Combat Zone

Even in the Old Testament there are passages that would fit into the modern day tactics and operations during warfare. King David conducted night raids and sudden assaults, sending his men behind enemy lines during the war against the Philistines.
Examples of what now would be called Special Forces Operations can be found throughout history, from the Vikings, to the light infantry during the Napoleon wars.
The times have changed, the weaponry has definitely changed, but the men conducting operations have not.

During the Middle ages the Mongol leader Genghis Khan had his Special Forces, irregular men on horses, led by warlord Yasotay. Yasotay was famous for his scouting skills and knew the value of his work.

"You do not need more generals, but when the hour of crisis comes, remember that forty selected men can shake a world."
That sentence sums up the fundamental attitude of the Special Forces Soldier.

Every age has produced its Special Forces soldier, from the Greek hoplite to the Dutch Geuzen in the sixteenhundreds, from the American Minuteman of 1776 to the Green Berets of Vietnam and the SAS trooper in the Gulf War of 1991 to the Green Berets of the Gulf War of 2003.

The term is relatively new, from World War II, until today, but it has taken on a distinctive meaning and is commonly understood today, but still very much traceable origins, back over 200 years.

The very term Special Forces can mean different things in different countries. Therefore we have to devide Special Forces units into two forms: Special Forces (SF) and Special Operations Forces (SOF).

The term Special Forces can also embrace those specially trained units of artillary, engeneers and logistical troops.

In the US, the term has a much narrower definition. There it referes to units designated as Special Forces, more known as "Green Berets". (Also including units such as U.S. NAVY SEALs and Delta Force.) And here too, the definitions are not always clear.

Special Forces Units will include: Green Berets, SEALs, 22 SAS, SBS, Delta Force and simular units.
SOF units will include: USMC, US ARMY RANGERS, Parachute Regiments, Royal Marine Commando's and other simular units.

Pathfinders from the Para Regiment of the UK

It will already be apparent that the true SF soldier has little in common with the fictional "Rambo" version of the commando, Ranger, SEAL or Green Beret. A SF Soldier needs certain perosnal qualities: A sence of humour, tenacity, intelligence and guts. This last not least to endure the training and subsequent discomfort. He must be fit, but fitness alone will not be enough. He must have the will to keep going, though he is tired, wet, heavily lade. He must have maturity and common sense, be able to live and fight with others in small groups, as well as on his own.

He must poses all the relevant military skills to a high degree of expertise, but these can be taught. The personal qualities must be there to begin with, though they most likely will be enhanced during training.
Volunteers for Special Forces come from kinds of other units. Few units recruit directly, though many SOF units do. The British SAS tends to receive a great deal of volunteers from the parachute regiment. But soldiers from the service and technical arms are always well represented in units. This is one reason why SAS training includes a complete infantry training course, to bring successful volunteers from those other companies to the required standard in infantry weapons and tactics.

Special Tasks do not in themselves make a special unit, or create a need for a specially trained soldier. To clarify the term we have to go back to the eighteenth century, when Special Forces first made a major impact on the military scene. This will also reveal that before you have a Special Forces Soldier, you first must have Regular Soldiers.

A fact that was not lost on Col. Charlie Beckwith, founder of the Delta Force; “I had to articulate that before a soldier could become a good unconventional soldier, he’d first have to be a good conventional soldier. He had to understand what a rifle squad was all about, what a platoon could do, what a rifle company needed to know. To break the rules you have to know what rules are. You cannot be unconventional until you are conventional first.“

Commandos
The word commando originated in the Portuguese language (Comando in Portuguese), in which it means simply "command". The modern sense of the word stems from the Dutch/Afrikaans kommando, which was derived from the Portuguese word, as a result of contact between Afrikaners and Portuguese settlers in Africa (and in Dutch and Afrikaans kommando still also means "command" including e.g. instructions given to computers).

After the Dutch Cape Colony was established in 1652, a system known as Commando Law was created. This compelled settlers, known as Free Burgers, who had been released from their indentures with the Dutch East India Company, to equip themselves with a horse and a firearm, in exchange for the right to a piece of agricultural land. When required, a mounted militia force known as a kommando would be formed, to defend the colony. As the European population at the Cape increased it was no longer practical to make every Burger comply with the Commando Law and a voluntary militia system was introduced.

In conflicts with southern African peoples (such as the Xhosa and the Zulu during and after the Great Trek), Boer communities and farmsteads formed self-equipped, mounted commandos among themselves.

In the final phase of the Second Boer War, 75,000 Boers occupied the attention of the 450,000-strong British Empire forces. Because of the numerical imbalance, the commandos (militias) adopted guerrilla or raiding tactics, to minimise their casualties and prolong the war. These tactics gave commando its modern sense of specialised raiding forces.

During and after WWII in Britain, unexplained newspaper and radio news references to the deeds of "the commandos" led to public misunderstanding about what the singular meant and thus to the modern common habit of using "a commando" to mean one member of such a unit, or one man engaged on a raiding-type operation.