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Special forces graduation is Friday

“Pineland” has been liberated once again and the 110 soldiers who completed the mission have earned their Green Berets.

The nation of Pineland, of course, is the fictitious country that serves as the setting for the culmination exercise of the Special Forces Qualification Course near Fort Bragg, N.C. It caps more than a year of training for real soldiers who become members of the elite Special Forces.

The soldiers make up part of the 245th graduating class and will walk across the stage at the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville at 11 a.m. Friday, where they will receive their diplomas and the Yarborough Knife, a field knife designed for and issued to each graduating Special Forces soldier.

On Thursday, the graduating soldiers donned their Green Berets for the first time during the Regimental First Formation at the JFK Memorial Plaza at Fort Bragg.

During the formation, two men, retired Maj. Gen. Harley Davis and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Galen Kittleson, were inducted as distinguished members of the Special Forces Regiment, an honor reserved for those men who have made significant contributions to the history and legacy of the Green Berets.

After graduation, the new Green Berets were assigned to the Army’s five active-duty Special Forces groups and two National Guard groups, and are expected to soon deploy with their operational detachments.