Sua Sponte by dick couch

I hope Mr. Couch is keeping up with this thread. He might have some material for future books.
 
I don't know. All the SF guys seem to talk about SWCS tours as if they are a burden. Speaking of the Australian Army, their SOF guys get paid a hell of a lot better. I've also notice all the military forces such as the Brits don't seem to care nearly as much about haircuts, if some dude wants to cuff his sleeves and stupid tedious safety classes nearly as much as ours. To me that's the biggest driving force in guys wanting to get out...tedium in stuff that doesn't matter. It was never the deployments or 12 mile runs or whatever that drove me nuts, it was the stupid crap in between. Having to get in uniform so we could stare at each other in uniform and do nothing, but wait to get off and get out of uniform and many of the other things CSMs and 1SGs seem to value will just never really make sense to me. That and many guys join to just 'been there, done that.' Nothing wrong with that, but once you've done the deed there's not much reason to keep doing it. Doing an airfield seizure for the 5th time can start to become old hat. Some of our guys pop smoke over to SF or even more drastic moves like AFSOC lacking experience or ability to make the jump to a SMU in hopes the grass will be greener, but I think they mostly find it's the same. Even the SMUs aren't golden palaces. They have their own complaints about stupid shit.
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I want to thank everyone for sharing their experiences and knowledge so guys like me can watch and learn to be aware and be successful in whatever paths we may take.

With that said... I am really curious to know if...

Rangers make transitions over to intelligence community such as CIA? With combat experiences and specialized training, wouldn't Rangers be great candidates for paramilitary operations?

I apologize if this question is stupid... I'll just shut up.
 
Ravage said:
Can you elaborate?
Read that there is a number of guy who go from door-kicker to SOF rotor-head, as in the 160th.
That must be soooo cool.
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No I can't elaborate.

And I don't know any door kickers who went into the 160th. I'm sure maybe one day some might want to be pilots. But that percentage has to be under 1%. As for an enlisted door kicker going through Green platoon to get a spot as a door gunner for the 160th?? I don't ever see that happening.
 
dknob said:
No I can't elaborate.

And I don't know any door kickers who went into the 160th. I'm sure maybe one day some might want to be pilots. But that percentage has to be under 1%. As for an enlisted door kicker going through Green platoon to get a spot as a door gunner for the 160th?? I don't ever see that happening.
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I've known a few guys to hop over to flight school via the warrant path. I don't think any are far enough along their career to go to 160th, but I'm sure it's something they are interested in.
 
I've known some as well. A buddy from 3/75, his dad was a blackhawk crew member in the 160th killed in training in the 80s. After he got out he decided to go the warrant path.
My buddy should be done with flight school by now. Gotta get an update. And I know his goal is 160th ultimately.
But like I said.. miniscule numbers of guys will actually dedicate the long process involved to get to that point.Especially since the number of pilots in the 160th is astronomically small.
I thought Ravage was referring to enlisted SOF moving to 160th.
 
I moved the posts related to "SOF to intel agencies" into a new thread. Let's keep this thread on the subject of Dick Couch's book, and move any other discussion into the appropriate forum.
 
I think I touched that earlier.. that PMOs need Bachelors. If not then you are contracted - such as Chief Carlson and Chris Mueller (RIP).
 
dknob said:
I don't think any special selection process will change the 75th retention numbers. They will always be shit. Its the nature of this business.

OPTEMPO has little to do with it, if anything it keeps people in longer. If you go to www.armyranger.com, a lot of those member signatures will say : "1/75 92-94", "3/75 88 - 89".

Rangers pre 9/11 and post Panama trained and trained for combat that never came. Unless you were those small select few who went to Somalia. Or the ones who went to the Gulf. Why train for combat in an elite light infantry unit if you never get to go kill motherfuckers.

It's just the nature of the beast (lifestyle), that wears people out. Those select few who tough it out in the community in an operational capacity will either A: make it a 20 year career, or B: move up the ladder.

The truth is being in the Regiment is great, and the missions CAN be cool sometimes. But they get redundant. VERY redundant. Hell I'm sure guys in SF get tired of doing FID and JCETs. So both sides tend to get out because frankly they get bored. The problem with the US Special Operations Community.. is the HUGEEEEE gap between SF/75th and the SMU world. In terms of making the "transition". I mean it is freaking huge. It is not a "just the next step" by any means. Other units around the world.. and I don't mean to stir the hornet's nest here or cause strife - but they don't have that huge gap between them that ours do. The gap between SASR and the Commando Regiments, is not (in my opinion) as big as the gap between SF/75th and CAG. To put it in a numbers perspective - SASR has 3 line squadrons which I assume have a minimum of 50 guys each. So 150 total. The 2nd Commando Regiment, is a battalion sized unit with 4 line companies. Probably another 650 guys. The Australian Army has like 30,000 active dudes. That means that 2.1 percent of those guys are in 2nd CDO, and .5 percent are in the SASR. So anywhere from 2.5 to 3 % of the Australian Army are special ops door kickers. Not a bad statistic. And I also read that 15-20% of candidates are accepted into the SASR, that is roughly the same percentage as the guys who end up in the UK SAS.

CAG selection.. is like 5%-7%. And the majority of candidates who try out are some squared away hooahs from the 75th and SF. It is ridiculously stupid hard to get into that unit. And even then, guys get dropped from the follow on OTC like its nobody's business. So it's not in anyway just "the next step" in an Army soldier's SOF career. Not at all. BASICALLY, what I am trying to say is that 75th and SF who want to continue doing cool shit and are tired of their own careers... they have NO PLACE to go! Most guys in the Rangers and SF look at CAG as one of those almost unattainable goals. So because they don't have anywhere else to go, they get out. If we had some kind of Army unit in between the world of CAG and SF/75th. Then more people would go there and the US Army would retain awesome soldiers. But we don't, and we never will.

*** to give a comparison in the numbers between Australian Army SOF and American Army SOF:
The US Army has 560,000 Active Duty guys. .9 percent are Long tabbers, and .4 percent are 75th.
.02 percent are in CAG. Do you see the discrepancy here in ratio? The actual quantity of troops in the Army doesn't matter. It's about the ratio.
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Not trying to kick a dead horse or get into any classified info but here go's. CAG Selection was originally based off of SAS Selection right? If that's still true then why the low number of candidates passing? Are times for rucksack marches and runs just lower for CAG?
 
Ravage said:
I know that one guy that used to write on this board was a Team guy, now he drives Ninja Chinooks.
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If it is the same guy we're talking about, we used to be in the same unit. Good dude.

La Roux said:
Not trying to ...get into any classified info but here go's.
Click to expand...

You're already wrong. Continuing that post sent you further into the rabbit hole.
 

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