Build and SF
 

Hey guys i'm new to the forum and can't tell you how glad I am to have found a community such as this. Anyhow I have searched the forum extensively and haven't been able to find any topics or information regarding height and weight. I am a smaller guy at 5'7" 135 lbs. I can tell you that when it comes to ruck marches and carrying gear my size won't be a problem as I am an avid hiker (I did 300 miles on the Appalachian trail this summer) I can easily move at a 4-5 mph pace with a 45lb pack on my back atm and i'm positive that with more training I can carry more. However, I am wondering if when it comes to being selected I would be looked down upon as a candidate simply due to my size. I would like to think that when it comes to SF selection its like the old saying "its not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog." However I do realize that at a certain point it boils down to practicality.

My fingers are crossed that I don't get blasted by The Reaper.

Chuck

As a sophomore, you need to concentrate on the 25 yd target for the next several yrs. It looks like you have a full plate, if you are the Chuckarthy that has registered on so many internet sites.

Do well in school and after your other school activities, read and absorb here.

As to size of the applicants trying to get into SFAS and Special Forces??

While physical strengths carry the body thru the process,, the mind is the key to a successful completion of the course.

Good Luck & Welcome to PS.com..

:lifter

Some of the toughest guys I had the pleasure of knowing are small guys. As JJ said, it's a mind set.

I will say, get used to carrying far more weight than 45lbs, even as an 11B you'll carry heavier loads than that..

5'7" and 135 lbs is small...I know...that's five pounds lighter than I was when I went through SFQC...4-5 mph with a 45 lbs rucksack isn't quite the standard...

When I went through the training, the cadre was indifferent to my size...it never came up...

The average load of an 82nd Airborne infantryman in theater is in excess of 130 pounds.

I do not recommend training with that weight, but it is reality.

How much of your share of the team gear do you think your fellow team members should have to carry for you?

If you are in good shape at 135 pounds, you had best be the strongest 135 pound man on the planet, and be able to buddy carry the heaviest guy on your team when you have to.

TR

I do not completely agree with TR...but at 135, you'd better be strong, you'd better be tough and you'd better be the best guy on the team at something crucial...

That said, I could buddy carry Tiny Young (RIP) and my Ranger buddy had been a linebacker at a Division II school...you have to carry your share of the load...

Roger that.

Didn't say the individual's weight would be a show stopper in and of itself. His ability to carry his share of the load would be.

We had a guy on one of my teams who weighed 135-145 pounds, but he had proven himself in the 82nd and brought a ton of resources with him when he came to the team. He could hump his share and then some, and had a heart the size of Texas. But if he had been 180 pounds in the same condition, it would have been a lot easier for him.

TR

We had an 18D go through the Q with me, St Augustine or something like that who was all of 5'4" on a good day. A sight to see him with an M5 bag on top of his ALICE, from the back all you could see were a pair of jungle boots. He had no problem and as far as I know had a good hitch in 2/10. Oh ya he only had one nut, car accident, don't even ask how that came up in conversation.

No argument there...and the truth be known, I was an engineer sergeant on a detachment at 145 or so and a detachment commander at 165...165 was better...

I'm either 5'7" or 5'8" depending on who's doing the measuring and weighed about 140 while going through the course. One of the other Captains in my class was about 5'4" on a good day. Are there things you have to overcome? Sure. Is it doable? Sure.

*first off I realize that the rules are only QP's can post in this part of the forum however I am unsure if this counts for my own thread. So ill post this and if it breaks the rules let me know and ill be sure not to do it again.

Haha yeah those registrations are a combination of both my brother and me, however the college app stuff is me. Anyhow I am in college now and can tell you that I quite honestly am flat out bored with school. I am literally thinking about taking the next semester studying 2 languages intensely to the point where I can become fluent and then enlisting (much to the displeasure of my parents I might add). I appreciate your answers and will continue training like a maniac. You can imagine the looks i've been getting running around an upper class suburb with a log suspended above my head.

Two things you should probably do:
1. Go buy "Get Selected" and follow the training model in the book. Also there's a whole section on this board that talks about PT. The thing you want to do is train smart - be effective but also not trash your body. You'll get plenty of time to do that in the Infantry and (if you make it) SF.

2. If you're bored, get FM7-8 and a Ranger handbook. Know small unit tactics. It will help you in any combat unit.


Good luck. Now do some push ups... :lifter

Sometimes it's better to blend in on target then stick out. You don't want to be that tall guy standing among a bunch of Jundies. We had a WO get shot in the back of his helmet on target.

Being "to" tall is one way of standing out in the crowd,,

Being "to" loud and overly boisterous is another way...

Being "to" anything can get you "to" much exposure...

Perfecting a low profile in all things is good...

:munchin:cool:

PS: Do you use para cord to suspend that LOG over your head??

From what is this log suspended?:rolleyes:

Ability to communicate clearly and correctly in written form is another valuable skill you'll need.

OK guys,I'm not the brightest guy on this forum,however please tell me how a 135 pound guy would be able to carry a 130 pound rucksack?.............:confused:

Big Teddy :munchin

Teddy:

It isn't a 130 pound ruck, at least not normally.

Body armor, helmet, weapon, ammo, grenades, smoke, crew served ammo, water, chow, radio, spare batteries, NVG, snivel gear, sleeping gear (temps ranged from 40s to more than 110 degrees), uniform, knife, tools, compass, map, flashlight, first aid/blow-out kit, IV kits, hygiene kits, gloves, etc., etc., plus a ruck adds up to 130 plus pounds.

Frankly, having humped over 150 pounds load before, when I weighed 190, it isn't exactly a tactical movement. More like a struggle to put one foot in front of the other without falling, eyes on the ground.

This study shows you where the weight comes from.

http://thedonovan.com/archives/moder...LoadReport.pdf

Here goes:

Hell, the study shows the 60mm mortar crews and leaders, assistance machine gunner, MG ammo bearer, and SAW gunners all over 140 pounds, and in some cases, almost 150 pounds.

The items counted for the 11B look like this. No beer, ipods, cigarettes, etc. included.

Not judging, just saying that a 135 pound rifleman in the 82nd is getting his ass kicked by his load on a regular basis.

Guess how much 135 pounds of lightweight gear weighs?

TR

Haha well I hold it above my head in a way something a bit like this :lifter. Its an old wrestling workout that I used to do all the time in HS. My purpose for starting this thread was to find out if my stature would in some way disqualify me from becoming a SF soldier just by default. I am not so much concerned with weights or distances as I know that I will be capable of carrying and covering them with several months of training especially since I am already in fairly good shape (I can rock climb 5.8's with a 20lb weight vest on and was hiking 15-25 mile days with a 35-45lb pack on for 29 days during june/july. However, I guess if their is anything to take away from this thread it is that I should try to bulk up to at least 145-150lbs lean mass which shouldn't be that hard given my genetics and enough food. Anyhow, I truly appreciate your input and look forward to exploring the depths of knowledge on this site further.



*JJ_BPK * My intention for that was in no way to be arrogant and if that is the vibe you got from my last post I apologize.

I seem to recall being a little more tired than my larger squaddies back in the day...and after a three or four day exercise, I was pretty well spent..

210 pounds...maybe 250...

And to Teddy's question...how does a 135 pound trooper carry that kind of weight around (okay, I paraphrased )...it takes a lotta wanna...

Do your feet reach the ground? Then you're not to short.
Seriously, how big is your heart? What about your head? If those two are the right proportions you'll be okay.

I have watched little dudes go like crazy. Have watched guys built like greek statues quit/fail miserably.

As young as you are, I wouldn't worry a lot about the weight. Chow hall eatin' will put some ass on ya'.

Anybody up for some shit-on-a-shingle?

I was 5'9" and 150 when I went to Camp Mackall. I had a fear that I would be the smallest guy there - because the soldier who had been at Infantry and Airborne with me was 6'3" and 210... looked like John Wayne, and did a great impression, which was a handy skill in 1970 SFTG (I copied his imitation, though I looked nothing like "The Duke"... a couple guys from SFTG still know me as "Duke"!). When I got there, I discovered I was more the norm than the exception. However, we didn't have many guys much smaller than I was....

"Shit-on-a-shingle"! Yum. Though it didn't measure up to my mom's "chipped beef on toast" - I soon came to love the Army version, as I did most "Army chow." It was often derided, and I must admit the USAF seemed to eat better regularly. However, on the whole it was ,IMHO, usually pretty good, sometimes very good, and always plentiful.

"Chow down, hogs!"

Sometimes there are advantages to being slight of build.

The tunnel rats that served during the the Viet Nam war are a fine example.

Pricleess advice...
 

Very sound advice for so many other applications in life. That is a gem Dozer!:)

Well..when it came to tunnels I always thought that a fella about 6'4" and 250 had the advantage.
He couldn't fit in 'em.

Only disadvantage to being short was that I couldn't take as long strides with snowshoes and fell behind the team or (usually) had to break trail.

Size does matter.
 

Height and weight certainly have some bearing on being SF in the minds of some.
This can be measured and photographed , but the real measure is measured by trial.
This is the measure of the Heart and will. No physical sizing will help determine this result. Blitzzz

Had some studs out in Yuma who had issue with the distance between the bottom of the pack tray and the ground while they were standing up. (This is prior to exit for you guys about to make some smart-alecky remark :D). Sometimes there isn't a lot of rucksack that fits between there.

Course, once you leave the ramp, none of that really matters....athough you could find yourself lacking a high quality rudder when you need one the most.

We had a medic in 46th Co that was 5'2"-5'3". It wasn't a problem until we had a jump out of a UH-1H. He was in the front spot, sitting on the edge of the cabin but his feet didn't reach the skid. When he pushed himself out, he didn't clear the skid and got hung up by the saddle on his harness. 1500' in the air, hanging upside down by his ass...

I always found it kind of amusing when some of the Arnold Jr.'s couldn't pass the PT test, while the little skinny guys had no problems.

but it was NOT amusing when Mr "I-got-bodyfat-of-less-than 10%-chicks-dig-me" went into energy deficit and could no longer hump a ruck or stay awake in the NDP or even maintain linear thought.

A little fat is good.

Over the years I saw:

• Big guys who could make it and big guys who could not
• Small guys who could make it and small guys who could not
• Short guys who could make it and short guys who could not
• Tall guys who could make it and tall guys who could not
• Thin guys who could make it and thin guys who could not
• Heavy guys who could make it and heavy guys who could not
• Athletic guys who could make it and athletic guys who could not
• Etc...

My observation was that you could never really tell who was gonna make it or not until after they had either made it or didn't.

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02 :munchin

All very true. You can't see into someone's mindset. It comes down to how bad you want it.

Guamanian, SFC Efrin Cruz was 5'-2'' tall and weighed 124 lbs. He humped a 50lb rucksack, a Car-15 with 240 rounds of ammo, 6 frag grenades and 2 smoke grenades and a claymore mine or two as he walked point for team Cobra 1-5 in B-36 (Third Mobile Strike Force, Company A, 5th SFGA) 1n 1968.

We were walking into the Saigon PX dressed in Tiger Striped fatigues one day when the MP guard stopped us and said to me, "You can go in but the "gook" has to stay outside." I told the MP, "You tell him that he can't go in, He's an SFC in the American Army." I walked in to the PX as Cruz told the MP to call his supervisor.

UB,

You came close to my stats when I went through............. :) I had a 31' waist,was 6'1'' and 240,which of course would have disqualified me also!.............;)

Big Teddy :munchin

Nope, them ain't my stats. I was pointing out when it came to tunnel crawling, Big boys were exempt.

I was a lot closer to Chuckarthy's build when I was a youngster.:D

One advantage, I didn't stand out among the little indig troops.;)

Concur..........;)

Big Teddy :munchin

So I figured I would post an update. I have joined the ROTC program at state school down the road from my school. On my first day at the program one of the MS4's asked me if I wanted to try out for Ranger Challenge, I had absolutely no idea what it was but I said yeah. I made the team and will be competing up at FT Knox in 2 weeks with the team. As a part of the PT I have been rucking, running, and doing skills training at 4am every morning. Since the beginning of RC training I have ended up putting on 5lbs, hopefully I can keep on packing on the pounds!

Strength and endurance are worth more than weight...