Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [26]
“I want to be in the Army for a career,” another candidate told me, “and I want to serve with the best. A lot of people think the Green Berets have it easy because they get special pay and they don’t have to observe grooming standards when they are deployed in Afghanistan and places like that. But they work hard. They’re out there in the bad areas a lot of the time, and when they’re back in, they’re often not in a secure area. They’re real pros, and the locals respect them—you can tell. They look at them a lot different than they do the rest of us.”
“I’ve wanted to be in Special Forces since I was a plebe at West Point,” an officer candidate told me. “That was nine years ago. I enjoyed my tour with the 101st, and I was proud of my service in Bosnia and Iraq, but now I finally have a chance to live my dream and be in Special Forces. This is where I want to serve.”
The current climate in Special Forces and Special Forces training can be compared to The Perfect Storm—much like the movie and the rare storm-pattern phenomenon on which that film was based. This is due to a number of reasons, but three stand out. First of all, the caliber and content of Special Forces training has never been better. I say this not only from my observations, but from the comments of retired Special Forces master sergeants and sergeant majors—men whose experience stretches back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. They say it is better now than they’ve ever seen it. Better, again, for a number of reasons, but primarily due to the quality of the training cadre—warriors back from war, training new men for war. Something special goes on when trainers and trainees may soon fight side by side. Those few men who were not combat veterans were experienced SF operators chosen for their teaching and leadership skills. Nearly all of the noncombat vets were approaching the end of their three-year tour as Special Forces instructors. They were like grade-schoolers waiting for recess in their eagerness to return to their groups and get into deployment rotation.
The second reason, as we have talked about, is the quality of the soldiers who show up for assessment and selection. These are, for the most part, men who volunteered for the Army when joining the Army meant going into combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Except for certain specialties, joining the Army now means going to war. And now these soldiers are volunteering again, with the prospect of future combat a certainty. They’re not here for college credit or for civilian job skills or because they’ve no options on the outside. They’re here for the fight, to become professional warriors in the service of their nation. Not all of them will make the cut, but that’s why they show up at SFAS. And there’s the brotherhood thing. Special Forces is a brotherhood like no other. I’ve been privileged to know the close company of good men and to bond with them in difficult or formative times—my classmates at the Naval Academy, my generation of Navy SEALs, my CIA training class, and my lifelong friends, who will follow me into old age. Yet I sensed something a little deeper and more special at work as I watched the Special Forces cadre mentor the new men into their ranks. They’re training their new brothers.
The third component of this