By OpsLens Staff:
Global Response Staff. Who the hell are they? If you saw last year’s blockbuster film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi then you have a baseline understanding.
Simply put, GRS officers are the Central Intelligence Agency’s elite personnel security force. They ensure that CIA personnel remain safe during both routine and high threat operations around the globe.
In order to serve in this unit, officers must have had significant prior experience in the special operations community and be able to adapt to the intelligence community, which is in most cases is very different than the military.
While we are unable to describe the full extent of operations that are performed by GRS operators, suffice to say they are more than drivers and escorts – though a large volume of agency personnel sadly fails to recognize this truth. Among the many things that the writers and producers got right in the aforementioned film was the routine disdain that several staff CIA officers have for GRS operators, failing to look beyond their own, often sheltered, career and seeing the breadth of experience that GRS operators bring to the table.
True to the OpsLens credo, GRS operators have been there and done that and are extremely capable officers.
OpsLens Staff
Look for more ‘OpsLens Terms to Know’ on a frequent basis.
