Article

2010-11-24 Afghanistan

US Army 18 series positions difficult to fill.

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Posted by Besoeker 2010-11-24 10:11|| || Front Page|| [11124 views ] Top

#1 Well, Duh. Not everyone is cut out to be SF.

Posted by OldSpook 2010-11-24 11:28|| 2010-11-24 11:28|| Front Page Top

#2 Lessee......first you have to volunteer for the Army, complete basic and AIT, then volunteer for and complete jump school, then volunteer to be in SF. THEN you have to be accepted, survive SFAS, then complete 2 years of training to become an operator, then get assigned to a Group. Simple, no?

Posted by Nottaleg 2010-11-24 11:35|| 2010-11-24 11:35|| Front Page Top

#3 How about some level of training that is in between standard and SF training? We don't need jungle warfare techniques taught in Afghanistan, so maybe we can leave that out.

Posted by gorb 2010-11-24 12:30|| 2010-11-24 12:30|| Front Page Top

#4 You get what you pay for Gorb.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-11-24 12:34|| 2010-11-24 12:34|| Front Page Top

#5 "How about some level of training that is in between standard and SF training?"

That might be hard to do as I believe the SF mission is misunderstood by many. There are all types of SoF but SF is only one of them. So what someone might get in "rock eater" school might be useful but only covers one portion of the requirements.

The sort of people that make the best operators are just not that common. The psychological screening is probably the most difficult part, I would think, aside from the required skillset.

Posted by crosspatch 2010-11-24 12:49|| 2010-11-24 12:49|| Front Page Top

#6 You get what you pay for Gorb.

As in "half-measures aren't worth it"?

Posted by gorb 2010-11-24 12:59|| 2010-11-24 12:59|| Front Page Top

#7 .....first you have to volunteer for the Army

I believe the height and weight standards keep out a sizable portion [both in numbers and girth] of the male population of the US just to start with.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-11-24 13:44|| 2010-11-24 13:44|| Front Page Top

#8 And the MMPI or other psychological screening test will drop out some more.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2010-11-24 15:23|| 2010-11-24 15:23|| Front Page Top

#9 We still have Rangers, right? Doesn't that qualify for in between regular and SF?

Posted by Dar 2010-11-24 15:48|| 2010-11-24 15:48|| Front Page Top

#10 And all the above comments don't even address the threat of being second guessed/arrested/prosecuted by your own government and pilloried in the press.
I cannot say as I blame them.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2010-11-24 17:06|| 2010-11-24 17:06|| Front Page Top

#11 I recall that back at the start of the WoT, when SOCOM was about tripling in size, there was an effort to recruit directly from the pool of "talented individuals", outside of the normal channels. That is, to go direct to SOCOM without first going into the regular Army.

This had the added bonus that such people were far less visible to the major foreign powers, who go to lengths to obtain lists of top of the line military personnel.

But this also means that in the long run, there was almost certain to be a downturn in ordinary channel recruitment.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-11-24 18:14|| 2010-11-24 18:14|| Front Page Top

#12 The primary role of SF is to operate with, organize, train, and utilize resistance movements in occupied countries. Originally looked at the old Warsaw Pact countries. Last big success was helping the Northern Alliance against al Q and the Taliban in Astan.
In addition to being supersoldiers, they are superb linguists--need a high score on language aptitude in addition to other things--and are excellent practical anthropologists.
All the other folks we hear about, Delta Force, Marine Force Recon, Seals, are to operate as small teams doing their own thing. Rangers are good light Infantry and assault teams. Only SF is designed to work with other countries' troops or resistance movements. Lot more to it than supersoldiering. It appears that this sort of thing is long range patrolling and recon, with target designating thrown in for the airstrike. May or may not have had locals working with them.

Posted by Richard Aubrey 2010-11-24 20:43|| 2010-11-24 20:43|| Front Page Top

23:12 gorb
23:10 gorb
22:56 anon1
22:47 Water Modem
22:39 Water Modem
22:37 gorb
22:35 Water Modem
22:32 KBK
22:32 gorb
22:29 Water Modem
22:26 gorb
22:23 gorb
22:20 KBK
22:20 gorb
22:10 Secret Asian MAn
22:09 KBK
21:59 Anonymoose
21:58 Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo)
21:57 Frank G
21:20 Bright Pebbles
20:47 Redneck Jim
20:46 bigjim-CA
20:44 bigjim-CA
20:43 Richard Aubrey