Feature Instructor- Tactical Tracking Operations
Owner of The Scott Donelan Tracking School
Details on the New Scott Donelan Tracking Certification Program w/ SIGMA 3
Biography:
David Scott Donelan, commonly referred to as DSD, is regarded as one of the world’s most effective and capable tracking instructors available today and you would be hard pressed to find a more experienced instructor anywhere in the world. First exposed to tracking as a Boy Scout, his growing interest in tracking ignited a passion that became a lifelong pursuit that lead him to some to serve with some of the most elite counter insurgency specialists to have ever existed in modern warfare!
Career Highlights:
-Rhodesian SAS Special Forces (Original Member of Resuscitated C Squadron)
-Served with the Selous Scouts (tougher selection school than SAS, research them)
-SAS Selection Training Officer
-SAS Tracking and Bush Survival School Training Officer
-Over 45 years of tracking, survival, tactical, and teaching experience
-Author of the most used Tactical Tracking Handbook in the world. To purchase: Tactical Tracking Operations- The Essential Guide for Military and Police Trackers
-During the Bush Wars, David has a combined 27 years active duty service which included tours with the Rhodesian Special Air Service, Rhodesia Regiment, Tracker Combat Unit, British South African Police Reserve, Rhodesian Light Infantry, Selous Scouts, South African Special Forces and South West Africa Territorial Force.
-Subject Matter Expert on Combat Tracking for the US Marine Corps Combat Hunter Project
-Driving force and creator of the US Army Combat Tracking School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona
David was a career soldier with almost three decades of active duty experience in the war zones of Rhodesia, South Africa, Mozambique and South-West Africa/Namibia. Enlisting in the Army of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1961, Scott-Donelan was one of the original members of the resuscitated ‘C’ Squadron (Rhodesia) Special Air Service (SAS), where he was introduced to the concepts of irregular warfare and tactical tracking by Allan Savory, a game ranger known for his innovative and successful concepts in hunting down heavily armed elephant and rhino poachers.
In 1968, Scott-Donelan was posted to the new Tracker Combat Unit (TCU), commanded by Allan Savory, with the mission of tracking down and annihilating Communist trained and equipped nationalist insurgents infiltrating the Rhodesian border from Zambia and Mozambique. He went on to command the TCU and was responsible for the selection and training of expert trackers for the unit which was beginning to make a name for itself on operations.
In 1974, the TCU was absorbed by an innovative, new, counter-insurgency unit known as the Selous Scouts and Scott-Donelan was posted to the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI). The RLI was heavily involved in helicopter and airborne operations against armed and dangerous terrorist gangs infiltrating Rhodesia in ever increasing numbers. After several years of non-stop action, he served as an intelligence officer at a Brigade Headquarters (HQ) and Combined Operations HQ, Rhodesia’s equivalent to the Pentagon. Frustrated with staff duties, he put in for a transfer to the Selous Scouts and was appointed Officer Commanding Training Group which included the Tracking and Bush Survival School, the notorious “Wafa Wafa”, on the shores of Lake Kariba.
Joining the South African Special Forces in 1980 as a member of 5 Reconnaissance Regiment, Scott-Donelan commanded the Regiment’s Developmental Wing which was responsible for establishing a complete training and operational resource base as well as conducting training programs for several guerrilla armies. Five years later, he was seconded to the South-West-Africa Territorial Force as Company Commander and responsible for operations against the Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia, which was infiltrating into South-West-Africa/Namibia from Angola and Zambia.
In 1988, David was fortunate to win a slot in a U.S. Immigration Lottery, and the opportunity to relocate to America. However, it was not until 1994 that several police and corrections officers from Washington State convinced him to run a tracking class for them. The class was a resounding success and as a result he opened his first tracking school, as a sole proprietorship to provide Rhodesian style tactical man-tracking instruction for law enforcement and military personnel. While not new to America, the tracking subject had not been taught in the USA since the end of the Vietnam War. Expanding slowly at first, David’s company eventually experienced exceptional growth in training the military. David has served as an Expert Witness for the Federal Court System, as a Subject Matter Expert on Combat Tracking for the US Marine Corps Combat Hunter Project, and was the driving force and creator of the US Army Combat Tracking School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
Ultimately on January 1, 2010, David started The Scott-Donelan Tracking School in Tombstone, Arizona. With a highly experienced cadre of instructors, TSDTS’s goal is to train students in all three facets of tracking: Tactical, Combat, and Search and Rescue. Tracking is no longer a lost art, but rather a revitalized modern science.“Train with the Originators, not the Imitators….”
SIGMA 3 just started a tactical tracking program and we will be running certification programs with DSD. If you have an interest in becoming certified by the top combat tracker then please click the link below.
Click Here if your interested in obtaining a Combat Tracking Certification from the Scott Donelan Tracking School
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