US Army Special Forces

Green Beret Medic Ronald Shurer II Receives Medal Of Honor

On Monday, President Trump decorated former Green Beret medic and SSG Ronald Shurer II with the Medal of Honor for outstanding heroism and bravery during a combat mission in Afghanistan in 2008. Amazingly enough, Shurer was once rejected by the military for a medical condition before he joined and was accepted shortly after 9/11.

Shurer saved multiple lives both American and Afghan, during a battle where the Special Forces troops were engaged with a numerically vastly superior insurgent force and were in danger of being overrun. But through his actions, not one of the critically wounded American men would die that day.

Shurer was assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group and ODA 3336 when they were tasked with capturing a high-value target who was a part of the Hezebela Islami Gulbadin insurgent group. The mission took place in the remote Shok Valley in the Nuristan province of Afghanistan.

As the team of Green Berets and Afghan commandos were being whisked to the snow-covered ground along a frozen river and with a nearly vertical 60-foot cliff that the men would have to climb, through their imagery, the amount of enemy troops in the area suddenly became much clearer.

In an interview with the media last weekend, LTC Kyle Walton, who was a Captain and in command of the ODA, said the troops saw that “There were hundreds and hundreds of more compounds than we were able to see from our imagery.”

The men had to leap 10 feet from the CH-47 Chinook helicopter to the river due to the steepness of the terrain. They then had to assault straight up the near vertical cliff to where the high-value target (HVT) was supposed to be residing in this village.

Shurer recalled an eerie stillness as soon as the helicopter whooshed away. The men, all on foot with no vehicles or heavy weapons had just a shoulder carried a recoilless rifle as their biggest weapon.

Soon after the stillness was interrupted by 200-300 Afghan insurgents who rained down automatic weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades on the vastly outnumbered team of Special Forces men and Afghan commandos.

Walton quickly broke his force into three assault elements but was immediately pinned down by the superior enemy fire that had wounded nearly all of the men. Shurer was initially at the base of the cliff, tending to several wounded Afghan commandos.

As President Trump would remind onlookers at the White House on Monday, “Blood was all over the place, it was a tough, tough situation to be in.” It was soon about to get worse.

SFC Dillon Behr, the A-Team’s Senior Radio Operator, was shot thru the hip and was bleeding out. Walton called for Shurer to come up to his untenable position on top of the cliff as there were too many wounded. They were pinned against the cliff and things were looking bad.

A-10 attack aircraft and F-16s screamed overhead, making close air support runs close to the Green Berets. They were trying to keep the insurgents pinned down but many of the Americans were peppered with shrapnel as well.

“When I called for Ron, there was a silence over the radio for a few seconds, because everyone realized what that meant — that it was bad,” Walton recalled. “He had to climb a mountain under fire with a couple other guys on the team. When he showed up, nearly everybody was wounded. We were under direct fire. We were pinned down with nearly nowhere to go except down that 100-foot cliff.”

Shurer raced to Behr’s side and was attempting to stop the bleeding of his badly damaged hip. He even went to the extent of jamming his fingers in the wound to stop the bleeding. Then a bullet ripped thru another Green Beret’s arm and hit Shurer in the head and arm. He recalled it being like getting hit with a baseball bat.

Behr, thinking he was about to die, began to pray. Shurer slapped him across the face and startled the wounded man back to his senses. “Wake up! You’re not going to die today.”

Walton knew his situation was critical and his small team was in danger of being overrun. He called for an airstrike danger close, nearly on top of his own position. The team was in danger of being wiped out as much as the insurgents from the bomb.

As he called for the bomb drop, Walton says the last image he has is that of Shurer, draped over the wounded men, protecting them with his own body.

The bomb blasted the insurgents long enough to allow the Green Berets to make their escape down the cliff. As the dust settled, Walton recalls that the first image he saw was Shurer tending to the wounded.

Shurer had brought plenty of tubular nylon webbing that the team used to sling and lower Behr and the other wounded down the cliff to waiting helicopters to evacuate the team away from the firefight and live to fight again.

Another one of Shurer’s teammates, SFC Matthew Williams recalls that Shurer’s coolness under fire and the disregard for his own safety was the reason, so many of the men survived that day.

“His ability to manage an unmanageable situation and remain calm, collected and cool — always was that guy, hanging out or training or whatever,” he said.

“We’d been in engagements before, even on that deployment,” Williams added. “Nothing like that before. Luckily, we’re all incredibly well trained, we trusted each other, and it all just kind of worked for us that day. On our worst day.”

Shurer, when hearing the comments of his fellow A-Team members was humbled by the praise.“That means so much more,” he said. “I know these guys’ wives, their kids. Just knowing that … it’s very humbling for them to say that. Luckily, it all kind of worked for me to help those guys.”

Shurer and the nine other Green Berets were all awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third highest award for bravery after the battle. But several team members felt that Shurer’s actions deserved more recognition.

Shurer left the military a year later and joined the Secret Service. He then later joined the Special Operations Division where he’s served since 2011. He was asked to go to the White House where the decision to upgrade his award to the Medal of Honor was kept from him. He was told it was a work-related visit. But then the President broke the news to him.

During the ceremony, President Trump tapped him on the shoulder and his comments echoed the impressiveness of Shurer’s exploits.

He’s a warrior,” Trump said. “For more than six hours, Ron bravely faced down the enemy,” Trump added during the ceremony. “Not a single American died in that brutal battle thanks in great measure to Ron’s heroic actions.”

A year ago, Shurer was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer but he has continued to fight that disease with the same bravery he faced the enemy Trump said.

“He’s braved, battled, worked, he’s done everything he can, that cancer he’s been fighting it every single day with courage and with strength, and he’s a warrior,” Trump said.

The president added, “He’s the best dad and role model two boys could ever ask for.”

Shurer was accompanied by his wife and two sons, several of his 3rd SFG teammates and Afghan interpreters at the ceremony.

Photos: US Army

“Keep on Ruckin’ It Only Gets Easier From Here”

In our daily Special Operations PT Preparation workouts that we publish, Sunday is our ruck day, just like going to church, it is our weekly ritual before the sun comes up kind of like paying homage to the Special Forces gods before we get on with our regularly scheduled Sunday activities, like coffee (Black Rifle of course), shower, coffee, church, coffee and then Sunday NFL games, where we’ll generally eat too much of the wrong things that my doctor says to avoid.

Earlier this week, the weather had turned in New England, from the humidity of the summer that plagued us here this year, to the cool crisp mornings that make this area of the country the nice place to be during the fall. We had a cool rainy morning and after talking with some of the other writers from our Loadout Room pages, I decided to head out and get some rucking in. It didn’t end well.

Heading out, I was nearly run over by a truck that veered off the road by some guy fiddling with his phone. But Sunday was perfect so, at 4:30 we set off to do the ruck we specified in our workout (8 miles). The conditions were perfect. The sky was clear, the trail mostly dry and the temps were around 46-48 degrees with just that hint of crispness in the air.

After a short warmup getting the old joints moving, the pace was quick and I was trucking along happily with my iPod in. My wife must have used it last, I just turned it on and took off. She had her own mixtape loaded on there and the music jumped around to a crazy mix from Metallica, AC-DC, to Pink, Abba, Lady Gaga and Kid Rock. Jeez… pick one.

The pace quickened thru town and then I cut back around the railroad tracks that I like to ruck on as it is generally flat and I have the miles marked so it is an easy way to keep track of the distance.

Everything was going perfectly for the first mile or so, just after I cut over the Blackstone River railroad trestle and moving past the town’s cemetery, I was moving from one side of the rails to the other and slipped and took an awkward tumble and banged my shin off the rail. Besides being embarrassed to look like an idiot, despite the fact that I was all alone in the dark, it hurt like hell. After taking stock of my situation, luckily nothing was broken, just pride, which was good since I left my phone at home…dummy.

Considering right then to just turning around and calling it a morning, right then I had a flashback to one of our old Special Forces medics during an SFAS class who was treating a candidate’s feet that were looking like melted cheese and said, “Keep on ruckin’ candidate, it only gets easier from here.”

That one particular class had a very large drop rate. The weather was poor, we had some snow (rare in North Carolina), rain and plenty of mud. Our rental trucks that the cadre used didn’t have four-wheel drive and the SGM (Hobson) and I got stuck briefly in the snow on a trail out in Hoffman…who would have “thunk” it?

Hobby was a tremendous shot with a long gun, he’d been a sniper at Delta if memory serves me and when we had to qualify at SWC, the SFAS cadre went out to the range and the SGM would bet a case of beer that he could outshoot anyone at distance for a case of beer (he drank Old Milwaukee’s Best…ugh) He never paid.

Anyway, our class had this one candidate with a stress fracture or something similar in his shin. The kid came up lame right at the end of Team Week and then it was right before what was then the Long Range Movement which was their final event before the Selection Board would meet.

So, while one Medic recommended that he be medically dropped, another said that he should continue and the final decision was made to let him continue. We had the LRM back to Ft. Bragg and that one was always tough as the candidates’ feet were by then hamburger and they were worn down after the Selection events.

The cadre (for the most part) liked the LRM because it signified the end of the course and most of the cadre weren’t needed for it. The worst job was the one cadre member who had to drive the truck…idle it actually for 20 something miles…(How far was it?) to the finish point behind the last candidate on the road. Guess who got that duty that particular class?

So that cold night, the candidates take off and we’re idling along at about 3-4 miles an hour and it isn’t long before our candidate who could barely walk is the last man in line. I kept the truck with the flashers on a comfortable distance behind him but he although limping badly never stopped walking and for a while was actually making good time. But it wasn’t long before his pain level became a real detriment.

The cadre head shed kept in radio contact with me all night and was asking for updates on where he was and if he was “continuing to train” or in other words stopping. He was falling behind the time hack to get a go on this event but never stopped walking.

As the night wore on he fell farther and farther behind the time hack and we knew there was no way he was going to finish in the allotted time, but whether he’d finish at all. When the time was finally running out on the time limit, the candidates were all finished at the time of the cutoff except for one. He was still about 2.5 miles from the finish point and moving by then very slowly.

Our commander called on the radio and asked how he was moving and said the time was up to pick him up and take him to the finish point. I pulled alongside him and told him to stop and get into the truck. He refused and said he wanted to finish. The third time, I said it, it was no longer in a nice evenly toned “SFAS Cadre” voice… “Get your gear and get in the f***ing truck!” was akin to it.

We took him to the finish point and the kid had tears in his eyes. After he got out and rejoined his classmates the SGM came over and we had a short conversation. “Did he ever stop walking or give any indication of quitting,” he asked? None I said. He nodded. “What do you think?” was the question. “Is he hurt? Of course, but I guess the question do we need to know is despite that he kept driving on and that is the kind of thing we’re looking for isn’t it?…I’d take him on my team,” I said.

The SGM nodded, “Fair enough,” he said. The candidate was selected.

Which brings us back to Sunday’s clumsy fall, should I do the smart, “Old Man” thing and turn around and keep going. The old refrain repeated…”Keep on ruckin’ candidate, it only gets easier from here!”

Ah well, who said you get smarter as you get older…Not me.

Happy Rucking! DOL

Photo: US Army Special Forces

RIP and a tip of the Beret to LTC Bob Phelan, a non-SF guy and a very good man who was a project officer on our contract back in the day. He’s riding his Harley in heaven today. Rest easy brother…

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 11, Day 1

It is time for our Sunday morning ruck march. We’re going to do an eight-mile course today over varied terrain. Strive to better the standard time of 120 minutes. Do a quick warmup of pushups and sit-ups before heading out.

Stretch well both before and after the ruck march. Remember to drink plenty of water and stay hydrated out there. And wear your second pair of boots today.

Training:

Warm up

2 x 20 Pushups

2 x 20 Sit-ups

8-mile Rucksack march over varied terrain. And mark your times in your workout log book. If your feet are hurting after completion, then that second pair of boots may need more break-in time. Don’t wait for Selection to get that done.

Stretch well after completion

On This Day Special Forces A -Camp at Thuong Duc Defended

The U.S. Army Special Forces built a number of camps to defend South Vietnam from Communist infiltration during the war in Vietnam. These would be manned by a typical Special Forces A-Team and manned by paramilitary Montagnard tribesmen, called camp strikers, in the Civilian Irregular Defense Program (CIDG).

Special Forces camp A-109 at Thuong Duc was a typical SF camp. It was located southwest (about 40 KM) of Da Nang close to the Laotian border. It was strategically located between the heavily populated coastal plain and the more rural areas west. It was also located within a key river valley where the Song Vu Gia and Song Con rivers converged and afforded the Americans and Vietnamese the ability to monitor and interdict enemy activity from the west and protect Da Nang.

From an SF veteran website: It consisted of an American compound surrounded by an outer band occupied by the CIDG troops. The outer area also contained the Vietnamese ‘District government’ headquarters. To the south (and slightly west) was a CIDG outpost. The outpost and camp A-109 straddled ‘fingers’ — ridges that extended down from the high plateau to the river valley. As such the camp had a commanding view of the river and the river valley.

The 5th Special Forces Group maintained an A-Team at Thuong Duc from 1965 until 1970. Because of the proximity to Da Nang and its strategic importance, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), made the capture of the camp a priority. It was along a major infiltration route by the NVA. and always under attack. The I Corps Mike Force was frequently sent to Thuong Duc to help defend the camp.

The NVA placed anti-aircraft guns on the mountains surrounding the camp and would attempt to shoot down any aircraft attempting to use the airstrip. This made resupply for the camp a tricky situation when the enemy was attacking, which was often.

In September of 1968, the NVA was making another major push for Da Nang. First, they had to take Camp 109 at Thuong Duc. They slowly infiltrated in the mountains on three sides of the camp, building up their forces in an attempt to overrun the camp.

On September 28, at 0200 the NVA 21st Regiment attacked and overran Outposts Alpha and Bravo, about 600 meters southwest of the main camp area. Later that day, CIDG strikers led by Special Forces troops took back the two outposts in hard fighting.

The NVA kept up the pressure by taking several surrounding villages in the area and either killing or driving out the local inhabitants. Meanwhile, the Special Forces troops with their organic mortars along with artillery support and air strikes from the Air Force were taking a huge toll on the enemy.

The A-Team in Thuong Duc had in their possession a captured enemy radio set (Chicom) and were able to monitor the enemy’s transmissions. The NVA was in desperate need of replacements and medical supplies as they were taking severe casualties. Because of these monitored transmissions, CIDG and SF personnel from Camp 109 attacked and routed an enemy resupply column when they entered a killing field of the open area northwest of the camp several days later. They caused an additional 100 casualties of the enemy.

While the NVA kept up pressure against Thuong Duc with several rocket and artillery attacks as well as many probes against the surrounding area villages, but it was clear that they had lost the element of surprise and as well as the initiative.

Then the Seventh Marines was tasked with relieving the surrounded Thuong Duc camp area; 2d and 3d Battalions, 5th Marines were attached to the regiment. Facing elements of 21st Regiment of the 2d NVA Division and the newly established 141st Regiment, the Marines and supporting South Vietnamese units began to help clear the area.

Together, the SF troops, CIDG and the Marines with support from attack aircraft, AC-47 gunships, artillery from 3d Bn, 11th Marines and the Army’s 4th Bn, 8th Field Artillery, the Marines slowly pushed the NVA back to the Laotian border.

Casualties for the Special Forces Camp from the A-109 After Action Report included: 21 CIDG strikers Killed in action (KIA) 8 RF/PF, Killed in action (KIA). 9 Special Forces, 32 CIDG, 6 RF/PF (South Vietnamese), Wounded in Action, (WIA).

NVA dead in direct camp assaults were counted as 68, however many more were killed in artillery and air strikes outside of the camp.

Thuong Duc (Camp A-109) would be attacked again by the NVA again during the time period from late April to early June 1970. In spite of this, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, (MACV) insisted on shutting down the CIDG program and converting the camps over to Vietnamese Ranger BNs. By November 1st, after the 5th Special Forces Group delayed the termination order as long as they could, closed Camp A-109.

The last bastion in I Corps was gone. The South Vietnamese were incapable of running the programs correctly and the Montagnard strikers quit in large numbers, not trusting the South Vietnamese government who treated them like second-class citizens.

The conventional MACV advisors lacked the experience and communications to adequately defend the camps and eventually, the NVA swept thru the areas with ease.

Photos: US Army Special Forces

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 10, Day 6

It is Leg Day at the gym. Starting with Squats – (front, dumbbell goblet, and barbell), then some lunges and the weighted sled push.

And then finish the workout with a five-mile run in 40 minutes or less. Mark your progress down in your workout log book and stretch well after the session.

Training:

Continue to prep for the UBRR.

3 x Front Squat 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x Goblet Dumbbell Squats 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x 10 Barbell Squats

3 x 10 Deadlifts

3 x 10 Dumbbell Lunges

3 x 10 Romanian Lunges

3 x Weighted Sled Push or Fireman’s Carry

5-mile run (40-minute maximum)

Stretch well after completion

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 10, Day 5

Back to the gym this morning and start with a Chest and Triceps workout today before a 5-mile run (40 minutes maximum). You have to build up that upper body strength and today’s workout will definitely help that.

Remember to stretch well before and after and to stay hydrated. Mark your progress down in your workout log book.

UBRR Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Bench Press

3 x 10 Dumbbell Flies

3 x 10 Dumbbell Incline press

3 x 20 Pushups (alternate sets with wide, narrow and shoulder width)

3 x 10 Kip Ups

3 x 20 Sit-ups

3 x 20 Cable Push Downs (rope)

3 x 20 Dips or until muscle failure

5-mile run (40 minutes maximum)

Stretch well after completion

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 10, Day 4

Wednesday is a back and shoulder day at the gym followed by a 6-mile rucksack march. Look to better the time that is the standard (90-minutes).

And remember to hydrate throughout the march. Don’t forget to mark your progress in the workout log book, it would also be a good day to wear those second pair of boots.

UBRR Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, behind the neck (go as heavy as possible)

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, front

3 x 12 Seated Rows

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Front Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Arnold Press

3 x 8 Shoulder Shrugs

6-mile Rucksack march (45-pound minimum, 90-minutes maximum)

Stretch well after completion

Kids Are the Same Everywhere and Say the Darndest Things

To our readers who are attempting for a career in Special Operations, you’ll meet all kinds of interesting people everywhere you go. Some societies are eclectic, like our own. Others are very regimented, but one thing that will never change, no matter where you travel are kids.

As Americans we have a built-in affinity for kids, we love kids, and will stop most anything we’re doing and talk to or help kids out. Of course, our enemies know this and they can and have used kids against us at times. But it doesn’t change our outlook on kids and hopefully, it never will. But kids are universally funny and can also be of great assistance in local areas as well.

There was a television show hosted by Art Linkletter from 1952-69, called House Party and every show, he’d air a segment called “Kids say the Darndest Things.” And here are a few funny anecdotes from back in the day that some of you may enjoy.

Recently we posted a piece and mentioned our team from 3/7th SFG getting tasked with fixing a school during our Christmas “break” in training while in the country of Bolivia. While we working on renovating the school, the parents in the town, volunteered to help out with the labor. This one young couple were both helping out at the school and had two very young kids a boy and a girl. And somehow both got attached to me. Of course, as most of the locals in the town were of the Aymara Indian descent, they’re rather vertically challenged. We must have seemed like giants to them.

They would follow me around everywhere and if I sat down, both of them would climb in my lap. Every morning the little dude would wait and soon as he would see me, he’d snap to attention and give me a salute. Of course the guys on the team thought that was funny. “Hey Chief, how much are you paying that kid, to salute you?” or the better one was, “we had to travel 4000 miles for Chief to find someone to salute him.”

The parents would bring their lunches with them and all four would take a break together around noon. The teachers at the school always put something together for the A-Team every day and it was always good. One day, I asked the parents to take the kids inside to eat with us. The three of us shared a chair and once the school teachers saw the kids, we had a junk food lunch, with too many sweets and soda. The little boy looked at me and said, “Do you eat like this every day? I want to have lunch with you from now on…”

Just a few years ago, I was working on a personal security mission that traveled to several countries in the Middle East. We had a few weeks where our clients were visiting Egypt. It was a fascinating place, somewhere that had been on my personal bucket list and despite working, I was happy to see much of what I dreamed about seeing back as a kid.

We went to visit a place in the center of Cairo where kids went to school and worked alongside adults for part of the day. As we gathered outside and were preparing to shuffle everyone inside, a group of street urchins, about 10 in all and very young approached. The oldest and the leader of the crew couldn’t have been more than 10, the rest were younger, with the youngest probably only about five.

By the way he was dressed, the leader of the kids pegged my partner as an Englishman. And he sidled up to him and spoke pretty decent English, much better than my few words of Arabic. He said, “excuse me, sir, could I please have a cigarette?” My bud Tom didn’t say a word but just shook his head. The kid nonplussed said, “God save the Queen.”

Now as for myself, this kid had me pegged right off as an American. Maybe it was the ballcap. But his entire schtick was different. “Hey Joe, you give me a Marlboro eh?” When I told him that I don’t smoke, either the answer shocked him that some people don’t smoke or he didn’t believe me. But his answer was completely different.

“Yes…well f**k George Buuush then!” he said. I laughed and told him he wasn’t President anymore and that Obama was. “Hey Joe, f**k him too!” Cracking up, I gave him a dollar and they scattered.

But perhaps the best one on how kids are so in tune with things going on locally happened in Panama. One night we were waiting to get picked by two helicopters on a small landing zone. It was pitch dark and we moved into the small clearing waiting for the choppers to come in.

Out of nowhere come two kids on ancient bikes with the old wicker baskets on the handlebars, circa 1950s style. They had ice cold Cokes inside and were hawking them for a quarter.

We shushed them out of there as it was dangerous for the kids with choppers coming in. So, the first chopper comes in, and we load and take off. We fly for about 10-15 minutes, do a false insertion and then land at another LZ. We move to the edge of the jungle and waited for the second to come in.

A few seconds later we heard that familiar swooshing sound and the same two kids, all out of breath, and sweating comes tearing into the LZ from the dirt road. They asked in Spanish if we wanted a Coke now. Sure thing kid. What the hell.

We did get some good intel from young kids at times in Bolivia that told us where drug labs were and sometimes where people were stashing the precursor chemicals but those were rare. In Robin Sage, the kids who worked for the SF auxiliary in the Uwharrie National Forest were already pros at drawing maps and detailing where the “enemy” positions were. The enemy troops, in this case, were 82nd Airborne troops and the kids would wander up under the guise of saying hello and being in awe of the troops and come back and drew detailed sketches of their positions and were their crew-served weapons were.

So for you young guys coming into the pipeline, don’t discount kids for their intelligence value, both for you and against you. But like we said at the outset, they’re the same everywhere and they do say the darndest stuff.

Photo: US Army

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 10, Day 3

So, a good way to begin Tuesday is head to the gym for Leg Day. Begin with pull-ups and towel pull-ups for those who don’t have access to climbing ropes. Then squats, lunges, deadlifts and the sled followed by a three-mile run.

Build up the legs to help tote that rucksack.

UBRR Training:

Continue to prep for the UBRR

3 x Pullups 10 reps

3 x Towel pull-ups 10 reps

3 x Squat 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x Goblet Squats 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x 10 Deadlifts

4 x Sled push with a heavier weight or substitute a Fireman’s Carry

3 x 10 reps Dumbbell Lunges

3 x 20 Side Planks

3-Mile run (24 minutes or less)

Stretch well after completion

“I Went Thru the Last Hard Class” and The Ever Changing Standards

For anyone who is a member of the Special Operations Forces, regardless of what service or unit, there will always be the debate over the standards, whether they changed or have been lowered, and how they “need to get tougher.” And invariably, one grizzled veteran will proudly proclaim, “I went thru the last hard class.” And some of them actually believe it. This is a fact of life, and the older we get, the more we hear it.

However, if you aspire to be a member of one of the SOF units, then this debate shouldn’t matter to you whatsoever. Your focus should be on excelling at everything you do and then you don’t have to worry about whether you’ll meet the standards or not.

I guess some recent Selection candidates must’ve have gotten in a discussion about the possible changing standards and have reached out to us here. My best advice is to ignore it. I was asked, “how hard was YOUR class?” My answer is always, “I went thru the last EASY class.”

And one area that always is used when discussing Special Operations troops is the attrition rate in the courses. If the attrition rate is high, then the veterans are happy and the standards are just right. If the attrition rates drop, the vets scream that standards are being lowered and then the worst of all worlds happen. The senior officers of the various headquarters get involved and even worse when some members of Congress get involved.

I always cringe when I watch hearings from Congress and some Washington pencil pusher says, “We need (insert number here) more Special Operations troops.” Really? Do you just put in a requisition form and say, “We need 500 Green Berets, 500 SEALs and while you’re at it, we could use another 500 Rangers, if it isn’t too much trouble, have them ready to go by the next fiscal quarter.”

Things don’t work that way. That, however, is exactly how standards can be lowered. Despite how bureaucrats think, the drop rate from Special Operations Forces will never be an area that can be manipulated by those in the levels far above the schools’ level no matter how hard they try without adversely affecting the finished product.

We saw glimpses of this last year when several Special Forces NCOs from the SFQC wrote an email that was published on SOFREP/NewsRep. Many SF instructors feel that in the never-ending wars that our country is involved in, the demand for Special Forces troops has dried up the well of qualified candidates and senior officers have lowered the standards and allowing sub-standard SFers to graduate.

The Army felt it was a serious enough issue to have the Commanding General address many of the issues which was a first for this kind of situation. One CSM that answered the charges admitted in an astounding statement, that the school fostered substandard Green Berets onto the Regiment and it was up to them to fix it.

“‘We push some of these issues forward [to the Regiment] because we believe that the Groups can succeed in fixing those problem graduates when they arrive. That is an amount of risk we willingly accept, because after all it’s much easier to get a tab removed at Group if he doesn’t pan out, than to risk relieving what’s basically a fully qualified student who might have been able to fix himself and become a solid Green Beret.’”

When the senior leadership starts looking at the failure rate from class to class if a spike occurs it normally involves outside factors that have nothing to do with the cadre. Despite the failure rates for all of the Special Operations courses remaining remarkably consistent across the board for most of the courses for several years, there are far too many variables that go into each class to be able to point a finger and identify why the rates fluctuate.

From a piece I wrote last year, I recalled a similar issue when Selection and Assessment (SFAS) was still in its infancy. The first couple of training cycles were called SFOT back then. When Selection was started, being new, there was absolutely no G-2 going on in the course. The resultant mind-games (politically correct word used) were much more effective as the candidates were truly in the dark as to what to expect.

But the first couple of classes were heavily staffed with motivated hard-chargers from the Ranger battalions, the 82nd Airborne, and other light infantry background units. After that well dried up a bit, the courses were filled with more different backgrounds and many of those soldiers weren’t physically or mentally prepared for what would follow. The drop rate rose pretty dramatically.

The Special Warfare School was feeling the heat from higher authority and word came down to our officers that they were being asked, “what are the guys at Mackall doing differently now?” The short and correct answer was nothing.

There is no way to micromanage the drop rate in Special Operations training and our officers knew this right away. But it never stops the bean counters from trying. A few months later we had a class in February where it rained and rained hard for nearly every day of the course. The difficulty in every aspect of the course was magnified for the candidates. What it took a toll more than anything was their feet.

The drop rate for medical issues and VW (voluntary withdrawal) again peaked. And once again our cadre leaders were again being asked silly questions about the attrition. Want to know why so many dropped? Come out and walk in the rain for a week and see for yourself. The cadre wasn’t failing people by anything they were doing. The course and the conditions were doing what the course was designed to do. Weeding out those who can from those who cannot.

We were lucky, after nosing around a bit, the desk jockeys from SWC retreated back to the comfort of those warm, dry offices in the Puzzle Palace and left the training to the NCOs assigned there. By the sound of things, the guys last year didn’t have that luxury. I don’t know whether what the charges that the NCOs wrote last year were true or not. I don’t work there anymore and haven’t been there for some time. But if so many of them feel that way, then I trust their judgment as fellow SF brothers that there was an issue that needed fixing.

So, what does this have to do with the aspiring SOF candidates and the standards? Nothing. The best thing a candidate can do is to do what we always preach here. “Ignore the Noise” and don’t listen to anything that you can’t control. Don’t strive to meet the standards, look to crush them. Be the guy that every instructor wants to have on his team.

Don’t fall into the bad habit of doing math in your head, trying to game plan the odds of them making it when you hear that the failure rate is XX%. You have no control over the pass/failure rate other than to meet to standards as they are or to fail. Be in that top 5 percent. Several years ago one SFQC instructor was inundated with questions as to what the standards are, and what he told his candidates should be framed and added to every classroom in SOF.

Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn’t worry about what workout to do – his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about ‘how hard it is;’ he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn’t go home at 17:00, he is home. He knows only The Cause.

So when you prepare for the courses, prepare with this mindset in the back of your mind. Don’t worry about the politics of the school and what the standards are…or aren’t. The standards are what they are, they’ll be spelled out for you in advance. Your instructors don’t want you to fail. They just want the best and brightest to stand beside them when all is said and done.

They have their job to do, and yours isn’t to worry about the cadre doing theirs. Your job is to prepare to pass the courses. Don’t concern yourself with items you don’t control. So, let’s go rucking… DOL

Photo: US Army