SF has always been resented by the officer corps of the regular Army. It was only after Gulf War 1 that SF begrudgingly gained acceptance when they became the sweethearts of Hollywood and box office ratings. No longer Secret Soldiers. The CG of SWC should be a tabbed SF Officer. However, to get this rank demands a politically savvy bureaucrat , and if he wants to succeed he must bow to the whims of his political master's. The Clinton/Obama years saw the rise of a self-serving officer corps interested in only their own career progression and their views better had be in line with their political overlord's, i.e. the President and SecDef. In regards to the article the land nav course was always the great discriminator in who went forward in the Q course...failure rate was usually in excess of 50%. I believe the Q course is under pressure to feed people through the pipeline...it happened during Vietnam and is happening now. Also, I believe there is a problem with the quality of candidate...the current millenial with his "I'm Special" attitude and drawer full of "participation" medals does not prepare you for the old school Q course.
I found the following excerpt in the article particularly interesting:
"In an especially notorious incident at SWCS in the fall of 2017, a student killed his entire fictional local guerrilla force he was supposed to train during the Robin Sage culminating exercise — a disastrous outcome and ethical violation. Cadre pulled the student from the exercise immediately. However, commanders allowed him to graduate over the objection of cadre.
“He literally murdered all of his guerrillas. He took a machine gun out, he got angry, and he gunned down and killed all of his guerrillas,” one source said. “We’ve got people that are getting through the pipeline that should not be in the pipeline.”
I love that. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to do that in the Q course. I think the Q course doesn't adequately prepare you to deal with a Guerilla Force that only wants money and guns and will kill you the moment they think the well is dry. This is where you start to learn the motto "Admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter-accusations"...and my own personal corollary of "leave no witnesse".
The root of the problem is that SOCOM wants 580 SF qualified personnel a year to fulfill mission requirements. SF are first born and then made...there is a limited number who are capable of doing this job. They are lucky to get the 350 to 400 a year they are producing. The only way to get the quota is to lower the standards...and that will get people killed.
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