Former SF (18 series)/current Fed LEO - ask me almost anything

[Tirofijo]

This might be interesting to some here.

I went through US Army Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) about 10 years ago and then finished the Q Course and was on an ODA with a National Guard SF company. I came in "off the street" and went from Basic, AIT, Jump School straight into the SF pipeline. I was the NG's version of an 18x.

I have strong opinions on what it takes to be successful in Selection and the Q Course. Ask me anything.

I got out and became a Fed LEO. I applied to several different LE agencies at the same time (which is my advice to everyone). Some rejected me without even interviewing me. With others, I went through the whole hiring process and was offered class dates, and with others I was still in the hiring process when I ultimately accepted my current job. I don't have all the answers to Fed Law Enforcement hiring, but I have gleamed a thing or two from my experiences, from talking to others, and from seeing who my agency hires.

Ask me almost anything. I'll tell you my thoughts, but will also tell you when conventional wisdom and my opinion diverge.

[Im6-7]

Man I love this place. Thanks for doing this!

I'll probably have lots of questions, but for now;

What was your training was like after you became an SF member (post-selection). Did you do a lot of team training, or was it more individual? Did you change what attributes you spent time working on?

I'm a LEO, and I can't make heads or tails of the hiring process...we seem to let some really good people go and take on some "questionables" with very little life experience at times.

[Vagabond]

This is great, probably should put a signpost up on the sub-reddit too.

Done.

How has your training changed from SF to LE?

[Nomad]

I'm guessing there were many times during selection you felt like quitting, what was the worst moment and what did you do to get yourself through it?

[Ten8]

What are 3 pieces of advice you'd give to someone attending selection?

[Geidi]

What took the most getting used to when you transitioned from the military to LE?

[Tirofijo]

What was your training was like after you became an SF member (post-selection). Did you do a lot of team training, or was it more individual? Did you change what attributes you spent time working on?


we seem to let some really good people go and take on some "questionables" with very little life experience at times.

Since I was in the NG, my training after the Q Course was all individual. Before Selection, I was pretty endurance focused, which served me well. I had raced road bikes, done an Ironman and a 44-mile ultra and climbed to 18,000 feet a couple of times. I could put on a 45 lb ruck and trot/shuffle for 12 miles. Afterward, I decided I need to get stronger and dabbled with Starting Strength, Crossfit and 5/3/1.

I was attached to an active duty group for my train up for Afghanistan and while in Afghanistan. Outside of a few group runs, most team guys are given the freedom to train how they want. CF was big. Some guys are meatheads and only run when they have to (all about the gainz, bro), some guys are triathletes.

Re:Hiring process. I applied to my agency three times and interviewed three times before being given a conditional offer. There’s some luck involved by getting the right people on the panel, but I also became a better interviewee. More on that later, if anyone is interested.

Tiro, were there any supplements you used frequently while SF? Were any ever doled out to you by the army.....for job or physical enhancement? I know in some countries fighter pilots are given access to modafinil or go pills, I'm just curious as to whether this applies to the troops on the ground as well.

Nothing like this. I had a progressive instructor in SOPC (sort of a pre-SFAS) that encouraged us to pack protein powder and Cytomax to take with us in the field and during land nav events to prevent, well, burning muscle. This was not the Army’s official guidance. SOPC was meant to prepare you, not break you down, and this instructor wanted us to suceed.


Of course, in Selection you can’t have anything except MREs and food from the chow hall. I lost a little muscle in Selection, I’m sure. You often get that ammonia smell, which is supposedly your body burning muscle for energy.


But, no, I was never given any go pills and never heard of them being issued to white SOF. Deployed, most survived on Rip-its (shitty energy drink that I tried to use only in extreme cases). Also, a lot of guys dip in the Army. Often they started as a way to stay awake.

Done.


How has your training changed from SF to LE?

KB covers this, if I recall correctly. The days of me needing in ruck three days with a 100lb pack to infil are over (never did it in real life, but we prepared for it). Now I can focus more on absolute strength, since a street tussle or needing to control someone is a more likely scenario.

I'm guessing there were many times during selection you felt like quitting, what was the worst moment and what did you do to get yourself through it?

To be honest, I was well prepared and never felt like quitting in SFAS. (I found Phase Two - small unit tactics - to be more of a sufferfest). But I did have two moments in Selection that stand out.


At the time I went through SFAS, one of the gates (meaning an event you had to pass) was the STAR land navigation course. After a lot of land nav practice, you are launched on your own to find 4 points in 12 hours (I think. Maybe we had 8 hours. It starts at night and ends in daylight the next day. ) A point was a chemlight on a stake with a grader sitting beside it. There were between 5 or 10 clicks (kilometers) between each point.


To pass, you had to either find four points in one day, or find a cumulative of 8 or 9 points over three nights. If you didn’t find four points the first time, you went out again the next night, and then again the next night. If you didn’t get either 4 points in one night or a total of 8 or 9, you failed. Sent back to Bragg immediately on a truck. It was responsible for a lot of people failing, either because they just didn’t find enough points, or they just plain quit after getting discouraged. It’s dark, the draws are thick and you are carrying a ruck plus water and a rubber duck (plastic M16).


I was good at land nav, so I was feeling pretty confident when I started out on the first night of the STAR. But I messed around, got lost and took a long time to find my first point. I figured there was no way I’d have time to get to three more points that same day. I figured there was no way I’d get all four that night and relegated myself to the fact that I’d be out there the next night. I though if I was lucky I could get three points.


But I made it straight to my second point, and decided to go for it. I more or less trotted the next few hours - using terrain association to guide me rather than my compass because it was faster - and rarely stopped to look at my map. I should add that this was in NC in June, so it was hot and humid. I made it to my fourth point with just a few minutes to spare. It probably doesn’t sound like much, but I was pretty proud of that.


That leads me to my low point in SFAS. Because I had passed the STAR, I didn’t have to go out that evening and tackle the STAR again. The guys that had passed the STAR were put in a little section of the woods, where we strung up ponchos and tried to get some rest and felt good about ourselves while the others went out again for another shot at the land nav course. We nicknamed this Andersonville.


But the instructors couldn’t just let Andersonville sleep all night while the rest of the candidates when out on a 12 hour land nav event, so sometime during the night they roused us and told us to get in formation for a timed ruck march. The cadre yelling at us told us not to break down our tarps but just to hurry up and get up the hill and in formation. Well, sure enough, they weighed our rucks before starting the ruck march, and I since my e-tool was holding up my ponchos and not in my ruck, my rucksack was light by a couple of pounds when I put it on the scale. I thought i would be sick. I scooped up dirt to fill up the empty pouches and hoped they would reweigh it. Of course, they didn’t.


I was sure I was going to be dropped. I felt terrible for the next few days.


Finally after a few days the First Sergeant came down to Andersonville and told us that the incident was forgiven, given that the cadre told us not to put everything in our rucksacks. He said he had to go to bat for us and that it went to the highest levels. Maybe it did. I’ll never know.


What I think saved me was that there were a lot of others in the same boat with light rucksacks, including a bunch of West Point cadets that were part of a pilot program to go to SFAS while rising seniors at West Point. Those guys had all had to compete against their classmates to get SFAS slots, so they were real PT studs that were doing really well.


I think the Selection committee didn’t want to send 10 West Point cadets back to the US Military Academy and say their studs had failed due to poor instructions from the cadre.


Had Spc Tirofijo been the only candidate with a light rucksack, I’m sure I would have been bounced.


So I had a little luck and it was a good lesson and a wake up call.

What are 3 pieces of advice you'd give to someone attending selection?

1. Don’t quit. I don’t mean to be flippant. I was older and had a real career that I quit in order to enlist. I was highly motivated. Had I quit, I’d have to find another NG company (and most non-SF NG companies are jacked up) and I’d probably never get another shot (quitting would likely get me a NTR on my file - Never To Return). When it starts to suck, guys will find a reason to quit. “Well, my wife didn’t want me to go SF anyway, so I’m going to quit.” Or, “I think I hurt my knee, I’m going to get a med drop and come back or else I might injure my knee permanently.” Injuries happen, but med drops are also an easy way of quitting and saving some face. I could go on and on, and I don’t have the answers on why some quit.


2. Ruck. Ruck some more. 95% of folks aren’t rucking enough. Timed ruck marches, land nav and team events are all done with a rucksack on your back. Being strong is good, but no one is going to ask you what you bench at SFAS.


3. Be a team player. The cadre are assessing you at all times. And you can get peered out (bad reviews by your teammates) for not pulling your load.

[Gordion]

This is some real good stuff, thanks for doing this!

You mentioned Don't Quit, do you have any mental tricks, self talk, visualization, that you've used throughout the years when you've felt on the verge of shutting down? Whether in training or on the job, any go-to techniques?

[NFARCH]

Did more people quit on selection, or were more people cut? What were the top 2 or 3 reasons people quit or were cut?

Cheers

[Tirofijo]

What took the most getting used to when you transitioned from the military to LE?

Two things stand out.

1) The camaraderie isn't the same. I work with different agents all the time. I don't have a team. It's just not the same. We do have a tactical branch were I'd be on the same team for a few years. I'm considering doing that but it's a lot of travel and rough on the family, so I may not.

2) Everyone at my agency has received excellent training, but once hired they almost aren't allowed to fail. No one gets weeded out. Some have no business in law enforcement. My particular agency is mostly investigations/program management, so even squared away guys let their skills degrade. But then again we are also expected to work in high threat locations, with agents you may not have worked with before. So...that bothers me.

SF had it's 10% of dirtbags that slipped through, but for the most part you could count on the person beside you.