1950s In 1950, the
Lodge Act was passed, which provided for the recruiting of foreign nationals into the United States military. It was originally planned that half of the members of the Special Forces would be native Europeans. Many of the initial members of the 10th SFG (A) were Lodge Act recruits, who were strenuously anti-Communist. Among the more notable of these men was Major
Larry Thorne, a former
Finnish Army soldier and
Waffen-SS veteran who was awarded the
Mannerheim Cross during
World War II. On 10 November 1953, the 10th SFG (A) was split in half, with one half deployed to
Bad Tölz and
Lenggries in
West Germany, and the other remaining in Fort Bragg to become the 77th Special Forces Group (which in 1960 became the
7th Special Forces Group). The 10th Group encountered publicity for the first time in 1955 when
The New York Times published two articles about the unit, describing them as a "liberation" force designed to fight behind enemy lines. Pictures showed soldiers of the group wearing their berets, with their faces blacked out to conceal their identities. During the Vietnam War, detachments of 10th Group began training Middle Eastern special warfare forces. In Jordan, B Detachment established the first airborne school, and King Hussein attended the graduation parachute jump. Following the end of the Gulf War,
Saddam Hussein turned his attention to Iraq's Kurdish minority, causing over half of a million Kurds to flee into the mountains on the Turkish-Iraqi border. Under the leadership of Colonel William Tangney, all three battalions of 10th Group were deployed to the area for
Operation Provide Comfort, a UN humanitarian effort. 10th Group coordinated the ground relief effort, and was credited by
General Galvin, the
EUCOM commander, as having "saved half a million Kurds from extinction". Such activities have included training the
Military of Mali and the
Military of Mauritania. The 1st and 3rd Battalions of 10th Group also participated in training in Senegal in 2006, along with the
352d Special Operations Group of the
US Air Force. 10th SFG(A) has also deployed numerous times in support of
Operation Enduring Freedom and
Operation Iraqi Freedom, but mostly to Iraq, since the start of the
war on terrorism. 10th SFG(A) and
CIA's
Special Activities Division Paramilitary Officers were the first to enter Iraq prior to the
invasion. During
Operation Viking Hammer, they organized the Kurdish
Peshmerga to defeat
Ansar al-Islam, an ally of
al-Qa'ida, for control of a territory in Northeastern Iraq that was completely under Ansar al-Islam's control. This battle, one of the most important engagements for Special Forces since Vietnam, led to the elimination of a substantial number of terrorists and the discovery of a chemical weapons facility at Sargat (the only facility of its type discovered in the Iraq war). Three
Silver Stars and six
Bronze Stars for valor were conferred for this engagement. These terrorists would have been part of the subsequent insurgency had they not been eliminated during this battle, which could be called the Tora Bora of Iraq. While several key leaders escaped into Iran, it was a sound defeat for al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam. The Americans then led the Peshmerga against Saddam's northern Army. This effort kept Saddam's forces, including 13 Armored Divisions, in the north and denied them the ability to redeploy to contest the invasion force coming from the south. This effort likely saved the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of coalition service members. ==Subordinate units==