Will that be the little blue M&M? opps, no that was something else too! ;)

Doc

This is really nothing new, as there is another book titled "Men, Stress and Viet Nam" that came to a similar conclusion. It is a small book and follows a one year study where they went from location to location taking blood and urine samples. They had just created a repeatable, confimed, matix of how the human body reacts to stress. They then made the mistake fo going to an A Camp for a study and then had to change all of their "confirmed data". Seems that the guys on the camp reacted a tad differently.

I will have to dig into my old library adn see fi I can find that book. Very interesting read and it is a quick read. I am sure some of the other guys will have read it.

I'm not sure if I fully buy the 'biologically different' argument. It kind of brings up the whole controlled breeding thing in my mind, or the Dorsai argument. I think there is a difference in mentality more than anything else, a lot of the muscleheads didn't make it through prephase, or phase 1 (old system), because they were weak in character, mind, and focus; while skinny little runts with heart, and a desire to prove to themselves that they could accomplish what the average soldier would never even dream, overcame the obstacles and earned the beret / flash / tab.

Is it biology or is it heart / mind / character - I'll go with the latter 3, how many would agree?

Can you say with certainty that biology isn't responsible for the differences in the latter 3? :)

Is character biological or learned? I believe it is learned.
Intelligence is part both.
Desire to prove to oneself, is inherent in a person, whether it is truly biological, I plead ignorance (remember ignorance impies choice, I have not looked into it, and therefore have not chosen to know)

So is the ability to run better than others, ie top world class sprinter, biological or learned. I say biological and, yes, the individual is superior in running to me. I do not see it as a slam, put down of politically incorrect observation. I see it as fact.

The same can be said of the ability to control certain dody functions that allow a higher mental survival rate than others. Are they superior to the others? Yes in that area, but they are still inferior to those tht can sprint faster.

This BS phobia of declaring something superior because it may hurt someone's feelings is poppy cock. Each indiividual has superior and inferior abilites and traits, it really is what makes the world go round.

If this has upset some folk then good, it needs to be brought out to the light that humans are diverse and some can do some things bettter than others and much of has to do with genes, not race, not religion, just plain old building block genes. :munchin

Longrange-
I was not arguing that SF Soldiers are not better than the average joe -we most certainly are - I was arguing the point that it can be dissected in one way - there are myriad biological, mental, social, emotional, and character differences between us and most people. But how is this difference to be measured except by those who have been there, and understand what is being asked of the candidates? We know the difference, a test does not. some of the best scoring candidates, test wise, still bolo, nothing against them, they are outstanding soldiers - just not SF. Remember that the last things in the Q are evals (or at least they were) you aren't a grad unless the instructors and your peers agree you are.

It's the hat.

For what I have seen over the years it is not so much of being better than the average joe but being better suited for SF. SF requires a commitment and you can only get a commitment to any organization when those qualities, aspects, performance standards, and goals that make up the organization mesh completely with the qualities, aspects, performance standards and goals of the individual. Unquestionably there is a biological component that enables performance standards to be met but there are also physchological and learned components. Whatever it is folks have been trying to bottle it since the inception of the program and we have yet to discover the "secret formula". There is no SF template. This business is, after all, nothing like making corn flakes but all about producing the best soldiers with whom I have ever had the priviledge to work.

Jack Moroney-biologically hampered, psychologically flawed and learning impaired I served in the shadows cast by many in whom I will forever be in awe.

COL M-
Not that I believe:
Jack Moroney-biologically hampered, psychologically flawed and learning impaired
at all.

But AMEN to:
I served in the shadows cast by many in whom I will forever be in awe.

MSG Gary Gordon is one of them. (he was an E6p - E7 when I served with him)

Being as PC impaired as I am. In more than one way. :D I found it!! NO, not that. Here..........

http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/...ead.php?t=6291

Back then. I brought this up, more for another reason. I have NO clue about nueropeptide Y things.

Some of the posts then and now, touch on along the lines of what I had in mind.

Forget the nuerological, brain wave crap.

What about, the mind, heart, soul, the drive, desire, motivation.....? Can keep typing adjectives. Put it simple. The mind set!

The mind controls the body and drives it where one never thought possible. In some of the responses to this thread and to that older one, you can see some of that. The Colonel, above this post hit on it, so did Longrange.

Start when you were a kid. Did you take chances? Could you sit still for long? Did dumbasses piss you off, even if you were only 4 and up?

What stupid things did you do as a kid? Things, that you should have not even gotten to the age of graduating Grade school, let alone HS. Things that make you dead.

Also. even as a youngster and you were 'pushing the envelope'. Did you feel then, that you had thought it through, to the best of your know nothing/experience mind? To you? No matter what age, from there on up? Did you feel it as a 'calculated risk' to the best experience and knowledge you had, at whatever age?

LOL..... so did NDD. To an extent. So did Guy. I'm still misunderstood and tired of fighting. Try to be nice and somehow, someone takes it wrong. I dunno. ;)

Ahh yes the 4 cinder block bike ramps as a second grader... numerous scars, bumps, and bruises. A sort of PRE-selection as it were.

All of my fellow second graders... never made it past three cinder blocks high. Heck maybe it was the hair!

LOL Longtab. Yeah. That kind of stuff. Biological/mental/feeling the rush of adrenalin. I did that stuff allllllllll the time as a kid and growing up. Of course, I had nooooooooo idea what an adrenalin rush was, nor what adrenalin was. I just felt and liked it.

Across the street from the house was a Forest Preserve. In the winters, we would all head over there, when it seemed like the water had frozen over. Also called the Lagoons. This was a project that was dug by hand to put men to work during the depression. Anyway, there was an island out there, that we could never get to. Then and now, you do not swim in that water. Sometimes the ice wasn't all that solid. I NEEDED to get to that island! There was an old comic strip in the newspaper back then called ' Jim Trails' I believe. I learned from one of those, if you lay down on ice covered water, your weight is distributed. I was the only kid that tried. Made it by the way. Still hear the crackling sounds of the ice in my head. :)

That kinda crap, I continued to do growing up and into SF, during SF and to some extent now. HM..... calculated risk.......

AHHHH, the idiocy of youth - as preparation for SF - never really thought about it, but yes - the bike jumps, the dirt bomb fights, running around the wetlands preserve (swamp), woods, and swimming in the winter if the air temp hit 65, climbing sand cliffs, climbing trees - building field expedient rafts from flotsam... backpacking the Appalachian trail at 12, sialing as often as possible, and being on a war canoe team

Yeah, x_sf_med. Isn't that the truth? I figured by all rights, I should have been dead, before I got to SF. Hmmmmmm, just calculated risks. :D