# What the Guys Who Made It Did



## Etype (Jun 9, 2015)

I think if we can get some participation in this thread, it will give the hopefuls a look at what a successful mindset looks like.

So there seems to be a myriad of threads asking questions like-
- Is RIP/RASP right for me?
- Do I have what it takes to make it through SFAS?
- What's better, SEALs or MARSOC?
- Is it taking the easy route to be a CCT instead of PJ?

If the SOF guys could chime in and say what their pre-SOF outlook was, I bet we'll get a very different perspective than that commonly seen by the new dudes here.

I'm going to make a prediction. I bet most folks who are/were in SOF will fall into two categories-

1. When you joined the Army, Navy, whatever you already knew you were a badass. You walked into the recruiter's office, found out that you could sign up for this thing called the SEALs/Rangers/18x program, so you did it and never looked back.

2. You didn't know that much about about the military when you joined but you knew you wanted to serve. You took one of the jobs that was pitched to you, and you did a really good job at it for a few years. After realizing you were the best radio operator/ship washer/airplane fixer you could be, you marched your ass down the road and signed up for the next thing. You didn't ask the recruiter if he thought you would make it, because you already knew you would.


----------



## x SF med (Jun 9, 2015)

I had been exposed to SF in College, I was mentored by 2 SF Sr NCO's while in ROTC/SMP... verified SOG vets.  SGM B. made me an AI for the Outdoor Skills classes almost off the bat, because I loved all that stuff, then he got me up to speed patrolling, doing recon, ambushes and made me a patrolling Instructor for FTX's... the Mech Unit I was attached to taught me mounted ops and Dismounted Ops, but SGM B took that beyond the basics they practiced.

I left College due to lack of funds and because I really had lost interest in the socio-political climate of academia.  I went to work doing construction in NYC as a non-union laborer and sheet rock mechanic in a Union shop- that lasted a year.

I went to a recruiter, and told him I had 98 hours of college, non-qual'd time in a Mech Inf unit, ROTC, Airborne, 2 leadership schools (CTLT and Advanced Camp) and I wanted to go Infantry with a Special Forces guarantee in the contract.  He almost shit himself, a middle class white 22 y/o close to obtaining a degree, on track t ofor a commission asking for the exact stuff he needed for the monthly recruiting goals.  He got me released from the USAR Control Groups and got letters of recommendation from the PMS, APMS, SGM and MSG (PMS = LTC - Ranger School and Ranger Co 101st VN, 3 PH, SS BSM; APMS = MAJ Ranger qual'd FO with 4 ID Ranger Co, 4 PH, SS BSM; SGM, SF Ranger, taught at MACV Ranger School, served with John Plaster, badass; MSG, SF Ranger, MACV also verified badass) and then got the contract - he had to get authorization from (then) 1stSPOPTNGBN/SFTG at USAJFKSWCS.

I joined before the 18X program was in place, it was called a Special Forces Contract (the letters from the 2 SF guys above helped get me the contract)...  all it did was place me into a position where I could prove I was ready to move to training - back then this was Pre-Phase, the forerunner of SFAS.  No time line, some guys skipped it altogether, the longest I heard of anybody staying in it was 13 months...  imagine a year of SFAS, I was there for a month, then was told to pack my gear, I was headed to MacKall, then run by MAJ Robert L. Howard, MoH and verified badass. With everything that had been put in place by men whose reputations were backing me - I had one focus, Graduate or Die.  When SGM B said "[Last Name] you are not going to be an officer, you are going to be a Special Forces NCO."  I knew I had a lot to live up to.

No G2 at all prior to going - I was told to be in shape, be prepared for anything, expect the worst, never be late, light or lost, and here is your packing list and report date.

My story is a bit more convoluted than most... but it boils down to - It's there if you want it, and you are the key to making it - if you want it bad enough to die achieving your goal you will make it.  Too many of you are overthinking and over prepping the whole thing...  Have a backup plan...  I was going to the 82nd if I didn't make it the first time, but I was going back to try again if I could.


ETA - also at Camp MacKall at the time, as a special guest instructor, who got to bust my chops for an extra week was (then) MAJ Nick Rowe, who was working on the POI and standards for the soon to be named SERE school...


WELL?   ANYBODY ELSE GOING TO POST?


----------



## Sandman3 (Jun 11, 2015)

Went to the Marine recruiter to sign up not knowing anything other than wanting to be a Marine.  When he offered a list of jobs I was blown away that I had all these options to choose from, but after talking with a buddy of mine he convinced me 03 infantry was the way to go, and so I did.

Found myself coming back from my first deployment, moved up in found myself now a fire team leader, and earning respect from my seniors.  Being a grunt in the line was good, but then opportunity came my way for trying out for STA, which I had no idea existed or that you could potentially become a sniper granted you make the indoc and graduate school.  Again I came into the Marine Corps blind at 18 right after high school, with no research in it, so all of this was a surprise but in a good way.  Well as it would be, I did attend the indoc, crushed everything thrown at me, and in the end stood in front of the board to be congratulated on the effort I put in and that I was invited to be apart of the platoon.  This was honestly the best feeling of success and gratitude next to graduating boot camp and I believe this motivation has stuck with me since.

I would in time work my way up and earn a seat to sniper school and I succeeded what I still believe to be the hardest 3 months of my life.  The near target and accomplishing it would draw me closer to that long range target.  I would find myself in a myriad of schools that I completed, and as it would pay off I was meritoriously promoted on my second deployment.

As deployment was wrapping up I was facing the decision all military members face, am I staying in or getting out?  I started working back up plans build in back plans.  I had a primary and alternate course of action to part ways with the military or stay in.  Part of the stay in was my evaluation of where I was, being a sniper was awesome but again I felt like I was still at general population Marine Corps and I could do more.  I had heard of MARSOC a bit by this point so I started digging into it more and shot the recruiter an email.  I was back from deployment for no more than 4 or 5 days when I went to the recruiting office and said this is what I wanted to do, and I'm pretty sure I set a record on how fast you can complete a package and an NSW/SO before I took leave 10 days later.  I was determined.

For the next 4-5 months I did nothing but swim, run, ruck, lift weights, ensure I took care of my daily tasks and kept my nose clean.  A&S came up, and I felt ready and did well, part of the original "selected" group.  As rewarding as it felt for about a day, all I could think is now it's game time, and I had 7 months to show up the best I could be to ITC.  I generally kept my workout regimen the same, but what I really did was focus on the little things like PME, marine net classes, driving licenses, and all little nit noise things that would prevent being behind the power curve or just overall getting ahead of the game.  By doing that and keeping that mindset, I went on to graduate ITC.  I could never imagine X years ago where I am now, but it's because of accomplishing the short term goals 1 by 1 that will bleed into the long term goals.  I never really thought much about graduating whenever I started something, I just knew that was the product of being successful on daily tasks.


----------



## 8654Maine (Jun 11, 2015)

Very long post about my story:

Immigrant.  Didn't speak English until 10-11 y.o.  I was the oldest of 3 brothers in a poor neighborhood.  We were the family that looked different than the other families.  Always enjoyed school and learning.  Probably why I got into more fights before age 13 than most guys get in their lifetimes.

Always bloody.  Things changed at age 13 when my baby brother came home with a bloody nose from the local town bully who was a year older than me.  I beat that fucker in front of a lot of folks on the wiffle ball field.  He cried that his brothers would get me.  Strangely enough, they left us and the rest of the kids alone from then on.

Got good SAT's.  Full academic scholarship to Auburn.  Decided to go to Cornell.  Lost my way as a sophomore.  Missing something in life.  Bored as shit.  I missed the adrenaline rush of fighting.

Looked at ways to challenge myself.  Looked at the military.  Went to different recruiters.  Most of them gave off vibes like used-car salesmen.  I don't believe in guarantees.

What I learned from getting into fights and being picked on was that Life is what you make it: one can whine/fret about the circumstances or change it.  Plus, I didn't mind the sight of blood.

The USMC recruiter gave me no guarantees.  I respected that.  Plus, they had the best uniforms.

Enlisted in the USMC right after finals of my sophomore college year.  Went in with an open mind.  Had no preconceived notions, just wanted to be a Marine.  I'll take lemons and give them lemonade.  Wanted to be Marine Infantry no matter what.  I still believe that being a grunt is one of the toughest and most under-appreciated jobs in the world.

Found out I loved it, lock-stock-and-barrel.

Made Honor Man in boot camp.  The DI's said I could pick any MOS.  I chose 0311.  They went bat shit crazy.  Tried to get me to change to "something-useful-to-use-later-on-in-life".  0311 all the way.

Got Barracks Duty in PI.  Loved/hated the life.  Was second guessing my decision to be in the military.

Got to deploy to S. America and W. Africa.

Got sent to Water Safety Survival Instructor School.  Was in a class from 2 guys in Force Recon.  They made it look easy.  Got talking to them and really wanted to do more with my time in the Corps.

Took the screening.  What a ball buster.  Made the selection.  The next year of training was just amazing.  The intensity and diversity of training was awesome.  This was the reason why I joined.

It's funny about all this "Pre-this" and "Pre-that" and all this internet G2-ing of the selection process.  Sometimes, people just worry too much about it.

I got sage advice from my cadre:
"keep an open mind", "be flexible", "adapt", "do your best", "it can always be worse".

When they sent me to Scuba, Ranger and jump school (in that order), I didn't get any "pre-training".  My training staff said that I shouldn't need it and that I'd better make it through or I'd be handing out basketballs.

I actually had fun, even when shit was painful.

The guys from Force are/were the best of the best.  It seemed to my young mind that the guys I were around could handle anything:  jump out at high altitude in the middle of the night, fin for hours without bubbles, land nav in pitch dark in the middle of the jungle, ruck all fucking week, drink all night, CQB, long range shooting, etc.  They had drive, motivation, intensity, fitness, aptitude and talent.  They made things look easy, almost lackadaisical, but they were consummate professionals.  Plus, they were one tight group of guys.

I wanted to be among them.  I wanted to test myself.  I knew I could do it, but until one actually enters the arena, it is all conjecture & hypothesis.  These guys proved they could do it.

If I couldn't be a winner, then I wanted to be around winners.  Simple as that.

Had some intense experiences and FUN.  Would not trade it for the world. 

I wouldn't be the person I am today without those experiences.


----------



## x SF med (Jun 11, 2015)

That's we're talking about ....  the suck, the personal reward, the lack of reliance on G2 to get to the first step.  Notice, of the 3 posts above - SF, MARSOC, Recon...  there was no reliance on what others did, it was reliance on self and classmates (unspoken but implied) to get through.

Thanks Doc and Joe, Great histories.

I actually made it twice - I completed the SFQC as a Weapons Guy the first time, and actually had to go through the Culex (Robin Sage)twice to achieve that, I got recycled as the only "SF Baby" (prior term for what now 18x) by my Team of Rangers, after having to be the Team Jr. Medic, and got evaluated on both Weapons and Medic, the scond time through Sage, I was on a Strategic Recon Sub Team and that was an even bigger challenge, but I was not failing, no matter what.

Second time through - my SGM pulled me aside when I was doing my B-Team duties for the week (I was on a Team and in the Co HQ, because we were over manned in Bravos, but undermanned as a whole)and told me I had just volunteered to reclass to 18D on the recommendation of the medics in the Company (one of whom is a member here and went on to become an SFWO) - and that if I failed, I was out of SF.  I left 2 weeks later and ended up in the top 5 of the class overall after 54 weeks of training at Bragg and Ft Sam then back to Bragg.  We did the entire 91B (now 68W) course in 5 weeks, which compressed the rest of SFMC into 49 weeks.  We'll leave it that 25 SF Qual'd hard stripe E-4's through E-7's had fun at Ft. Sam.  - until we were etold never to go back to the Snack Bar to study or grab a beer.... we intimidated the male medical students, and the girls wouldn't look at them, it hurt morale for the current students.  The recently retired SOCOM Surgeon was our Primary medical instructor at 300-F-1 (Sam Phase), he was a former SF Medic turned Doctor and expected twice as much from the reclass students (this was only the second all SF reclass experiment) as from the first timers - we were actually segregated from the initial SFMC students.  Even our class had a fail rate of over 35%.  I wanted to stay in SF, so I made it.

Sometimes, you get what you didn't know you wanted or needed... until after you are committed.


----------



## TLDR20 (Jun 11, 2015)

I decided I wanted to be SF, joined with an age waiver(too young) and went out and did it. I struggled through the academic portions of the 18D course, but eventually made it.


----------



## x SF med (Jun 11, 2015)

@Etype ...  your turn Bro...  you started this mess.


----------



## Etype (Jun 11, 2015)

I joined the Army as a field artilleryman when I was 17. I didn't know much about my options, but i thought it was pretty cool that I had an airborne contract.

I loved basic, AIT, and jump school- then I loved being in the 82nd. I liked that I got to play with guns of every size- stuff that I had seen in movies. Bit I still thought I would do my first enlistment then get out and try something else.

I deployed to Iraq and it all became pretty real. The first time I ever sat in an armored HMMWV, during our first left seat/right seat ride- the truck I was in was riding in was hit by two RKGS which killed the TC and wounded the gunner. That deployment lasted 15 months, about half of that time I was stop lossed- my contract was up but they kept me in to finish the deployment.

I got home with 3 month left to out-process. I had a wife and an 18 month old baby to think about, and the thought of leaving the Army wasn't something I was ready for.

I went to the recruiter and found out they could extend me through the Q - Course and I could reenlist at the end as a  18 series with an 18 series bonus- hell yeah, sign me up.

I went to selection while the rest of my unit was on block leave, made it, went straight through the Q-Course, did a few more advanced schools, and here I am about 8 years later.


----------



## pardus (Jun 12, 2015)

TLDR20 said:


> I decided I wanted to be SF, joined with an age waiver(too young) and went out and did it. I* struggled through the academic portions of the 18D course*, but eventually made it.



That surprises me, particularly as you ended up teaching it. Did you have a point where it all came together, or was it a steady struggle/progression that got you as far as you went?


----------



## TLDR20 (Jun 12, 2015)

pardus said:


> That surprises me, particularly as you ended up teaching it. Did you have a point where it all came together, or was it a steady struggle/progression that got you as far as you went?



I never applied myself much academically in high school, so learning to study while also learning all the info was too much for me to do well with. I recycled the first portion which consists of A&P, Patho, and Pharm.


----------



## Ranger Psych (Jun 12, 2015)

Showed up to 30th AG with a mismash of Panama/Grenada/WWII/Vietnam LRRP/Korea theatre knowledge from books.  Expanded my knowledge as I got into/through Airborne, then had a pleasant awakening at RIP.  Really did nothing special to prepare, didn't know shit about the course. Just showed up and kicked ass, more or less.


----------



## Etype (Jun 12, 2015)

To add to mine, and piggybacking off of the last comment made by @Ranger Psych  , I had no idea what was done on a day-to-day basis in selection. I knew I would ruck, run, land nav, and carry heavy things.  I figured I was as good at that stuff as anybody else, so why would it not be right for me?

ETA- can a mod fix where I tried to tag rangerpsych? My tablet won't let me do that for some reason.

(mod edit - like that?)

Thanks mod.


----------



## x SF med (Jun 12, 2015)

One recurring theme so far, that I've noticed.  An almost complete lack of "knowing everything" to be prepared, but the mind set, I will do this, no matter what, FIDO, it's in my DNA.


ETA - @Totentanz  you agreed, your turn my Brother, some of us here were involved in your journey, and would like your perspective.


----------



## Ranger Psych (Jun 12, 2015)

To be honest, the only "G2" I had on RIP was only due to being a 2 week ahead of class holdover, and either getting to see the men in the class scurrying about doing RIP tasks, hearing/seeing them conducting training outside the barracks at all hours, or during a volunteer detail that supported them for their field time... none of which would have helped me, considering that there's individual tasks that literally nobody other than yourself can do and there's group tasks that it does no good to know about since you don't even have your entire group there to theoretically coordinate.

I did get to do land nav on the same course I would later be tested on while on that detail, but it didn't matter because:

I was sent on less points than those being tested
I was sent to points specifically set as "spare" for the detail to get training
I knew land nav well due to my outdoorsy background and the only "new" thing was the Military Grid Reference System.. which once I learned about it, I wished we had used it in Boy Scouts since it's easier than trying to use lat/long.
If anything, I got extra PT since I impressed one of the cadre enough with a quick one match fire for the quitters to huddle about, that I had to do the same for the cadre fire........ except in an alternation between extremely short time hacked runs to the woodline to fetch fuel, "watching TV" during fire prep/ignition and the front leaning rest to fan the fire (no blowing allowed per the cadre NCO) until the flame height was 1 meter tall.  Thankfully it was a dry spell on Benning and I knew where a good thicket of quality wood was at from having gotten to do land nav. 

That's just one notable smoke session (literally) during that detail.  Some group tasks for the detail didn't get done in time due to a lack of motivation in the group, but it's amazing how a Ranger NCO can solve that issue ricky tick. Some I got included in, some I got retasked to other duties in lieu of participation because I busted my ass and did >3x the work of others in the detail.  Still meant I was working, just meant I was carrying heavy shit around the whole time doing something "organizationally useful" rather than loading water cans 2 to a man to a stakebed moved a football field away via iron mikes.

G2'ing is trying to game the system... and all the cadre have been through the same course. They are all designed so they can't be gamed, and in the end your individual efforts and behavior will either pass or fail you.


----------



## Hillclimb (Jun 13, 2015)

You nailed it with the categories Etype. I fell into #2

From a young age I knew that I wanted to serve and "do my part," but didn't know too much about the different branches and jobs. My mothers family were immigrants and anything besides becoming a doctor/lawyer was fatuous. My fathers side were hardcore Seventh Day Adventist pacifists. :-/

I had initially wanted to be infantry, because in my 18 year old head: in the military you're either on a ship, flying a jet, or on the ground. I knew I was too ADD to be stuck on a ship or jet, so I chose the latter. My recruiter had told me that it would be a six month wait before I could go anywhere with an infantry contact, but I didn't care. Fast forward a week and he calls me saying he could get me shipped out the following week, and all I had to do was come in and "redo some paperwork." I'll just say that it ended up not being infantry, regrettably, and one of the oldest recruiting tricks in the book.

I spent 4 years at an Engineer Support Bn, then 1 year at an AAV Bn chipping away at my sociology degree. For the greater part of the conflict I still felt that I didn't "do my part," and sat out. That's when I paused college, and looked at all of my options to put a plan into motion.

I didn't have much support from my command putting in for selection, or resources. I hired a triathlon coach to program my running, along with serveral pose running books/youtube videos, because it was my weakest point as a larger individual. I found a few ruck based selection programs and just took out the building block/ramping of the rucking mileage skeleton model to supplement in training. I got a membership to the local YMCA asked the life guards for swimming tips, and if it was okay for me to do cammie/underwater work, so I spent every night I didn't run there. For landnav I found a LandNav MCI and went to REI and saw on the bulletin that there were orienteering classes going once a month, then hit up a few backpacking trips in the Olympics to break up the monotony of rucking.

I didn't really G2 the course other than find out through open source that "x" event had a standard of "x:xx" minutes. I just knew those four key things were what I needed to work on (swimming, rucking, running, landnav) and that whatever else needed to be done I could figure out.

A&S and ITC was refreshing after coming from the conventional side. Like x SF med said, there is a theme/similar mindset of everyone who went there.

And here I am, rebuilding the broken shell of my former self prior to ITC.


----------



## racing_kitty (Jun 13, 2015)

The EOD pipeline, for reclassing soldiers, was a little bit different in that we had the added bonus of OJT before going on to Phase I.  There wasn't much G2'ing going on as far as the course went, because you weren't allowed to putz around with much of anything until you demonstrated your understanding of 60-A-1-1-22 (EOD Safety).  That was, and is, the bible for us when it comes to knowing what we can and can't do with different ordnance.  No comprehension of explosive safety?  No demo ops for you, and good luck getting through the course.  

That was a leg up that we had over the EOD babies and failed 18X's, but it also depended on how squared away the unit was where one did their OJT.  However, in the rush to fill billets at the height of OIF/OEF, there were some reclass soldiers who only got a couple of weeks of OJT before shipping to Eglin, and several more who didn't even finish Phase I before Mother Army said "Good enough, we're sending you to Phase II."  So, in that case, they were all on the same level.  The classes ahead couldn't G-2 the following classes about practical tests.  With class sizes being as small as they were, pinpointing an info leak was very easy to do, and all parties involved would get the boot for academic dishonesty.  We had to get by on what we learned, when we learned it.  The instructors made sure of that with great efficiency.  I wouldn't have had it any other way.

As far as what I had to go through to get there, it was definitely trying.  Being a soldier was a life goal for me from the time I was eight years old, tucking hospital corners on my bed.  I had enlisted in February 2001, and made the colossal mistake of following the dollar signs for a signing bonus as opposed to the MOS's I originally wanted.  My first unit after AIT wasn't bad; it wasn't great, but it was better than the rest of the battalion.  

Then came 9/11, and when OIF eventually kicked off, my company got chopped up and fragged out throughout the battalion to support the initial push.  The level of callousness, failure, fame-chasing, and ineptitude present in the leadership from company -- and in some cases, platoon -- level up to the top was the kind of thing that people wouldn't believe possible until they had seen it for themselves.  A unit from Germany started a web page just to chronicle all the fucked up shit that the 16th Circus BN, 3 Ring BDE leadership foisted upon its soldiers on an hourly basis.  Working in the III Corps building one day, a major recognized the specific combination of my unit patch and combat patch, and said "I feel sorry for you.  Your battalion deserves to be deactivated, and the lower enlisted sent somewhere where they can be taught how to do something other than fail."

By the time I stepped foot in Kuwait to start OIF 3, 60% of the battalion had the same ETS date (yaaaay, stop loss), and my disillusionment with life in the Army was of epic proportion.  I was ready to get out and never look back until a friend of mine put me in contact with another friend of hers who was an EOD officer.  He put the bug in my ear, and didn't sugar coat shit when it came down to what EOD was up against.  I had already received, and blown off, the recruitment emails, but talking to Steve changed my mind.  I quit being a whiny bitch and started preparing myself.  

When I made the choice to reclass, I had given birth just 6.5 months prior, and while I had passed my first PT test after the post partum recovery period (180 days from delivery/end of pregnancy), I most certainly was in no condition to even attempt the suit test.  I made friends with another specialist who had just recently built himself from "special pops to special ops" in about the same amount of time I was looking at, and he agreed to be my PT partner.  I had a lot of work to do on that front, as I'd never been in worse shape in my life, but damn if I didn't make it happen.  High heat, sand storms, and long shifts be damned, I wanted out.

For as sorry as my physical condition was, the PT was the easy part of the process.  When word got out that I was preparing to reclass, minds were made up that there was no way in hell that I would be allowed to leave the commo plantation.  My platoon sergeant, section sergeant, and PL all supported me, but I think they were in the minority.  Certain elements in the battalion were more than a little dismayed when they found out that I had gone over from Diamondback to Marez for my commander's interview, never mind that it was with my platoon sergeant's blessing.  When my trip ticket was submitted to fly back up there for the suit test, it changed from "EOD suit test" to "EOD suit fitting," which the S-3 SGM promptly denied because, and I quote, "She doesn't need to come up here on the Army's time to expand her wardrobe."  The 1SG of the EOD company told me when I called to update him that my unit was the laughing stock of the compound at that point.  

A week or so later, I got a knock on my door from my section sergeant, telling me that my name had been moved up on the leave roster.  Instead of going on leave in the middle of September, I could be home in time for the 4th of July so long as I could have my bags packed in 48 hours.  Knowing that this meant another trip to Diamondback, I got on the phone with the EOD unit and, with the help of my BN retention NCO, set another time for my suit test, which we deliberately withheld from the rest of battalion.  Normally, the turnaround for those waiting to fly south was two days.  I had been on Diamondback for seven hours when I got word that I was manifested for the flight to Kuwait that night.  I told the S-1 clerk that I simply was not going to be on that flight, and I didn't give a shit how long it took for me to get another seat because some things were more important.  Dude looked at me like I had a 10' rubber dick growing from the middle of my forehead, but he didn't say shit else and started working my space A ticket the next morning, after the reup NCO snuck me over to Marez again, and I had passed the suit test.  

While I was away, word got around that I had passed the suit test with flying colors.  The night I stepped off of the bird at Q-West after leave, I was duly informed by my platoon sergeant that I was headed to the promotion board.  This struck me as odd, because my 1SG at the time hated me with every fiber of his being.  To put his opinion of me in perspective, when he was a SFC (my PSG, in fact) and I was barely a PV2, he accused me of faking a miscarriage to get out of going to the field for a month, never mind the stack of paperwork, prescriptions, and 11 hours I spent in the emergency room to get that diagnosis.  For him to suddenly decide that I was NCO material was dubious at best, until my PSG told me that there was a one-year time in grade limit for E-5's to get into EOD.  That certainly explained my sudden presence on the fast-track to stripes when he had originally wanted to see me chaptered out.  

My presence at the promotion board carried the caveat that if I did anything to get myself kicked out of the board, then he was going to hammer me with UCMJ for disrespecting an NCO and other bullshit charges.  So I did the only thing I could do, stopped whatever correspondence courses I was doing, and only submitted just a hair above the bare minimum in my promotion packet.  I smoked the board just to spite my 1SG, and I only had 410 points to my name.  The points for my old MOS had been stuck at 798 for a hot minute, but dropped down into the 500-600 range right after I submitted my packet.  So every month, up until I got back to the States, I was the only soldier in the BN who didn't want points to fall.  It became the running joke in the platoon office.

When I redeployed, my troubles certainly weren't over yet.  Even though the battalion was slated to be deactivated, those of us who weren't due to ETS on 30April 2006 knew we had to move fast to avoid a lateral move to our sister battalion and a fencing date of 6/6/06.  I waived my stabilization before I even made it home just so I could start my OJT with the EOD company at Hood the moment block leave was over.   Once I started OJT, my place of duty was with the EOD unit.  That meant PT, work call, end of day formation, even a week long field problem.  That didn't stop my old 1SG from threatening me with negative counseling statements and UCMJ action for constantly being out of ranks at the 16th SIG.  I was harassed daily, but I stuck around the EOD shop anyway.  I knew what direction my career needed to be headed in, and 16th SIG belonged in my rearview mirror.  

The straw that broke the camel's back came in mid-March, when my section sergeant called my cell phone at 1SG's orders, to ask me just exactly what in the fuck EOD needed 90 days to teach me that I wasn't going to learn at Eglin, and to inform me that if I wasn't standing at HIS desk by 1300, then I was definitely going to get UCMJ action and I could kiss EOD school goodbye.  I walked into the ops sergeant's office, and handed him my phone so he could talk to my section sergeant.  After he hung up the phone, I provided him with my 1SG's phone number, and I was asked to step outside his door for a moment.  To his credit, he never raised his voice, so I don't know exactly what it was that he said to my old 1SG.  Whatever it was, it put the fear of God into everyone, because the next call I received was from my former TL saying I was not to show up anywhere near the unit until the day I was to start clearing post.  Oddly enough, I was the only one whose PCS orders didn't get lost and I was able to beat the fencing date by a month.

After all the bullshit I went through just to get to the schoolhouse, failure simply was not an option for me.  I didn't party with my classmates every night, I made the best of my time at study hall (we weren't allowed to take home any notes to study), I continued to PT my ass off even after I screwed up my knee at Phase I, and I did my damnedest to get everything right the first time.  It wasn't a fear of failure that motivated me, it was a fear of what I would have to go back to if I failed the course.  To top it off, there was the pent up anger that I channeled into my performance just to prove wrong every last one of the rat bastards in the 16th SIG who either wanted to see me fail, or worked to deny me my chance in the first place.  Yeah, the amount of information I was expected to learn was like drinking water from a fire hose, but damn I was parched after years of bullshit.  I wasn't the only soldier my old unit tried fucking out of bigger and better things, I was just the one who fought back on my terms and won.  I wasn't going to squander that opportunity.


----------



## Raksasa Kotor (Jun 13, 2015)

I think something that needs to be added here - and I would venture to guess that most who have replied would agree - is that few of us really feel like we "made it".

Getting through assessment, being selected, graduating your respective mission qualification course - none of these necessarily equate to "making it". Every day in a SOF unit is an assessment, every task an evaluation. You must continually _earn_ your spot in a SOF unit - selection and MQC graduation are not the end of being under the microscope; those milestones - while laudable - do not mean you get to do cool guy shit without having to continually prove yourself.

I have served in two branches of the military; in units that require assessment and selection in each. In both instances, I showed up for assessment with zero foreknowledge of the events or requirements for selection. Unlike others who have posted here, in my mind, failure was a very real consideration - however, the thought of _quitting_ was not.

I was raised with the belief that quitting in the face of adversity is morally reprehensible.

 In each of the selections I have attended, I wasn't always the first to complete a given task or the most fit - but I never, ever quit, and I always helped others that suffered in situations where I was strong.


----------

