How Soon Can You Try Again for Special Forces
When talking about the do'southward and don'ts of taking on the Special Operations Assessment and Selection courses that the military machine has to offer, in that location are a ton of opinions out there, and I feel, a lot of misconceptions as well. This is particularly true when it comes to being the "Grey Man," which is a mutual name people use to describe an operator who tin blend seamlessly into their environment.
I've been asked most this countless times in emails. One of the more than common questions I receive from prospective candidates is always nigh trying to alloy in at Assessment and Selection — beingness the Grey Man. I spoke with someone just in the past few weeks about this very subject.
There is no shortage of people who will tell you being the Grayness Man is of import, some of them will be Special Operations Selection core members. So, respectively, I'll disagree. Overall, unless you're an intelligence professional trained at blending in and being invisible, I will stick with my original advice and say in the majority of instances, it isn't a smart affair to do. I will explain why below, only first, my caveat:
Yes, at that place are times when you absolutely, positively need to exist the guy people standing in front of y'all are going to look right past while giving their "attention" to someone else.
The showtime one is if you are in SERE Schoolhouse (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape). The final thing you want at SERE is to stand out in any mode. Standing out to the guard force in the POW campsite usually ways you lot're going to withstand some "cosmetic measures."
Being the biggest fellow member of the prisoners or the well-nigh senior guy in the SERE Class is not a good way to be the grey man. The SRO (Senior Ranking Officeholder) is e'er singled out for real or perceived rules infractions….you get the idea. Once you become through the Option process and into the grooming pipeline, you'll get to experience SERE up shut and personal and all of your questions will exist answered.
The 2d example of when it'southward a skilful time to be a "grey man" is when you're doing some kind of undercover intelligence work. So y'all want to blend into your surroundings. If someone saw you walking downwardly a busy street in an urban environment, you don't desire to raise an alert among surveillance operatives watching for that type of operation.
This has a lot to practise with demeanor, wearing apparel, mannerisms, and movement. Special Forces has a training plan that teaches all of this and much more. Merely the form and the acronym associated with it will come after your grooming is consummate and y'all move on to the operational units and get some experience under your chugalug.
So, we're dorsum to the 800-lb gorilla in the room, and the question is, "Why non exist the gray homo during Option?" You volition see blog posts from people, message boards, and social media posts all telling candidates "Be the gray homo" or something remotely similar. I encounter information technology all the time. So why is it actually a bad thought?
As a former Pick cadre member, I'll let you in on my perceptions: Trying to exist the Grey Man just may put a huge bulls-eye on your brow.
As I mentioned above, most people aren't trained properly to exist a grey man. And if it appears to the Pick cadre that you are trying to blend into the background, that isn't a good thing. To the cadre members, information technology appears like you lot're trying to "ghost" through events (every bit nosotros called information technology during my time there). And if a guy is going to ghost during Option, then he certainly will on a team.
Back in the solar day, when I had the night duty during a form, one of the other cadre members and I would wander around the candidates' barracks at dark with no berets, just being the "gray men" of the core. Nosotros wanted to hear the churr of the class and encounter how well or non-then-well they were holding up.
These conversations would sometimes be quite telling, especially during squad week. More than one time, nosotros heard candidates who passed their patrol (the criteria has since changed, thanks LTC Brian Decker) talk about coasting through the last few events to go far through the long-range move. Bad thought.
And then there were the others, guys who passed their patrol and were volunteering to assistance out the side by side day'due south guys who would be in the barrel and nether the microscope. More than once nosotros heard conversations similar to this:
"Hey bud, any happens, tomorrow, put me on lashings, I'k really adept at that, and that'south one thing y'all won't have to worry about."
That's the guy I want on my team. He's not done yet, he'due south looking out for his teammates. He's going to become high marks on his peer reports.
Special Operations isn't looking for cookie-cutter robots. We understand that everyone is different and there are certainly guys who are characters. You lot'll undoubtedly have some in your class.
That's why my advice is always, "be yourself." When I was at that place, our cadre was made up of the virtually eclectic group of people that I've ever worked with. There was never a dull moment and every NCO, although vastly different, respected who each i of u.s.a. was. And we all got along because nosotros had the humility to sympathize that every person brings some unique chemical element to the table.
If you're a rah-rah type of guy, then be that guy. If y'all are a quiet, lead by example blazon of guy, that's fine…be him. Don't try to exist something you're not. Sometimes the characters of the class would elevator everyone around him. All of the cadre members had those types of guys in their own classes, and they know how valuable they are to keeping upward class morale, and for team-building.
My own class in the SFQC (Special Forces Qualification Course) had a tremendous NCO who nosotros called "CPT Camouflage" during State Nav. He would wear some outlandish get-up; PT Shorts hiked mode also high, jungle boots, with a poncho pulled over his head like a greatcoat with eye holes cutting out. He'd run through the woodline offering the craziest encouragement to "lost Land Nav Students everywhere." Equally dumb as it sounds, our grade loved it. And after a day or so, the cadre would enquire if "Helm Camouflage" had whatsoever words for the course subsequently we'd render from the twenty-four hours's or night'due south navigation practice.
I recently recorded a podcast with Mike Sarraille, a Navy SEAL officer who has written a book on Special Operations leadership and how noncombatant companies should incorporate the lessons of Option and Assessment into their hiring procedure.
Mike was a successful Marine NCO with Recon before becoming an officer. During BUDs training to become a SEAL, the other members of his class naturally gravitated toward Mike because of his experience, military begetting, and demeanor. That's who he is. If he tried to blend into the background, the SEAL instructors would have seen right through that and he would accept never passed or gone on to go the officer he was.
Of class, "exist yourself" has to exist tempered with a bit of common sense. Don't be overly argumentative with the core… even if y'all know that you may be right when receiving a critique. That will take the exact opposite effect of your intentions. Don't be a "Spotlight Ranger" either — those types never terminal long every bit they'll get peered out rapidly (failed past peer reviews). And please spare your war stories virtually leading an attack with the 18th Mess Kit Repair Unit in Iraq or someplace else. Nobody cares nigh that or is interested.
Call up you are e'er beingness evaluated and assessed. This is a fourth dimension for the core to run into if you accept the core attributes that brand Special Operations troops the best in the earth. Selection is the time where you brainstorm building the reputation that will follow throughout your Special Operations career. And as big as information technology has grown, it is still a small-scale community. Selection is the first footstep in the process of showing you vest in the Regiment.
Trying to practice then by blending in the background isn't the style to do information technology. Exist yourself, try to excel at everything, and remember, some of your fellow candidates may be improve at some things than yous are. That won't change in one case you go to an operational unit.
"Exercise the best y'all can." (Yes you'll hear that again.)
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Photo courtesy: U.s.a. Ground forces
Source: https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/dont-be-the-grey-man-be-yourself-at-special-forces-selection/
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