Special Forces Qualification Course - Big changes to grueling course draw scrutiny

Deep in the dark North Carolina woods, a small white light flickers in the heavy underbrush. It’s after midnight and a soldier is taking a risk by turning on his headlamp to find his way.

The overnight land navigation test is just one hurdle in the grueling, monthslong course to join the Army’s elite Special Forces, and using the light violates the rules. Just the night before, at least 20 commando hopefuls had either committed a disqualifying failure or given up in the drenching rain. “We got a light!” barks an Army instructor from the front seat of his truck as he patrols the woods. Almost instantly the tiny white beacon goes out as the soldier spots the truck headlights and tries to escape detection.

For the nearly 200 candidates scrambling through Hoffman Forest at Camp Mackall, the struggle to become a Green Beret is real. But Army commanders are making sweeping changes to shorten and revamp the course. The aim is to meet evolving national security threats and to shift from a culture that weeds out struggling soldiers at every point to one that trains them to do better.

The changes that are beginning now have led to resentment among some Special Forces that the brass wants to make it easier to pass the qualification course as a way to boost lagging recruiting numbers and ensure that women will eventually qualify. The fear, such critics say, is that Green Berets will become weaker and “dangerously less capable than ever before.”

Army leaders insist the changes reflect the military’s need to adapt to evolving security threats from Russia, China, Iran and others foes. They say the nearly two-year course had to be shortened, so some training will be done when soldiers get to their units, where it can be tailored to the specific needs of the region.

“Today’s qualification course is for exactly the type of Green Beret we needed for 2008. It is not what we need for 2028,” said Maj. Gen. Kurt Sonntag, who until recently was commander of the Army Special Operations Center of Excellence, which includes all the Special Forces training. “We need to reestablish our forte, which is our ability to work with partner forces, developing their capabilities to provide an advantage for them and the United States against our adversaries — North Korea, Iran, and China and Russia.”

Sonntag and other commanders, current and former instructors and students at the Special Forces training base at Camp Mackall spoke with The Associated Press during a rare, two-day look at the course, including observation of the overnight land navigation test.

The more than 6,700 Army Green Berets are highly trained commandos who usually work in 12-person teams that are often used for specialized combat and counterterrorism operations and to train other nations’ forces in battle skills. About a dozen died in combat this year, mainly working with Afghan forces fighting the Taliban; others are training troops in up to 60 countries.

The changes were driven by discussions with senior leaders, including Maj. Gen. John Deedrick, commander of 1st Special Forces Command, who told Sonntag he wanted soldiers to come out of the course with solid basic skills that can be sharpened when they get to their units. “If you try to make them an expert in everything, you’re gonna give me a Swiss Army knife that can do a little bit of everything but isn’t real good,” he said in an interview in his Fort Bragg office. “I’d prefer to have him very good at the basics and then let me tailor what he’s gonna do in the long run.”

The new course drops some training, shifts some around and eliminates gaps in the schedule. For example, language training will now come after soldiers graduate the course, becoming a skill to learn rather than one needed to pass to stay in the course. Also, because the new Pentagon strategy is focused on threats from China and Russia rather than wars against insurgents, some counterterrorism skills will be tailored to specific regions and taught after soldiers are in their units.

Senior Army leaders endorse the changes.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Sonntag “really grinded through this to make adjustments to the course to make it more effective and streamline the amount of time they’re in the schoolhouse” so they get to their assigned units more quickly. The new training, he said, will be more relevant to current threats.

The changes, however, caused an uproar among some instructors in the Special Forces community. In a lengthy and anonymous 2017 email, a Green Beret instructor argued that “career-focused leaders” have eroded standards in the qualification course in order to meet graduation quotas. The email charged that allowing women to compete for special operations jobs was also responsible because commanders want to “markedly lower the standards enough to ensure that any woman attempting this path will have absolutely no issue achieving it.”

It complained that soldiers who failed a skill or fitness test weren’t weeded out, but allowed to continue or given a second chance. The path to becoming a Green Beret consists of several phases, beginning with a grueling assessment and selection phase where commanders believe they can identify soldiers who cannot make the grade or do not belong. The bulk of those who try out fail. Some who get injured or fail are allowed to return and try again.

In the 2019 budget year, more than 3,000 soldiers showed up for the assessment phase, with 936 passing and going on to the qualification course. Of those, about 70 percent graduated and donned the Green Beret.

Sonntag said unqualified troops should be dropped. But that once soldiers make it through the assessment phase, the focus should be on training them to meet the standards. Former instructors told The Associated Press that the course has changed often over the decades. Chris Zets, a retired Green Beret who worked as a course instructor, said the attrition rate shot up in recent years as the training expanded and instructors added more intermittent fitness tests and requirements. Commanders, including Sonntag, were asked to figure out why. “You can ratchet it up and up and up and up to the point where you don’t graduate anybody and nobody volunteers to come here,” said Zets, who went through the course in 1979. “So, yeah, we’ve increased the standards, but then you don’t have anybody going to the force. So there’s a balancing act.”

Under the new program, once soldiers pass the assessment phase, they move to small unit tactics and survival training, then four months of more specialized job instruction, and then six weeks of exercises and other training before graduation. “I want somebody physically fit, culturally astute, morally straight, understands small unit tactics and how to apply that with a partner force. And someone who can problem solve. You give me that raw material coming out of the course and we’ll do just fine,” said Deedrick, the commander of 1st Special Forces Command.

Others, however, say the uproar over the changes was a troubling sign. “The danger of one unqualified officer making it through to command a Special Forces team is a balance that requires difficult choices,” said retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, a former Special Forces commander. He said some instructors were concerned with exceptions being made for some soldiers in the course. “If they are concerned, I am concerned,” he said.

And, he said, the fact that they resorted to an anonymous email suggested they feared retribution or did not feel comfortable going to leadership. In fact, several instructors associated with the email posting ended up facing discipline or getting forced out — triggering charges that Sonntag sought revenge for the criticism.

Senior Army officials said a board of inquiry into Sonntag’s actions cleared him of any wrongdoing. In all but one case, officials and internal documents say, the soldiers were disciplined for infractions unrelated to the email, ranging from assault and travel fraud to being absent without leave and using government computers to promote a personal online business.

One soldier was charged with writing the email, lying about it and using his job to promote a personal business, the internal document said. Officials, however, also acknowledge there were lingering concerns about Sonntag fostering a toxic command climate and failing to communicate well enough with the troops about the changes in the course. While he was cleared of wrongdoing, Sonntag was not promoted and instead has decided to retire, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues.

Article from the Associated Press

HALO Training To Be Added to SF Qualification Course

From the USASOC News Service. In today’s global environment, areas of conflict are becoming increasingly difficult for military forces to access. Through advances in technology, tactics and training, potential adversaries are prepared to prevent unwanted forces’ physical presence and the U.S. military must adapt to face these challenges.

A collective military free-fall capability throughout the Army’s Special Forces Regiment will ensure the U.S. Army’s unconventional-warfare force can effectively enter and perform within the operational areas of today and tomorrow.

Traditional forced-entry techniques such as low-altitude, static-line airborne operations have lost viability as a clandestine entry technique, especially in special-operations missions where silence and accuracy are crucial to mission success.

A 12-man unit, armed with the cultural and tactical expertise, is small enough to maintain its MFF qualification, and use the capability to enter a remote area where a larger, conventional Army presence would not be feasible, necessary or cost-effective. To meet this challenge, the Special Forces Regiment has re-evaluated its training methodology to ensure its Soldiers have an expansive skill set to meet the demands of our current and future operational environment. This reevaluation has established that while Army Special Forces units do include select MFF-capable ODAs, the force lacks a formal, widespread clandestine infiltration capability, which would be available through regiment-wide military free-fall qualification.

To increase the U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) units’ proficiency in MFF, the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg , N.C. , is prepared to incorporate military free-fall training into the Special Forces Qualification Course. This initiative will increase the regiment’s collective forced-entry and global-response capabilities.

This initiative will institutionalize MFF operations by investing in the Military Free-Fall School at Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma , Ariz. , which is the U.S. Special Operations Command’s proponent for military free fall.

The school is restructuring the Military Free-Fall Parachutist Course so that it will offer sufficient annual training slots for all SFQC candidates while maintaining allocated slots for qualified Special Forces personnel already assigned to operational units. Beginning in February 2013, the MFFPC will transition from a four-week to a three-week course.

The first week will remain the same, consisting of vertical wind tunnel body-stabilization training, MC-4 parachute packing and an introduction to MFF operations. The remaining two weeks will encompass a jump profile of three airborne operations per training iteration, totaling 30 MFF operations per course encompassing various conditions and equipment loads.

In fiscal year 2013, SWCS plans to host up to 358 Special Forces Soldiers through the MFFPC. By fiscal year 2015, with the addition of 18 MFF instructors and dedicated aircraft, the MFFPC will reach its optimal throughput of 1,026 MFF parachutists, including 766 Special Forces Soldiers. When fully manned and equipped, the Military Free Fall School will conduct 19 MFFPC classes each fiscal year with 54 students in each class.

Simultaneously, the MFFPC continues to evolve its program of instruction to send the highest-quality MFF parachutist into the military’s special-operations forces. The course incorporates the use of body-armor carriers and modular integrated communications helmets as the baseline equipment load for all jumps. Instructors use this communications technology to interact with their MFFPC students while under canopy to foster proper canopy-control techniques. As a result, MFFPC graduates are capable of landing as a group on a designated point, fully prepared to execute follow-on missions.

The Special Forces Regiment ability to train and sustain a MFF infiltration capability, which is critical to forced-entry operations, is not only completely possible, but can become the norm vice the exception. In addition to the vertical wind tunnel at Fort Bragg , a new vertical wind tunnel at the MFF School in Yuma is projected for completion in the fall of 2013. Furthermore, the latest technological advancements have been incorporated into MFF equipment, such as night-vision, high-glide canopies, on-demand oxygen systems, inter-team MFF communications and para-navigation equipment. Most importantly, 11 years of multiple MFF combat infiltrations by the operational force have left us with invaluable lessons, which have been incorporated into MFF training and procedures.

High-altitude, high-opening, known as HAHO, operations now encompass nearly 50 percent of the jumps conducted by students during the Military Free-Fall Parachutist.

Changes to the SFQC

Interesting Changes to SFQC, especially the SF Medic Course. USAJFKSWC&S are also making significant improvements to other phases of the SFQC, most notably:


• Phase I — two-week orientation: We have revamped the orientation phase to better prepare students and their families for entry into ARSOF, to introduce them to our lineage and core missions, and to define our eight core attributes and expected standards.

• Phase II — language training: In addition to the excellent language, culture and regional orientation our students receive during this longest phase of their training, we have implemented more stringent physical standards that students must pass before they complete the phase. Events include the Army Physical Fitness Test, a 50-meter swim, a five-mile run, a 12-mile rucksack march, pull-ups, a 30-foot rope climb, rifle marksmanship and land navigation. These "hard" standards will ensure that we identify those Soldiers who lack the commitment and attributes necessary for success in the SFQC.

• Phase III — tactical combat skills, or TCS: This phase, formerly referred to as small-unit tactics, has been revamped into the more comprehensive TCS phase, which incorporates SF common tasks; small-unit tactics; advanced marksmanship; urban operations; call for fire; sensitive site exploitation; the military decision-making process; and survival, evasion, resistance and escape.

• SF medics: Lengthening the Special Operations Combat Medic, or SOCM, Course to 36 weeks. SF medical-sergeant candidates will take the SOCM Course before beginning language training (Phase II) of the SFQC. They will thus begin the SFQC as fully trained combat medics, qualified to provide field medical care for their student detachment during training and exercises.
During Phase IV, the MOS phase of training, they will take an additional 14 weeks of training to qualify them as SF medical NCOs. This will ultimately provide them with more than 50 weeks of medical training and keep them on-track with the other members of the SFQC student detachments, who also take 14 weeks of MOS training.

One final note: in order to build a force that is well-educated as well as professionally trained, we have developed a program to allow enlisted students in our three qualification courses to concurrently earn an associate’s degree. That means that upon graduation from the qualification courses, students will walk across the stage with an associate’s degree, which continues the process of lifelong learning. That degree can then be applied toward a bachelor’s from several other institutions such as Norwich University or North Carolina State University , that special-operations Soldiers can pursue (entirely online) while continuing to serve in their normal assignments.

Last fall, SWCS, in collaboration with the National Defense University , also began offering a fully accredited program for a master’s in strategic security studies that is open to ARSOF senior NCOs, warrant officers and officers who have a bachelor’s from a regionally accredited institution.