I was just browsing Youtube music and ran into this rendition of The Ballad of the Green Beret. One of the pictures (1 minute in) shows a couple of them using bows and arrows. If that is realistic, under what circumstances would they use them? I realize that they would be silent, but wouldn’t they be clumsy to cart around and wouldn’t rifle with a silencer (or do only pistols have silencers?) be almost as quiet? You can pack an awful lot of bullets in the space of a quiver of arrows!
No, silencers aren’t even close to silent.
This guy is meant to have used a long bow during WW2. Not sure if that helps but it shows at least someone has attempted to use a bow in modernish warfare.
I am not sure it demonstrates it was a practical weapon choice as the guy was clearly a bit of a special case given he also carried a broad sword and bag pipes into battle.
The bow is silent but the guy screaming and running around with an arrow in his chest sure isn’t. Can’t see much use for one really?
To my knowledge no one in the U.S. military uses a bow and arrow. Various unconventional forces under different branches can get specialized, non-standard weaponry but I haven’t heard of anyone using a bow since the WWII days in a modern military (and that was a pretty strange case.)
It’s possible that picture is from a training exercise of some sort, though. They could have been bow hunting deer to practice various survival skills.
This is it, the next line of the song where the bow hunting is shown is “Trained to live off natures land”; they are hunting game for food. And it makes perfect sense, if you are in enemy territory bow hunting would draw less attention to you than hunting with an assault rifle.
Ah! I never connected the two. Thanks!
Peruvian special forces use crossbows. The silence is important because even of the dyying guy screams, there are no telltale sign as to where the shot came from.
Other than that arrow sticking out of the guy. 
Ahhhhh! I think it may have possibly come from that way!
So are they issued a bow & arrows, for survival purposes?
You can also use bows for shooting lines. Attach a silk thread to the arrow, shoot the arrow, then whoever picks up the arrow can use the thread to pull in a heavier line.
My favorite and only brother was SF back in the 60s/70s. Some got really good at using all kinds of weapons from bows and crossbows to blowpipes to whatever “little brown brother” (to use the phrase from back then) happened to use as his preferred weapon. It made it easier recruiting and training them. Picture yourself as some Montagnard on the side of a hill somewhere. Here comes this strange looking dude who can do all this amazing stuff with his tech – but can he bring down a money with a crossbow? Take away that CAR-15 and maybe he don’t seem that tough and smart. But he picks up your gear and pops lunch about as well as you can and all of a sudden its a different tune. Not everyone who wanted one qualified for one of those funny hats and few of those funny hats qualified to go off and work with the Yards and other IPs. It took a different skill set and type of soldier.
Now that does NOT explain fancy compound bows and arrows as shown in that picture ------ but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was part of the training and testing for finding those “fewer of the few”.
I would think you would carry MREs or survival food in place of the bow and arrows, that seems to make more sense.
Learn about long patrols.
Is it common for American soldiers to live off the land while on patrol in modern warfare?
Not for everyday grunts, but for Special Forces yes; that’s what makes them special. Oh, and you can build a bow and make arrows. American Indians did it all the time, not that hard to do.
No, but knives to crave out components and perhaps some universal line that can be used as a bow string (and other things). Napping flint for use as arrowheads isn’t that hard to learn and there are other materials they could use. Or just sharpen a stick. You can kill with a sharpened stick. Hell I could kill you with one finger placed in the right spot with enough force; I’d tell you how, but then I’d have to . . . well you know. 
American unconventional forces have evolved tremendously in the past 45 years, but in theory they started out as guys you could drop in very hostile places in small teams that could be self-sufficient essentially as long as needed to get the mission done. Or they were guys who lived in the jungle with natives teaching them to fight, and would need to be able to be self-sufficient in that scenario just as much as anyone else living there.
But the various types of unconventional forces and their mission have expanded so much that a lot of them are more like regular forces in that they get assigned specific (but usually more difficult and specialized) missions that they travel to and come back to base from typically in 1-2 days time.
But as originally conceived U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) would not have been on “regular patrol” like you’re thinking in any case.
Unless you nail him to a tree he’s gonna move.
Lying on your back with a bolt sticking out of your chest does ot give away your position.
There’s been a lot of drift in the mission of Special Forces. When Aaron Banks first set it up, one of the scenarios was Soviet forces rolling over NATO forces in West Germany and US Special Forces laying low, letting the Soviets pass by, and starting guerrilla operations from behind the lines. So living off the land could very well have been necessary. And yeah, the Hmongs and 'Yards wouldn’t have had much respect for any round eye who couldn’t shoot a bow and arrow or throw a spear to bring down groceries. But other than special situations like that, most likely the only arrows SFs see are the crossed ones with the dagger they wear on the lapels of their Dress Blues (I know they’ve phased Class As out. Are the Class Bs history now also?).