How can I join get into the Army SF?

Question

I know I can't make it, but I want to try. I'm an intelligence analyst with the guard and I was wondering whether I should join SF in the Guard or Active Duty? And what is my best bet of making it through selection?

Answer 1

You won't make it if you go in with the attitude "I know I can't make it"

Soldiers who want to go into special operations are very confident.  Spec Ops training is intense, demanding, work and without mental fortitude, passing isn't possibly.

Ultimately out of every twenty candidates who attend SFAS only one will eventually earn the right to wear the Green Beret.

SFAS isn't the beginning.  You have pre-reqs before even getting a shot at SFAS.  If you pass everything then you go on to the Q Course and work thru the 5 phases which can take a few years depending on your MOS and language.

The 19th and 20th group deploy just as much as active duty units.

Answer 2

Whether National Guard or Regular Army, the training pipeline for SF is exactly the same.

So your choice will depend on how you want to manage your time. You are given a bit more flexibility in the Guard, esp. with your deployments. It will still take a lot more committment than your average Guard soldier but you will not deploy as reguarly as Active SF. You can, however, if you wish deploy as often as you want by augmenting teams when your Guard group isn't on a required mobilization. To me, that's the benefit.

If you want to keep some civilian factors in your life, go Guard. If you want to be 100% Army, go active.

As for making it through selection, your best bet is to prepare mentally, physically and technically. Work out, start rucking, take some land nav courses, study up on your soldiering skills. A GREAT book to invest in if you're serious about trying out is the SFAS prep book. It's written by a prior SF guy that's done a lot of research into the current course. http://www.warrior-mentor.com/   Here's the author's site, you can also find it through Amazon.

As someone else said, selection is only part of it, you still have to get through SFQC which includes your MOS training and Language being the two hardest. The attrition rate throughout the entire pipeline is about 60% right now.

Your best place to find answers to your questions is here:

Professionalsoldiers.com

Register, use the search function and don't post until you've exhausted all of your questions through it.

Good luck.

Answer 3

I think that the training is similar for both.

Be careful. If you qualify, make sure that this is what you want to do.

If you withdraw or dropped under certain circumstances, you can be designated NTR. This means that you will be barred from trying again.

version of SFAS was first introduced as a selection mechanism in the Mid 1980's by the Commanding Officer at the time; Brigadier General James Guest.

Today, there are two ways that an individual can obtain orders allowing him (Army Special Forces is closed to females) to attend SFAS:

As an existing soldier in the US Army with the Enlisted rank of E-4 (Corporal/Specialist) or higher and for Officers the rank of O-2 (1st Lieutenant) promotable to O-3 (Captain) or existing O-3s.

The other path is that of direct entry, referred to as Initial Accession. Here an individual who either has no prior military service or who has separated from military service is given the opportunity to attend SFAS. Both the Active Duty and National Guard components offer Special Forces Initial Accession programs. The Active Duty program is often referred to as the 18-Xray or 18X Program because of the Initial Entry Code that appears on the recruits orders.

Check out this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stat...