Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/642978
The text below written by a leader of the special forces team, later GROM officer shows a kind of motivation of people who have served in the 56th Special Commando. While graduating from the Armed Forces Cadet School I have thought that if I am to stay in the uniform, it must be the best uniform which can be worn at the concerned time. The unit which have enjoyed then an opinion of the most professional was, of course, the legendary 56th Commando Company. It has been told that only total freaks can join it or that people have been sent there to it in the form of punishment. It has seemed that it would be the best place for me. The place where they made of me a 100% legit special forces soldier. I know the Commando only from the last years of its existence, but it has been enough, to remind in my memo- ries until today. Despite a change of my service profile from military to CT, which was result of disbanding the unit, a heritage of the Company has returned from time to time and it has been known to the people from the line that such a unit has existed and has been a breed for the tough men. I have liked a fact that a staff in 56th Commando has not adhered to the army regulations very much and that they have relied on the quite different unwritten codex. obedience of soldiers has been developed by an author- ity and own example of the commanders. The soldiers of the regular military service (I have been a commander of the reconnaissance group) have been proud that they could wear a red beret, and the MP's have given them way on their way to the canteen. I do not intend to make from these several words which I am writing now about the Commando a letter of commendation or a congratu- latory scroll because – because as it happens in life – the Commando has had also its imperfections. However, it has been so little of them that today I do not remember most of them but I still remember faces of my colleagues and events from those times, only good things. It has been a perfect place to deal with a real army, while steering clear of the dullness of the Ministry of Defense. The non-stand- ard tasks assigned by our commanders has been incompre- hensible for me, as a young soldier, who had learnt the "red regulations" in the school, but now while looking at it from a time perspective all has become clear. As a former operator of the GROM special mission unit I can say unequivocally that the 56th Special Commando has been a perfect place to bound and continue an adven- ture with special operations forces at a really professional level. Why am I writing "to bound", and not "to continue"? Because it has been the beginnings of a new way of think- ing about a form of such operations in Poland, and also due to a fact that the Commando was not given a chance to adopt to the new reality. No one is really in the position to tell what would happen to it despite a great involvement of its commanders. Would they be enabled to continue a taken course, frequently not accepted by the highest rank commanders who when noticing a soldier from the 56th Commando without ranks on shoulders have gotten rash on their backs? After disbanding the 56th Commando in 1994, MAJ Kups has improved the Combat 56 hand-to-hand system by ad- justing it to the civilian use since in its original version it was not suitable for use outside the special forces. He has organized the first open trainings for the soldiers from the units in the period when he has served in the 25th Air Cav- alry Brigade. The Combat 56 system has been continuously enhanced what has resulted from the needs of the custom- ers. Its subject matter has been supplemented by the melee weapon, combat shooting, technique and procedures in the crisis situations. The superior goal of the system is its simplicity and effectiveness. It shocks by a reasonable ap- proach towards psychology of survival and a little amount of the movement patterns which allow for a short learning process. The most of those techniques ends with the same position of the aggressor, and its grips use so called "levers chains". The soldiers from the most elite formations of the Min- istry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were taking part in the Combat 56 training courses. It is inter- esting that COL Dariusz Zawadka, further commander of the GROM has taken part in the Combat 56 trainings when he was operator in the task force. H2H COMBAT