REQUIEM for a LION
Major Anthony Wayne Oliver — “He was never happier than being in the field with his troops.”
By Greg Walker (Ret.)
USA Special Forces
Major (Ret.) Anthony Wayne Oliver (August 1959–October 2024) passed away on October 1, 2024, from an aggressive form of cancer and additional service-connected medical complications.
During his career Tony served in over forty countries with five tours in Afghanistan alone. As a combat leader he sought out missions that made a difference where a leader’s actions directly affected ongoing operations. In this role his character, compassion, and “lead from the front” attitude left a lasting impression and the highest respect of all of those who served with him.
In Afghanistan, Major Oliver was tasked to recruit, train, and lead an Afghan border security unit which provided interdiction of Taliban/AQ forces in southern Afghanistan and “ground truth” intelligence products for U.S. and Coalition Forces. He regularly participated in long mobile patrols along the 900-kilometer border with Iran, working in concert with U.S. Special Forces teams and the British Special Air Service to accomplish a wide variety of missions.
As the U.S. SOF Chief in Kosovo, Major Oliver reported directly to BG Steven P. Schook and KFOR Chief (J2) Colonel Peter B. Swack. Oliver directed the activities of the J2 Special Operations to include the current and future J2 OPS cells. He supervised and coordinated all aspects of ongoing INTEL OPs. Tony was instrumental in serving as the J2 liaison with J3 CONOPS, the Joint Intelligence Coordination Center, and related Coalition and U.S. Intelligence Services as in-country assets.
Per BG Schook, “His efforts in the extensive autumn 2003 KPC investigation were particularly noteworthy while his superb operational and regional knowledge was instrumental in the planning and organization of many of KFOR’s highly successful missions to apprehend a score of Kosovo’s principal criminals, Islamic clan leaders, and extremists, missions many said could not be done… Give him the toughest sensitive operational jobs in the Army that bisect with intelligence—he will excel. A must to promote to Lieutenant Colonel, send to advanced schooling and retain at all costs.”
Major Oliver (center) and then Colonel Peter Zwack (second from left, standing) became close friends in Kosovo and later linked up in Afghanistan. “Tony was gruff but respectful. I came to trust him with my life.”
Another close friend, Major General (ret) Kenneth R. Bowra, with extensive knowledge and experience in the Balkans and upon learning of Major Oliver’s passing, shares this about a fellow Ranger and SOF veteran. “Tony fought the good fight.
He was a dedicated soldier and American. We all are better for God having loaned Tony to us. RLTW!”
Brigadier General Peter B. Zwack enlisted in the US Army in 1980 and received his commission via Officer Candidate School (OCS). He subsequently served 34 years as a Military Intelligence and Eurasian Foreign Area Officer serving in diverse and challenging duty locations including West Germany, South Korea, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Russia.
General Zwack recalls Tony Oliver well as he worked with him in both Kosovo and Afghanistan. “When Tony spoke people listened,” remembers Zwack today. “He was an instinctual man and knew more about what was actually taking place on the ground than most other Americans.”
Zwack came to trust Major Oliver with his life. “I went out into the field with him in Kosovo, often places a J2 should not have been. But I knew Tony had my back and I trusted him without reservation.”
In Afghanistan, General Zwack again joined Major Oliver. This time it was in the southernmost hinterlands of the country. “He [Tony] possessed gruff wisdom. He was very respectful but he told you how it was, not necessarily what you wanted to hear. He had an amazing gift—he immersed himself in the culture whether in Kosovo or Afghanistan. Tony drew people to him; he came to know everyone and was trusted. The intelligence he developed and then shared was invaluable.”
‘He was a warrior,” says Zwack. “But one with a heart of gold. And he was a field soldier. Tony led from the front. His Afghan soldiers were his soldiers. We became good friends and I came to think of him as my brother. It is devastating to learn of his passing.”
The author recalls—I knew Tony for over 40 years and visited with him at home the day before he went home to be with his Lord and God. He had the heart of a lion and was a pure SOF intelligence operator and war fighter. He was also one of the most gentle, giving, and loyal men I have ever known. His behind-the-scenes help, guidance, direction, and wry sense of humor were an inspiration to me and many other war-wounded veterans. No better friend and no better Warrior-Brother to serve alongside of.
Tony and Beth shared their cabin on the Oregon coast with my wife and me. Carol and I spent countless hours there beachcombing, hunting for agates, watching movies at night by the massive fireplace his grandfather had hand-built over one hundred years ago. The cabin was Tony’s safe place. A semi-remote hidden treasure with no Wi-Fi, no hardline phone, no Internet. He hunted the area for years, a passion of his, and loved sitting on the back deck looking out over the ocean and sharing stories from his football days to when he frantically tried to dig two badly injured Afghan soldiers out of their overturned truck during a night movement on the Ring Road.
Major Oliver's Afghan border unit interdicted more illegal opium and heroin than other larger units in Afghanistan.
As his injuries and then cancer began to take their toll on him, Tony and I would visit his beach cabin and tell war stories, watch movies, and enjoy the pleasure of each other’s company.
An accomplished and proud Army Ranger officer, Major Oliver chose to do the hard right over the easy wrong when four Ranger students perished in the Florida swamps in 1995. His doing so cost him continued promotion despite superb OERs and recommendations from his commanders afterward.
Tony was immensely proud of his son, Jeb, who today is a licensed clinical social worker and therapist working with Oregon’s veteran population in eastern Oregon.
Tony Oliver, #53, loved the game of football and played with ferocious abandon "Football taught me teamwork, to humble myself, and how sweet victory is when you and your teammates win," he once told me. Major Oliver took those lessons with him into the Army. His leadership, commitment to the mission at hand, and respect for his peers and his troops made him the Ranger officer he was. (Credit: Tony Oliver)
Oliver always did the hard right over the easy wrong. In 1995, when four Ranger students died from exposure in the Florida swamps, it was Tony—who had been the company commander at the Florida Ranger Camp (Camp Rudder) prior to the deaths of four young men in the swamps—who blew the whistle on what had gone wrong and why. He came to me with the story and his evidence and asked if I would write an article? I did. That story became the genesis of a larger piece that fully exposed who removed the safety criteria that led to the incident, safety measures Major Oliver himself had put in place and documented during his time at Camp Rudder. When the Ranger Department commander tried to blame the non-commissioned officers for the deaths, it was Tony Oliver who stood up and proved it was the commander himself who was directly responsible. That officer, then on the promotion list to Brigadier General, was removed from the list as a result.
And Oliver, in a form of petty retaliation by the Army, became a permanent major until his retirement.
In true form Tony’s only response was “It could be worse.”
Major Oliver leaves behind his wife, Beth, and son—also a veteran —Jeb Oliver. Gone but never forgotten. His ashes are to be lovingly placed at his 100-year-old family cabin, built by his grandfather upon his return from WW1, on the Oregon coast.
I will see you again, Old Friend.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR — Greg Walker served with the 2nd Ranger Battalion and later as a section leader at Camp Rudder, Florida Ranger Camp. From 1980 until his retirement in 2005, Greg served in Special Forces seeing wartime campaigns in El Salvador and Iraq. A wounded warrior himself Mr. Walker went on to work for the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Warrior Care Program as a DoD trained case manager and advocate for our most seriously injured, wounded, or made ill. He thanks the Warrior Care Program for their continuing support of Major Oliver’s wife and family during this sad time. “RLTW / DOL!”
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