"Originals" vs. "Newbies:" A Special Forces Allegory

[Six-Two]

That's a dick response.
Observation -
You have become noticeably more confrontational since your recent "I haven't enlisted yet"'post.

More cavalier, certainly. Nobody likes getting dogpiled on, especially for just trying to get information to make a deeply personal and life-changing decision. Ditto for being derided for hitting a snag in my enlistment that was both out of my control and in no way any of your business. Getting shit from what amounts, basically, to some guy on the internet for not hitting his timeline for my life is pretty low on my list. So if I'm gonna get grief any way I cut it, I may as well speak my mind. That said, apologies to @Freefalling if that came off more brusque than direct.

Theory -
You feel the members here have nothing to offer you anymore and so you have decided to go out with a bang.

I'm not sure what the members had to offer me to begin with. That wasn't why I joined. There's no member here who can wave a magic wand and get me into an ODA or shave 3 minutes off my 5-mile. I joined to get a sense of and interact with the guys I was thinking of applying to work with.

Just to be crystal clear - I sincerely don't mean to be argumentative or disrespectful to you, but you have no right whatsoever to give me grief over something you have no information on, and if a ban on an internet forum is the penalty for standing up for myself, so be it. I welcome constructive criticism, but sometimes it just crosses a line that detracts from the atmosphere of discussion and personal development that I assume most people are are here for.

Anyway, sorry to go off-topic.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

@Six-Two

You know what, you are right. Shitty night for me personally - I should not have posted what I did above. I was in a mood tonight - shouldn't have taken it out on you nor derailed this thread. My apologies for going after you. Not warranted.

 

[AWP]

I didn't realize this was so formal. It was meant for reference, not as proof positive of my assertions. Still, noted for future posts.

FWIW, even long time members aren't given a Wikipedia pass unless they acknowledge it in some way. "This is Wikipedia but I checked some of the sources and they are good" or "Here's a Wiki link (notice the singular)and I can track down better sources tonight when I'm home/ off my phone/ at work."

At this point (as in all posts after this one, the one you're reading), let's move forward with the discussion on SF/ UW/ FID.

 

[Six-Two]

FWIW, even long time members aren't given a Wikipedia pass unless they acknowledge it in some way. "This is Wikipedia but I checked some of the sources and they are good" or "Here's a Wiki link (notice the singular)and I can track down better sources tonight when I'm home/ off my phone/ at work."

Understood. Didn't mean to be lazy, just trying to put together a quick frame of reference to qualify my perspective. But you're right; I shouldn't let being part of the Wikipedia generation undermine a good bit of discourse. If anything in particular sticks out as bogus, let me know and I'll do my best to back it up with non-Wiki citations.

 

[AWP]

Understood.

I'm rapidly losing patience with you. Twice in the last week I posted "knock it off and go back to the OP" and twice you've decided to get in the last word. I'm kind of at a loss. Are you arrogant, do you not care, is your situational awareness lacking, are you drunk or high or......something? Anything? What the hell? Like it or not, like me or not, it doesn't matter.

I say this for the benefit of everyone reading:

If a staff member (those of us with red tags) tells you to knock it off or stop posting, then you knock it off. That's the discussion. The Alpha and Omega.

 

[Six-Two]

Going back to how it is defined, UW is conducted against a government or occupying force.
So bringing this full circle to AQIM, I'm not intimately familiar with AFRICOM, but I'm sure there are places where they could be considered an occupying force.

According to this RAND assessment, it looks like AQIM control a significant - though diminishing - portion of Northern Mali, largely beat back by DA from French troops. Most recent development is that French SF killed a ranking leader, and French paper Le Figaro asserts that Delta personnel fought AQIM elsewhere, but none of that fits the UW Criteria.

 

[Etype]

According to this RAND assessment, it looks like AQIM control a significant - though diminishing - portion of Northern Mali, largely beat back by DA from French troops. Most recent development is that French SF killed a ranking leader, and French paper Le Figaro asserts that Delta personnel fought AQIM elsewhere, but none of that fits the UW Criteria.

That would fall under combating terrorism, most likely. Maybe FID, possibly SFA.

 

[DA SWO]

That would fall under combating terrorism, most likely. Maybe FID, possibly SFA.

SFA?

 

[Totentanz]

SFA?

Security Force Assistance

 

[Etype]

SFA?

SFA is FID, except the threat is external.

Example-
In Vietnam, assisting the ARVN against the NVA would classify as SFA, helping them fight the VC would be FID- external vs. internal threat, using modern definitions.

 

[TLDR20]

Maybe just not at your level?

Aren't you a National Guard support guy?

 

[Florida173]

Aren't you a National Guard support guy?

:wall:

 

[TLDR20]

:wall:

Well when you say some condescending ass shit you get it right back.

 

[Florida173]

Well when you say some condescending ass shit you get it right back.

Glad you could get involved. tell me how me being in the national guard has any relevancy to this conversation? Even as a guard guy I've been doing j3x stuff for the last 6 years and that doesn't even include what my day job at socom is, or is this because I called you out for talking about ACCM stuff in the other thread?

Go troll somewhere else.

 

[TLDR20]

Glad you could get involved. tell me how me being in the national guard has any relevancy to this conversation? Even as a guard guy I've been doing j3x stuff for the last 6 years and that doesn't even include what my day job at socom is, so go troll somewhere else.

Friend, you have the wrong idea of your place in the food chain here, and probably in the real world as well. Talking down to 2 operators, one of whom has intimate knowledge of our UW efforts abroad is not the way to gain credibility. Hinting at your supposed knowledge/credibility makes you come across as a smug asshole at best, and a perpetrating fag at worst. I'm not shying away, I know my place here, in a conversation about a community of which I am actually a part.

Being in the guard plays a small part, that you aren't an SF guy, and therefore have no doctrinal UW mission, plays an even bigger part. I would be happy to accept your opinion on things if you didn't hint at shit you prolly heard about, while intimating it is classified, that makes everything you say brim with bullshit.

Again, I know my place. Do you know yours?

 

[Totentanz]

Enough with the dick-measuring. Knowing the political and security ramifications at the national and regional levels in an AO is a baseline expectation for any member of a SOF element - not something that's held at some magical strategic command where enlightenment is achieved.

ETA: specifically, reference SOF imperatives 1,2, and 5. You could make the argument for #10 as well.

 

[Florida173]

Friend, you have the wrong idea of your place in the food chain here, and probably in the real world as well. Talking down to 2 operators, one of whom has intimate knowledge of our UW efforts abroad is not the way to gain credibility. Hinting at your supposed knowledge/credibility makes you come across as a smug asshole at best, and a perpetrating fag at worst. I'm not shying away, I know my place here, in a conversation about a community of which I am actually a part.

Being in the guard plays a small part, that you aren't an SF guy, and therefore have no doctrinal UW mission, plays an even bigger part. I would be happy to accept your opinion on things if you didn't hint at shit you prolly heard about, while intimating it is classified, that makes everything you say brim with bullshit.

Again, I know my place. Do you know yours?

Let's go back to what the issue is here. I suggested that @Etype might not be seeing any UW stuff because it's not happening at his level. Nothing condescending about that at all. I see it happening on a daily basis at the TSOC and SOCOM levels. Not quite sure what you would think I meant by that. I even suggested some great courses regarding UW from the operational design course aimed for more the J5 folks to the SOF staff PR courses for the UAR stuff. There are plenty of UW functions happening every day and even @Etype caught on to what I was saying with not necessarily a perpetual phase 1 but what I do for phase 0.

Now saying that I was "talking down to 2 operators" is maybe being a bit overly sensitive. Talking down to people that aren't tabbed because you think you are somehow better is pretty messed up. I can appreciate the accomplishment of having gone through the pipeline, but don't think any higher or lower of people that go through different pipelines. The difference is that my job is exclusively a UW mission and it has nothing to do with my one weekend a month and a few weeks a year that I maintain to jump out of aircraft and go to the occasional Gryphon Group. I'm not with 19th or 20th by the way. As far as you thinking that anything I've said is brim with bullshit, by all means call me out on it specifically in a private message and we can discuss it.

My problem is that ARSOF has been so drunk off of DA for more than a decade that they have lost out on many of the other missions. This is obvious from some realigning within ARSOF and even been discussed on this board at length. I'm pretty sure this may also be why we haven't seen too many overt examples other than some that have been suggested by @Etype and @Six-Two.

 

[x SF med]

Glad you could get involved. tell me how me being in the national guard has any relevancy to this conversation? Even as a guard guy I've been doing j3x stuff for the last 6 years and that doesn't even include what my day job at socom is, or is this because I called you out for talking about ACCM stuff in the other thread?

Go troll somewhere else.

You are about 8 seconds away from getting a 2 point warning. Rethink your position.

 

[Six-Two]

This thread is cursed

 

[AWP]

This thread is cursed

No one's making you participate, but nice observation or something.

I'll defer to the SF Qualified gents on the board or the OP, @Marauder06 so if they want this cleaned and reopened they know how to find me. What a bloody coat hanger this has become...