Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [33]
The members of Class 8-04 aren’t the only ones entering this training pipeline. This Pre-SFAS class also marks the beginning of my journey in Special Forces. As mentioned previously, Special Forces training is a changing, dynamic business. Each class is a little different than the one before. There are continuous changes, refinements, and modifications, so no two classes are quite the same. Yet there’s a continuing awareness of what works and what doesn’t work. If something’s changed and it doesn’t work, they try something else or revert to the old way of doing things. I talked with a lot of old-timers who came through the Qualification Course in the 1960s and 1970s. They’re amazed at the refinements and structure of the current version of the Q-Course, and yet some training evolutions have remained unchanged for decades. For this Navy SEAL, it was all new. Yet, from day one, it had the flavor of SOF training—specially selected men training for a difficult and dangerous job.
“Fall in, three ranks, dress and cover down! Come on people, move! I want first platoon to my left, second platoon in front of me, and third platoon to my right. Too slow, way too slow! Everybody drop! Sergeant Jennings, just what in the hell do we have here? What have you got me into? Are you sure these people are soldiers? Don’t tell me they are airborne infantrymen. They look like a bunch of old women! What the hell is going on?”
First Sergeant Will Carter is standing on a three-foot raised platform in front of the assembly area. Before him, the 154 men who were struggling into formation are now down on the rough paved roadway trying to do push-ups. The area is bathed in yellow light from the floods mounted on the nearby barracks. This is a small class; normally, there are between 200 and 250 men in a Pre-SFAS class. There’s enough room for them to stand in ranks, but not enough for them to do push-ups. Stepping in and around this low, pulsing mass of camouflaged uniforms are the TAC NCOs. They are dressed the same as their students, but they all wear baseball caps.
“That’s not a push-up; that’s a head bob. This isn’t boot camp; that isn’t going to cut it!”
“All the way down, all the way up. No, no, no—your chest, not your belly!”
“You, yeah, you. Number 63. Get off your knees!”
“Tired, soldier? You’ve only been here two minutes. It’s only going to get worse.”
First Sergeant Carter picks up a bullhorn and addresses the class. “Recover! Now I want you to pretend you’re soldiers and get into formation. Quickly, people, quickly.” Carter is a hefty six-footer with a barrel chest and a round, amiable face, yet he’s a formidable presence. He’s the drover of the SFAS preparation course. Master Sergeant Carter isn’t the only master sergeant assigned to Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group, but he’s the master sergeant designated as the first sergeant. He’s universally addressed as “First Sergeant” or “Top” by his fellow sergeants. Much of the responsibility for preparing these men for their assessment and selection to Special Forces training falls on his shoulders.
First Sergeant Carter is from East Stone Gap, Virginia, and has spent close to twenty-five years in the Army. He was with the 1st Special Forces Group for sixteen years, and is fluent, if not quite native, in several Indonesian and Malay dialects. He spent two tours with the 1st Group battalion that is stationed in Okinawa and has been forward deployed all over Southeast Asia. “This is it for me,” he told me soon after I checked in with Alpha Company. “After I finish with this job, my next duty station is Fort Living Room.”
The formation is semiorganized chaos. In ranks, the