trauma Care on the Future Battlefield

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina — Over two decades of conflict in the Middle East, deployed military medical capabilities have made significant advancements in tactical combat casualty care, damage control resuscitation, and damage control surgery. Among these improvements include the austere resuscitative and surgical care (ARSC, pronounced ärsk) teams, whose history extends back to Operation Eagle Claw in 1980 when special operations forces (SOF) identified a need for far-forward surgical teams. The concept of ARSC teams expanded to conventional forces in the 1990s, later proving crucial during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The ARSC can be defined as an “advanced medical capability delivered by small teams with limited resources, often beyond traditional timelines of care, and bridges gaps in roles of care to enable forward military operations and mitigate risk to the force.”01 The recent deployment of these highly skilled teams closer to the front lines has made combat surgical capabilities readily accessible in the most restricted operational environments.

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