How do you join the SF?

[Zach R.]

I've been thinking about joining the Army for a while now and was wondering if you could join the SF straight out of high school? :)

[SFontaine]

There is a program for Special Forces straight off the street. Don't know a lot about it though.

[JohnJohn]

eh, go for a college education first, you shouldn't rush things like this ;)

[96B]

You can also get a college education in the military for free, however if you were in SF I dont know that you would have much extra time for the classes.

[Smoothie104]

Ive got a few friends here in Savannah who went to college, got thier degree, didn't like being in the regular work force and are now Rangers based here @ Hunter. You've got time. Take some of it.

[FallenAngel]

do ROTC in college....get a commission out of your time there.

[papabear]

If you do reconsider going to college and becoming an officer, make sure you get a real education that will help you become a good officer...

[Apogee]

Theres always the South Hudson Institute of Technology... aka USMA

[David]

i'm doing the program that you're talking about. i'm doing it right out of highschool. i don't see how going to college could make me a better officer for what i'm doing unless it was a military academy. anybody can goto college so i don't see why they're in such a higher position of authority when they join the military....other details for admittance into the 18x program include a 110+ general tech score on the asvab, physical at meps has to be a 111221, i think, (i got a 111111 and i thought i would fail the hearing test). other stuff like the dlab(defense language aptitude battery). i took it and didn't pass, but i will pass the next time. other than that...just lie about all the crimes you've committed and drink lots of water to wash the drugs out of your blood and you're in. p-)

[papabear]

i'm doing the program that you're talking about. i'm doing it right out of highschool. i don't see how going to college could make me a better officer for what i'm doing unless it was a military academy. anybody can goto college so i don't see why they're in such a higher position of authority when they join the military

If you're talking about the typical college, where education is really nothing more than job training of one sort or another, then you're right, "college" isn't necessarily going to make you a better officer. To be a good officer, there are two components of formation that you need--the moral component and the intellectual formation. Schools as such can only directly impact your intellectual formation. Nevertheless, they can also help with your moral formation, indirectly--for example, by providing good courses in ethics. As for the intellectual formation--a good college education will bring you to a better understanding of the truth, and that is important in itself.

There is still a tradition within the military that the officer corps should be comprised of people who have the sort of education that sets them apart. While the reality falls short of providing the means of attaining this ideal, nevertheless, I think there is something worth striving for.

[Zach R.]

Thanks guys,I've really don't have the money to go to college so I may go to the Rangers or 82nd airborne instead.Oh yeah,Jerrod,I actually live in Kansas.

[papabear]

Hello Zach,

Well, even if you don't get a chance to go to college right away, it's not impossible for you to broaden your mind even if you're not in school (or, more accurately, despite what happens at school)--books are imperfect teachers, but often they are better than most human beings. The point is, read when you have time--especially autobiographies by good officers, but also books on ethics, history, and texts on and from other cultures.

[Apogee]

You don't need money to become an officer. If you get an ROTC scolarship the Army will pay for your college. OR you can go to West Point and the Army will pay for that too. Or enlist and then do Green-to-Gold. There are any number of options. If you really want it and do some research, you can find ways to make it happen.

[JohnJohn]

exactly, if you want a career in the military, there is no reason why you should be paying for your college education ;) Just gotta look :D

[GearGod]

Is there a reason why you want to get into SF and not other units such as infantry units? I like the idea of doing direct action missions like what the 75th ranger regiment does and not doing stuff that SF do like training local people on how to fight or getting them to rise up against their government, being a soldier/diplomat etc. I prefer DA what do you guys think/prefer?

But heres more info on the SF program straight outta high school/off the street:

http://sf.goarmy.com/flindex.htm

[JTFazz]

To the direct question of can you go into SF right out of high school?

No.

You have to join the Army and progress to E-4 before you even qualify for SFAS.

As an officer, you will have to demonstrate success in your current branch assisgnment before SFAS.

*Special Forces Assessment and Selection: three-week qualification course. It qualifies you to move on to SF training.

[Apogee]

JTFazz, you are a little out of date. The Army now has the 18-X contract program where you can come into the Army with the specific purpose of going to SF. From what I hear the progression is Basic, AIT, Airborne, SFAS, BNOC, and then the other 5 phases of the Q course.

For officers, you must be a 1LT (P) or a CPT to go into SFAS.

[Scrim]

What happened to experience??? I just dont understand that 18X program. Seems like the Army is getting desparate to me. Im sure the program isnt easy, but no school can teach you what experience does. It just doesnt seem right seeing a 20 year old E-5 wearing the coveted green beret. What do you all think?

[FallenAngel]

Frankly, Scrim, the Army is getting desperate. For years they have had to lower their enlistment quotas because no one is joining. Same for the Navy and Air Force I believe. Marines are the only who haven't had to lower their quota (I think). But when the Army went into Afghanistan it realized terrorism is not something you use a Tank battalion against (usually :) ) What the Army realized it needed was SF type troops. 82nd, 101st, 10th Mnt., CCTs, Force Recon, et. al. - all have some sort of training that sets them apart from your everyday ground pounder. They need far more of those types of people than they do now to combat terrorism for the next few years.

and as for a 20 year old E-5 wearin' the beret, I don't think thats wrong, as long as he can do the job.

[Mal3]

Indeed, the world today seems to call for a more SpecOps capable military. It can often achieve the goals with both less risk and less attention.

[papabear]

If you have the book, on p. 331 Moore talks about "baby SF"--


The only way to create Special Operations units quickly is to lower the standard of performance for the units involved... However, the Special Operations community has no such quick remedies. The Green Berets need seasoned veterans, averaging thirty years old, stable, experienced, with foreign-language and specific expertise, trained in a multitude of special skills.

There was one other school of thought called "baby SF," not supported by the officer corps fo the Army but by the real experts in unconventional warfare, that made a lot of sense. Around only for a short time after Vietnam, it allowed for the enlistement of new recruits, right off the street, at age twenty-one. By bringing these kids straight into the SF course, it allowed the instructors to comletely mold them. It meant that they weren't corrupted with conventional tactics or wisdom. They had never had conventional training, and that made it easier to make them unconventional soldiers. But the "green army" feared them; they feared soldiers who had not been part of the establishment, and regardless of whether or not they could operate more effectively in an unconventional atmosphere, they only highlighted the wide separation of conventional and unconventional forces.

So under which school of thought does the 18-X program fall under?

And is there anything that can be done to make "conventional" units more flexible? Col. Hackworth has a lot to say about this, especially as it pertains to his experiences with the "institutional" army, from the end of the Korean War and to and beyond Vietnam.

[Duke]

Papa I cant believe what I just read. Many officers from typical colleges are great officers. I dont know your background and it better be an officer from a "typical" college or some burner whose cohorts are years away from your own grade. For you to imply that you have some experience in determining what criterion makes a better officer, let me see your credentials. How many evals have you marked??!! You are saying that non-service grads or OCS/OCC are lesser material than service grads?? Let me see the studies or tell me your assessment of non-service officers. If you go back even in the last fifteen years non-service grads and even non college graduates have propelled the armed services to great heights. For example, Commandant Gray a battlefield commissioned college dropout reformed the Corps with his LAVs, new PMEs, and warrior comes first culture. I might add the Army has followed suit. Former CJCS Gen. John M. Shalikashvili a non service grad how did he get there??? over service grads. Screw this, i'm pissed off. I want you to explain how some OCS grads or NROTC grads are not up to par to the service academies and why the vast majority of flag officers and CMH recipients are not service grads or atleast in proportion??
Signed a pissedoff NROTC grad from a typical state school with a great education

[papabear]

Papa I cant believe what I just read. Many officers from typical colleges are great officers. I dont know your background and it better be an officer from a "typical" college or some burner whose cohorts are years away from your own grade. For you to imply that you have some experience in determining what criterion makes a better officer, let me see your credentials. How many evals have you marked??!! You are saying that non-service grads or OCS/OCC are lesser material than service grads?? Let me see the studies or tell me your assessment of non-service officers. If you go back even in the last fifteen years non-service grads and even non college graduates have propelled the armed services to great heights. For example, Commandant Gray a battlefield commissioned college dropout reformed the Corps with his LAVs, new PMEs, and warrior comes first culture. I might add the Army has followed suit. Former CJCS Gen. John M. Shalikashvili a non service grad how did he get there??? over service grads. Screw this, i'm pissed off. I want you to explain how some OCS grads or NROTC grads are not up to par to the service academies and why the vast majority of flag officers and CMH recipients are not service grads or atleast in proportion??
Signed a pissedoff NROTC grad from a typical state school with a great education

My second post

If you're talking about the typical college, where education is really nothing more than job training of one sort or another, then you're right, "college" isn't necessarily going to make you a better officer. To be a good officer, there are two components of formation that you need--the moral component and the intellectual formation. Schools as such can only directly impact your intellectual formation. Nevertheless, they can also help with your moral formation, indirectly--for example, by providing good courses in ethics. As for the intellectual formation--a good college education will bring you to a better understanding of the truth, and that is important in itself.

There is still a tradition within the military that the officer corps should be comprised of people who have the sort of education that sets them apart. While the reality falls short of providing the means of attaining this ideal, nevertheless, I think there is something worth striving for.

Hmmm... lots to sort out in your post...

Let me first start off by saying many of the great American military officers I admire, like Col. Hackworth, never got a formal college education, at least not before they went into the army and not before they became an officer.

With respect to leadership ability, virtues of character, and the various parts of military science--these cannot be learned in a typical college. And I wasn't making a claim about this. Leadership ability is a function of moral virtue plus intellectual virtues, especially "military" prudence--the virtues in general cannot be learned--they are acquired through repetition and practice. Enough said about that.

Since I don't have any knowledge of how military science is taught in the service academies, I won't say anything about them. Besides, I wasn't even using the military academies as the standard for comparison.
Much has been said about whether today's military academies are even doing an adequate job of producing good officers. I leave this debate up to those who know--I'm interested in it from the perspective of a concerned citizen. Similarly, the question of where the sort of intellectual formation needed for one to acquire military science is to be found--I leave that to those qualified.

No, my criticism was aimed at the state of what used to be called "liberal education"--which is aimed primarily at attaining truth and wisdom. My point was if this is what education is supposed to be about, you won't find it at your typical college, where the air of relativism tends to fill the lecture halls, and the professors don't know what they're doing. This is what I know and work with, and this is what I was discussing. Obedience is a virtue, but not "blind" obedience--this is what a liberal education should remedy--so that an officer can distinguish between truth and falsehood, and not be ignorance if he is being ordered to serve in a bad cause. In addition, if the occasion arises, the officer should be able to explain to those under his command the justice of the cause they are fighting for, if they should ever ask why they are fighting somewhere, 2000 miles away from home.

I hope that allays some of your fears. If you want to discuss what a true liberal education should be like, and why most schools fail to make the grade, perhaps that would be best done through private messages.

[96B]

There are definately two sides to the arguement about the young SF, and I can understand both of them. Young SF I can see, but young Delta HELL no, that is definately one job you can never directly train for and only combat experience will prove you worthy.

With regards to Col. Hackworth, I am sure he has experience and all but I would not rely on him for advice on anything... He criticized Operation Iraqi Freedom before it even got underway and also the war strategy. After all the ass kicking began he was quoted as saying "our military is a lean, green, fighting machine" or something of that sort. I am not saying that he is a complete idiot, hes just got some "differant" viewpoints.

[papabear]

With regards to Col. Hackworth, I am sure he has experience and all but I would not rely on him for advice on anything... He criticized Operation Iraqi Freedom before it even got underway and also the war strategy. After all the ass kicking began he was quoted as saying "our military is a lean, green, fighting machine" or something of that sort. I am not saying that he is a complete idiot, hes just got some "differant" viewpoints.

Yes, if you read his article at www.sftt.org you will see that he admits that he was wrong in some of his criticisms--however, you will also see that the basis of his criticism was his concern over whether we had sufficient military strength and preparation in order to get the job done, with the least amount of casualties. You have to remember that this is a man who has been trying to change things from without ever since he resigned, and he has been fighting to get things changed in order to protect "the grunt in the foxhole" from incompetence and the effects of institutional inertia.

[papabear]

Col. Hackworth's article:

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=9&rnd=861.9963568838602

[Duke]

that was a total dodge. If you are not setting the standard with service academies, then what is your atypical college?? Also, how do you know leadership cannot be learned in a typical college. How did you become an authority?? did your typical college grad suborndinates show some tendency of stupidity??
This virtue theory and that it cant be learned is total bull****. You havent been there, so how can you say that Midshipmen or Cadets cant learn them in Camp Challenge or Bulldog??
My point is while many of you post are intelligent, this one wasnt. How can you be critical of the leadership, the commissioning process and officer deficiency when you yourself are entirely unqualified.

[96B]

Well, I can understand the concern for the lack of manpower. After 8 years of Clintonian rule I dont think we could really spare as much as we did during Desert Storm because of so many military funding cuts. I am just glad to see that everything has went so well, and I believe it really shows how powerful of a nation that we are and how well trained our boys have become. I'll bet Syria is wetting their pants about now...

[papabear]

that was a total dodge. If you are not setting the standard with service academies, then what is your atypical college?? Also, how do you know leadership cannot be learned in a typical college. How did you become an authority?? did your typical college grad suborndinates show some tendency of stupidity??

This virtue theory and that it cant be learned is total bull****. You havent been there, so how can you say that Midshipmen or Cadets cant learn them in Camp Challenge or Bulldog??
Because no human being can "learn" virtue, in the same way someone "learns" mathematics, for example. Do people "learn" how to be temperate? Do people "learn" how to courageous? No--these habits, which lead to good actions or behaviors, have to be acquired through practice and repetition. What we call "leadership abilities" is primarily an amalgalm of various virtues--notably prudence and justice, along with the science proper to the group being led--for the political community, this science is political science. For an armed force, this science is military science. Leadership abilities in all areas is the same insofar as the moral virtues that are required are the same. The basis of difference will be the science that is involved. Unless one is of the school of thought that believes leadership is really just manipulation--manipulating people to do what one want them to do by finding the right sort of bait or incentive for them, without being concerned about what is really good for them. In which case, a couple of psychology courses will probably help one do that. Can one learn where to place his men in a given situation? Yes--that's part of military science. Can one learn how to genuinely care for his men? No, though one can fake it to an extent. That's the difference between a science and a virtue--one can be learned, the other cannot.

If you think virtue can be taught, then please explain why this "knowledge" hasn't been made more widely available to the general public, and why the government doesn't make it a requirement for the education of society. Shouldn't the government, more than any other authority or group or individual, be concerned with making its citizens good/virtuous?


How can you be critical of the leadership, the commissioning process and officer deficiency when you yourself are entirely unqualified.
Not sure where you're getting this from. I never made any direct criticisms about the leadership [of the military?] or the commissioning process, or comments about officer deficiency from my own judgment experience. In regards to the service academies, I only reported what other supposedly knowledgeable people have written on other websites or in books. My main focus was on what a college education is and how that is beneficial.

[Duke]

To say we cant learn virtue is a very subjective statement. To say that the military cannot inspire, teach, guide or indoc young officers in virtue is false. You are not in the military so you cannot comment on our system with any intelligence. You havent been "Transformed" so you cant understand our ethos. Stick to subjects you understand. your input has little value until you've been there done that.

[Apogee]

I'm going to agree with Duke here. Many of the best officers I have met or learned from have not been academy grads, but rather graduated from a "typical" college. This isn't to say that good officers don't graduate from the academies, because they do. Both "typical" college graduates and academy have their share of ****bags. There are many many virtues that contribute to the creation of a excellent officer, but what school you graduated from isn't one of them.

[warchild1/27scout]

that guy who goes 18x contract has to go through the same schools and training as the experienced e-5 and probably scrutinized more so this is new thinking and let's see how it works before we start to 2nd guess.with rummy in charge the army is doing something it's never really done before[think out of the box and move quick]the army's always been a gigantic burocratic steamroller that takes years to change directions.now ,there's gonna be those lifer old army oficers that will go kicking and screaming who would probably still been riding horses if they had thier way.those are the same offficers who hate special ops.

[papabear]

To say we cant learn virtue is a very subjective statement. To say that the military cannot inspire, teach, guide or indoc young officers in virtue is false. You are not in the military so you cannot comment on our system with any intelligence. You havent been "Transformed" so you cant understand our ethos. Stick to subjects you understand. your input has little value until you've been there done that.

Fine, and to say "to say we can't learn virtue is a very subjective statement" is a subjective statement too--you really want to play the truth is relative game?

Let's take it to the extreme shall we?--you haven't murdered anyone, so how do you know that isn't good? You haven't betrayed your country, so how do you know that isn't good? You're not a criminal--how do you know that criminal societies don't have an ethos proper to them which is of positive value? "You are not in the mafia so you cannot comment on our system with any intelligence. You havent been 'Transformed' so you cant understand our ethos." You haven't done these things, so by what authority can you say these are bad acts? That's just your own subjective opinion.

Either we know something about human nature, which all human beings share, and what is necessarily connected to it--human potentialities and the acts/behaviors derived therefrom, and by which knowledge we can make judgements on how virtue is acquired and how it isn't, or we don't.
And even if the military develops virtues in a way different from, say, a parent, it certainly isn't going to do it by preparing material for the soldiers to "learn"--that's just impossible, given what human nature is.