SOF

Free Pineland! Next Robin Sage Takes Place 11-24 March

In just a few days, Special Forces candidates will descend upon 15 North Carolina counties to take part in “Robin Sage”, the final test of the Special Forces Qualification Course.

Special Forces candidates will attempt to free the fictional country of Pineland by entering the area of operations, linking up with a guerrilla force and helping them conduct UW operations and overthrow the government.

Ft. Bragg soldiers will take part playing the part of opposing forces as well as friendly guerrilla freedom fighters also known as the Pineland resistance movement.

The exercise’s fictional country of Pineland spans Rowan, Alamance, Anson, Cabarrus, Chatham, Davidson, Guilford, Hoke, Montgomery, Moore, Randolph, Richmond, Scotland, Stanly, and Union counties.
Throughout the exercise, Special Forces candidates and Robin Sage role players not only conduct training missions such as controlled assaults and key-leader engagements but also live, eat and sleep in civilian areas.
All Robin Sage movements have been coordinated with public safety officials in the towns and counties hosting the training. Residents may hear blank gunfire and see occasional flares. Controls are in place to ensure no risk to people or property.
Residents with concerns should contact local law enforcement officials, who will then contact exercise control officials.

Robin Sage is the final rite of passage for Green Berets and has been since 1974. Civilians from the area take an active role in the operations and act as role players throughout the exercise. Many know the area of operations and can navigate without the use of a map across large areas in the exercise. Their dedication and assistance is invaluable to the Special Forces candidates and provides a valuable lesson for future SF operators.

Upon the successful completion of Robin Sage, soldiers will graduate the Special Forces Qualification Course, don their Green Berets for the first time and move on to their initial assignments in the Special Forces Regiment.

To read the entire article from Salisbury Post, click here:

Photo courtesy DOD

SOF Selection PT Preparation 3.2.2017

Training:

Continue to prepare for the UBRR:

5 x 1 miles repeats with as much as rest as you need. Record your average mile time.
5 x 30 seconds of Pushups.
1 x As many push-ups as you can do in 60 seconds.
5 x 30 seconds of Sit-ups
1 x As many sit-ups as possible in 60 seconds.
1 x 20 Knees-t0-Elbow hanging from the pull-up bar.
25 pull-ups

Unique and remarkable aspects of life as a Special Operator (Part One)

When I look back over a short career as a green beret – I’m left with some vignettes that stick out more than others. There are these lingering moments you can’t escape – and will stick in the back of your mind forever. They’re less specific and real moments and more sensations and feelings captured in an instant, like a picture. So, I’ll just jot down a short list of them, not in any particular order.

Traveling and running into other operators who you have no idea why they are there, and you don’t ask. This can happen abroad and domestic. A few moments ago, because I’m traveling for work, I bumped into an old colleague I haven’t seen for years, and when I did know him, it was another country in another place. Well, we’re at the same hotel. It looks like he just woke up and is heading out for the day. I couldn’t even catch up with him but some of these military towns are small towns, and you’re bound to run into the same folks over and over again.

Traveling to new and exciting places on your own or with a small groups of colleagues. There’s little better than exploring with all expenses paid and when you’re doing it while serving. It’s a great mixture of things to make you settle in quick and feel less like a tourist and more like a visiting official – which is an exciting and fun feeling.

Traveling to places you’ve been where local shop owners, restaurants, and hotels remember you – and they’re happy your back. Rapport is king in this line of work. Your ability to be liked by other SOF guys is important, but when it comes to results on the ground, your relationship with your counterparts is the most important piece.

Regardless of what you’re doing experiencing a brotherhood when you link-up with colleagues and other Americans when abroad. This is self-explanatory, but it fosters a real sense of belonging and could turn someone who isn’t happy with their life in SOF a renewed believer.

Featured image courtesy of The Odyssey Online.

Building Special Forces Soldiers, Traits that Carry Over into Every Profession

Brian Decker was a Special Forces officer with multiple tours in Iraq before being put in charge of the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Program (SFAS) in 2011. One of the first things he did was revamp the course which had changed little from its inception in 1988 to better meet the changing role that SF soldiers will need to fight and win in the modern battlefields of today. It is a metric that shows the successful soldier will have common traits that can carry over into any profession.

Decker’s overhaul consisted of finding out what makes people, in this case, Special Forces soldiers tick and what common traits make them so successful. His goal at the time was to not just identify candidates that wanted to be Green Berets but find ones that wanted to be great ones.

He collected 1200 data points on every SFAS candidate measuring everything from their peak physical performance to psychometrics, the science of measuring mental processes. Thus, and despite misgivings from the old guard of SFAS instructors who were there in 1988 (raises my hand), he churned out better SF candidates and the failure rate plummeted by 30 percent.

Decker changed the course to more closely resemble the factors that the soldiers would face in modern warfare. A look at how our Special Forces soldiers have been performing in areas all over the world daily would prove that his system works. He then took his model upon retirement from the military to the civilian world.

The old clichés that military and the world of sports share have always been common but the most prevalent ones have always been around the NFL. Listen to nearly any NFL broadcast and the military jargon permeates the reporting. How many times have we heard, Blitz, Drop the Bomb, Neutral Zone, Battle in the Trenches, Red Zone, Formations et al?

So, it was a natural fit that Decker first tried to sell his idea to the NFL. It is a fact that 50 percent of the league’s first round draft picks fail. The reason why had nothing to do with physical traits or football skills but of mental makeup. Decker identified that what makes an SF soldier a valuable member of an A-team is the same innate qualities that make a successful football player.

In a fantastic piece by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham, he detailed how Decker sold his idea to the Cleveland Browns. Mike Lombardi the Browns GM was sold on his metric and CEO Joe Banner and Head Coach Mike Chudzinski was soon brought on board.

That year at training camp, Banner met Decker. He was there as a guest of Lombardi, then the Browns’ GM, and head coach Rob Chudzinski, who had both gone to Special Forces camp a few months earlier in search of training tips. Decker described to Banner his methodology for picking soldiers. Banner immediately saw connections between the military and football. Special Forces teams operate much like an offensive or defensive unit: There are blocking-and-tackling activities, isolation of matchups based on analysis and game planning, and execution that draws on reservoirs of intangibles. Most of all, both pursuits rely on mutual ambition and sacrifice. “He could pick out, within a group of top achievers, who could really take the next step,” Banner says now. “His techniques and studies were amazing.”

The problem was that the bottom-dwelling Browns fired the entire staff before Decker could implement his system. New GM Ray Farmer let him interview 60 prospective candidates at the NFL Combine. And Decker changed everything in the way that they interviewed players.

Decker, though, tried to profile players. He asked zero football questions. He did interviews at round tables instead of square to avoid intimidating prospects, and he asked open-ended questions, many adapted from the ones he asked soldiers. He was less concerned with the existence of what scouts would call character issues – failed drug tests or arrests – than with why those issues existed.
Decker’s work with the Browns is proprietary, so he can’t get into the data details. But in his office, he demonstrated a sample interview by interviewing me. He had done his homework: He wanted to know about the impact of my parents’ divorce. He wanted to know how I coped with stress. He wanted to know my professional goals. He wanted to know whether I’d ever quit a sport, and why. He wanted to know a moment in my life when I was broken, and how I responded. Decker took notes, not of my answers but of how I answered. He watched for eye contact, for the rate of speech, for clarity of answers — all tells if I happened to be lying or filibustering. If I were a draft prospect, he also would have probed to see what teaching method worked best for me and tested my ability to adjust on the fly and solve problems. The goal is to work up a behavioral analysis that is not only deep but predictive.

It was a tremendous start, but the Browns as they are apt to do, fired Farmer and his staff and let Decker go too before he had a chance to implement even more of his data-driven systems to help them.

He then got some time with Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots at the 2016 NFL Combine and Decker asked Belichick what player trait he most struggled to identify. Belichick answered bluntly, he had trouble finding players willing to buy into a team-first mentality.

Decker talked about how the Special Forces persuaded candidates to think in terms of a unit, in part by creating leaderless teams in training so every soldier will lead…After all, in the military, soldiers sign over their lives and will die for one another. There’s an all-encompassing sense of duty and pride and, yes, love.

To read the rest of Seth Wickersham’s piece on Decker click here:

You will no doubt see Decker again this year, at the NFL Combine speaking with coaches and GMs about identifying the better NFL player. The system works. And it will work with any profession, it will just take someone with the vision of Brian Decker to fit it to their particular set of parameters.

Do you have to stay in the military forever? (Part One)

I met someone recently who spent twenty years in SOF and was more or less kicked out. He was an asset then and still is today. He’s just not normal.

I was in for eight years of active duty, total. No that’s not as long as some. But longer than most. However, in SF and SOF, generally, these are careerists and eight years isn’t long enough, not at all. I’m just teetering on the cusp of seniority and left the Green Berets. I may re-emerge as a reservist but unless a larger war breaks out I might not see time on active duty again. It was so hard transitioning it would be equally frustrating going back.

The other day I met an ex-Green Beret who somehow managed to become a sort of technologist, specifically computer science, at SOCOM. He eventually retired, happily. He now questions why he stayed in for so long in the first place. But, he does retirement pay – which is very nice folks. Because in today’s marketplace you’re retirement is a blessing while you start your second career, which you will. He harbored mixed feelings with his final years in SOF.

There’s a common cultural problem in SOF to constantly henpeck one another. This guy told me that he didn’t realize he might be intelligent until many years later when he began to code and design software. Now, he’s a software engineer and a CTO of a software engineering and big data firm that’s doing some very interesting things. Those skills are still used for national security as well as our economy in the private sector. Despite his accomplishments, I’m sure there are any who refer to him as a “$h*tbag”.

For this part of the blog – I wanted to say that you don’t have to serve forever. It all depends on what you want from life. The operator I mentioned had a unique career within SOF and continued to do so after. Even though, his uniqueness and intellect made him a pariah. He still volunteered and gave 20 years of his life something greater than himself. That being said, enter and leave the military for your own reasons – not someone else or what the group think at your unit believes, it’s your life.

Featured image courtesy of Businessweek.com

Winter Soldier: Prepare to Shiver during Winter Training.

There’s little worse than sitting at a collection point in the dead the winter, barely awake, waiting for the fake raid to end. You get in trouble if you nod off – but, since training isn’t real – it’s easy to just drift away. In the cold weather, I felt like it was even easier. You’re going to nod off, regardless.

Training can be miserable – that’s for sure and in Small Unit Tactics (SUT) – in the Q course, it’s no different. Because the odds that you’ll be well rested the entire time are slim. Slim to none is the reality. You’re best case scenario is a couple of nights of sleep that are wholesome in a week or two-week period.

I wish I had tricks of the trade to keep you warm. Except to say the obvious – keep your core warm. Make sure your armpits, head, ears, and groin area are covered. You lose a lot of eat from those areas.

Wrap up your face and neck. It’s important to keep your neck warm because it can affect your bodies perception of its own warmth. Just realize it’s going to be cold and there’s little to nothing to do about it.

Physical Fitness

It is important, however, to make sure you’re doing something out there in the winter for PT. Even if it’s 50 push-ups a day, 10 pull-ups in the morning, if you can. A stupid, short jog in the morning. Whatever it is it’s incredibly easy to get fat and happy in the winter.

Featured image courtesy of RossTraining.com

Summer, Spring, or Winter Selection?

Summer, Spring, or Winter Selection? If you’re trying to time your arrival to Special Forces Assessment and Selection, I’ll help. Spoiler Alert: Winter or Spring.

My neighbor’s tulips are coming out already, and it’s only the beginning of February. By that I mean, the winter selection moving’s forward are not going to be as bad as previous ones. More important, the spring selection is going to be crazy hot. I mean so hot that the entire program will go on at night. In training, when it’s dangerously hot the training schedule flips. The activities occur in the afternoon and night. But, the North Carolina heat is still intense.

Knowing what you know about the climate and the south – why on earth would you choose the summer? The same standards are going to be applied. The Spring is beautiful, it’s cool, and it’s easier to move freely without being too cold or too hot. However, the winter could host a miserable storm that ruins your day, and the summer might drain you of everything you’ve got. I went in the spring, and I’m happy I did. No one loves the cold, truly, and no one loves it when it’s so hot it’s uncomfortable just walking on pavement (in shoes).

So, the decision is easier for you – less foliage in the spring and summer to boot – you can see further at night. That’s critical to spot your next stake during the STAR course. That and your sense of health should urge you to push for the spring selection class.

Featured image courtesy of USAJFKSWCS.

SOF SELECTION PT PREP 2/1/2017

I feel tired after yesterday’s ruck, and I caught some abrasions on my shoulders and traps this morning. Feels good to be back in the swing of things!

Training:

Work up to 1 rep max Back Squat

Then,

1 round

20 x Back Squat @ 65% 1RM (take 2-3 breaths between squat, maintain good form)

Then,

200 Push-ups

100 Pull-ups

A Theory On How I Earned My Long Tab. If I Can Then You Can, Too.

How I earned my long tab? I don’t think I’ve got a clear answer. I know that if you’re fit and mentally focused – it’s likely you can accomplish the task of making to the other end in these selection processes. There’s less luck involved than other things, but it also comes down to you. Both how you’re perceived and how you perceive yourself. For the most part, the guys who went in knowing they were selected, they acted accordingly. I assumed I would make it.

It’s that reliance, not confidence, in the auspicious that earned my long tab. It wasn’t because I’m some badass. Especially taking into consideration, I was so new to the Army. No combat experience – and some life experience, but nothing like what I’d imagine the men who selected me had at that point. When I reflect over the past years in my life, I don’t see a flow of events that paint the qualitative picture. It’s a series of events. In my life, it’s like I am always cramming for the exam. Then, I fail it but, I pass the exam. Then eventually it will all tie together. Expect and approach selection and your army career the same way – focus on what’s in front of you.

It’s one a.m., right now – I’m finishing some homework and going to move on to the arduous task of studying for a finance exam I’ll be taking over lunch. After some time on active duty, I’ve enrolled in an MBA program while working full time. As usual, that’s only one of the tasks I’ve burdened unto myself. I’ve had to reschedule the exam, which won’t go well. For what it’s worth I don’t feel like anything goes well these days. But one thing is for sure, they go, and I move forward. The other day, I stayed up the entire night, no sleep, like what will probably happen today, and I studied the whole night for an exam that I took in the morning. It was operation management, and while the exam wasn’t the hardest, I’ve had, covered a good bit of information. I was out to lunch the entire ten-week course. But I crammed the whole night and knocked it out. I ended up scoring the mean of all the other students. In that, I’m lucky. This finance is not going to go well, tomorrow.

Just like the Q course you just have to pass. In the end, everything is pass/fail, not just events in the army. I feel like in the Q course, for courses I might not have done as well as I should have in – that acknowledgment of what I don’t know passed me through. The humility can help you pass because the instructors understand when a decent person comes through who isn’t a problem and will grow. I never made any calamitous mistakes, but I was young and inexperienced.

Featured image courtesy of DoD.

Don’t rely on gear to get you selected or succeed on a team.

Wars and battles were fought and won before the cool gloves that can work a smartphone. Special Operators are gear junkies. For that niche product line of tactical gear and clothing, SOF personnel are the ultimate consumers. It’s a kind of fashion for operators. Even the kind of gloves you buy and wear can distinguish you. In turn, some of the things you buy and wear becomes a personal statement. But, when you’re at selection it will not be the boots or gloves that fail you. You’ll do that all on your own. The gear makes it easier and can help you. Honestly, the SOPC Sole felt like a lifesaver for me. But, I wasn’t going to finish last in a ruck or in the bottom half. The gear cannot replace your training and preparedness.

I’ve so many guys approach gear like it’s an evangelical tool that can save them from themselves. But it won’t add a whole minute to your ruck mile time. Rucking mile repeats with your ruck is the best way to improve your overall time, as much as it sucks. Learning to “suck” is fundamental to being an operator. If you think you’re walking into a life akin to a professional athlete you’re both right and wrong. In the states, there are some elements of that lifestyle. However, you must be prepared to live as the people do of whatever country you inhabit.

We torched a wheelbarrow to turn it into a grill in Afghanistan. We were consistently air dropped frozen food but at no point had a freezer that could house them. Those are easily the best moments of my experience, the austere ones. But, if that’s not something you’re interested in, do not go to selection. Because, once you’ve learned to not only embrace but love the “suck”. You can rightfully accessorize with flashy gear. By that time, you’ll know what you like and what you need, too.

Worry about the basics: shoot, move, communicate.