Now I'm really going to stir things up: an SF-only thread

**Roguish Lawyer** · 03-23-2004, 22:36

This thread is only for SF, SF Candidates and others with sufficient knowledge to comment intelligently on the topic:

Have SF standards been lowered unwisely to meet the demand for more SF soldiers?

Surgicalcric · 03-23-2004, 22:56

To quote TR:

Quote:

...This culminated in graduating a grand total of about 250 soldiers in 2000 or so, which was about 1/3 to 1/2 of our requirements. Numbers have improved significantly since then by a number of methods, which did not include lowering standards. Big actions and big money are currently underway to produce 750 SF soldiers per year within the next few years. This is requiring additional resourcing, to the tune of an additional 500 permanent party personnel. Hey, anyone remember that old saying, "Competent SOF cannot be created overnight"? It takes SF soldiers to make SF soldiers, and it is a very manpower and contact hour intensive process.

Any questions?

**Roguish Lawyer** · 03-23-2004, 23:23

No cheating, crip.

I would comment on your participation in the thread, but I am not allowed to do so.

Surgicalcric · 03-23-2004, 23:35

Cheating...how's that cheating?

I have sufficient knowledge of The Reaper's POV on this issue. Are you suggesting the comment I quoted is not an intelligent one as it pertains to the substance of your query?

03-23-2004, 23:52

I can't really comment on the standards due to the fact that I am only a SF candidate. I can however comment on the type of people that are currently joining the SF pipeline. All are highly motivated, well educated (the 5 I have been in close contact with are all college graduates), and are in great shape to be non military and are currently training hard before going to basic just to have a chance at making it through SFAS. I think the 18X programs which was put in place to increase the amount of new and qualified recruits is serving its purpose. As for the standards, they can only be made so difficult before noone will pass and because the people in charge of the standards and training are SF officers I doubt they would ever allow standards to be dropped just to fill the slots. I think new programs such as 18X will be implemented in the future to increase the pool from which soldiers will be selected to fill quotas and not do so by the lowering of standards.

SO

**Roguish Lawyer** · 03-24-2004, 00:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Surgicalcric
Cheating...how's that cheating?

I have sufficient knowledge of The Reaper's POV on this issue. Are you suggesting the comment I quoted is not an intelligent one as it pertains to the substance of your query?

You copied that from another board. I am not eligible for the thread, so stop asking for my irrelevant and baseless views, if any.

**Eagle5US** · 03-24-2004, 01:21

about 10 years ago, there were a bunch of us bitching, whining and complaining because we thought standards had been lowered by lowering the GT score requirement and no longer haveing the mandatory pass swin test. Survival had been removed from the Q as had a number of things we had done that "Cherries" would not be required to do.
As instructors, we bitched to everyone who would listen that "our generation" was going to ruin the reputation of the SF soldier because we were graduating too many who didn't deserve it and standards where transparent to the powers that made the decisions...
Know what?
We may have been partially correct, BUT, those who "slid through" were weeded out when they eventualyy got to the teams. And though they didn't "go through" what we did for training...they went through OTHER STUFF instead.
It is not a matter of lowering the standard, but updating the requirements to reflect the changing face of the Army and the role that Special Operations plays in it.
The Q of today isn't any EASIER, it's just different.

My .02

Eagle

Mitch · 10-21-2009, 14:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle5US

about 10 years ago, there were a bunch of us bitching, whining and complaining because we thought standards had been lowered by lowering the GT score requirement and no longer haveing the mandatory pass swin test.

My .02

Eagle

So when I went through, the GT requirement was 110 - most guys I knew were well above that anyway, but - all the same, what did they lower it to, and what is it now.

Mitch

ZonieDiver · 10-21-2009, 15:15

Do they still have the SFBT (I think that was it, maybe it was SFQBT) or an equivalent? If it is not still around, when was it removed? That was the hardest test I ever took.

**The Reaper** · 10-21-2009, 15:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mitch

So when I went through, the GT requirement was 110 - most guys I knew were well above that anyway, but - all the same, what did they lower it to, and what is it now.

Mitch

110, waiverable down to 100, and in my experience, that waiver is frequently granted.

TR

alelks · 10-21-2009, 16:43

Prime example back in 2005. I was on the ASOT detachment as a contract instructor. I taught back there from 91-94 as a green suit. Anyway we had 4 guys fail the rural portion miserably (my exercise by the way). I mean they only turned in 2 reports out of 11. They basically gave up just a few days into the exercise and sat in their hotel rooms the rest of the trip. Well the Bn Commander came down and wanted to talk to the committee. Of course he was trying to convince us to keep the 4 guys in the course because they needed grads. He gave an analogy that recently they had a guy at Scuba school who didn't pass the first gate but the instructors saw something in the guy so they let him continue. Long story short he said the guy graduated.

Well while he was telling this story I was biting my tongue. At one point he said "I know we are producing graduates that are not trained in what we want them to do but......

Well that's when I absolutely lost it. I couldn't believe I had just heard that out of a BN Commanders mouth. I flew off the handle as every hair on my body stood straight up.

I immediately stopped him and said "Sir, I can't believe I just heard what just came out of your mouth. We are producing graduates that are not trained in what we want them to do? You tell that to the little 6 year old boy who's father isn't going to be coming home because we didn't train him properly, you tell that to the family members of the rest of his team when they don't come home." Then I really lost it and said "F*^$ General _________ because we all know where this is coming from it's a numbers game. Here's what you need to do. You need to do what's professionally ethically and morally correct because if we let these guys continue through the course it's just flat out WRONG. What do you think the rest of the class is going to think? I can tell you exactly what they are going to think. They are going to think, well these guys didn't do a damn thing during rural and passed so why should I bust my ass during Urban.:

You know the funny thing is and this is what's a shame, there were only two or three out of about 16 instructors that were verbal about this. Everyone else was just sitting there saying absolutely nothing.

Well I figured as a contractor they were paying me for my expertise and opinion and I let him have it with both barrels.

I called the detachment commander up that weekend and apologized for getting so verbal and of course he told me "No, thank you because we as green suiters can't speak or mind like that and that's exactly what needed to be said".

After that the 4 guys departed the course.

And that my friend is why I never wanted to go any higher in rank than MSG. It just gets too political after that and I would have gotten into tons of trouble.

Mitch · 10-21-2009, 19:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Reaper

110, waiverable down to 100, and in my experience, that waiver is frequently granted.

TR

Well that's not good!

In my world these days in "Quality Assurance", many times when Specifications are waived in order to accept a slightly "Off" batch of parts, the ripple effect lasts for a long time in the form of Rework, Line Rejects, and increased Warranty Claims. These additional effects cause ultimaelty in increase in costs and delevery delays.

People aren't widgets, but the principle is probably very much the same.

longrange1947 · 10-21-2009, 19:47

The biggest problem is that there is a group of individuals that have not learned the difference between trained and qualified. We hear constantly that we need more trained individuals in the force. No, we need more qualified individuals and numbers are not qualified only trained. And we all know about illiterate grads of high school AND college that are functionally illiterate but they are "trained" in English.

BIG difference, but not realized by too many of the bean counters that only see numbers as hot bodies with a cert.

Now, understand this, there are great soldiers being turned over to the Groups, many have worked with them and that includes the older 18Xrays. But the number that are slipping through the cracks is alarming.

03-24-2004, 01:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Roguish Lawyer

Have SF standards been lowered unwisely to meet the demand for more SF soldiers?

NO.

QRQ 30 · 03-24-2004, 05:07

I don't think so. I was one of the first of the "baby SF" in 1963. The pre-requisite before was E-5 over four years service. I was E-2 over three (months) when I was reqruited. The academics and physical challenges probably weren't as difficult as they are today. We got our best training from our Teams.

SF is in the heart not in or on the head.

I don't think training standards are relaxed as such. There are more than enough satisfactory candidates out there. As in other occupations, "cutoff scores" are sometimes raised and lowered to adjust manpower levels.

There was a time when there were more in training than there were total active SF when I entered.

This is a story which can give one a complex if he listens: :"This unit was a lot better just before you arrived!!!"

SF performed admirably in Vietnam though the majority had less than five years service. I see the same admirable performance today. Sometimes saying that standards have dropped is a way of patting one's self on the back and having a "superiority complex".