Dear Sirs

The situation is quite different in our ARSOF unit's.

you can find NCO or sf officer in charge of an ODA.

Ncos come from two ways : firstly they come from the unit and have served inside until they reach the good decision level to be in charge of a team.
Secondly they come from army and after attending examination and a small "pipeline" they take command of an ODA.

Sf officer come from one way (in order to be simple because of my english level) they come from branch school (infantry, armor and signal-communication). They have the same "pipeline" than Ncos previously seen upthere. They are in charge of the ODA for 3 years.

Officers have different origins. Mostly there are young and go straight from Saint Cyr (West Point). They perform their branch school then go to the unit depending of their top rank (average age: 23 in the unit).

Secondly you can find former Ncos (age under 30) who took examination in order to be commissionned. They have to go to Saint Cyr area in an other school called combined arms school. Then they join our "westpointers" in the branch school's (average age 28 in the unit).
Finally we find what we could call our warrant officer program (above 30 under 40) They have to take examination for the branch they want to apply. For the ARSOF unit's they have to attend at the intelligence program. After that they join their branch schools to the officer training course with other officers from their FY (average age 35).

There are sf slots for each recruitment.

So at this step you have noticed the big differences between the both systems.

Officers aren't considered from sf by the Army (in human ressources terms I mean) until they took command of their sf company. Until this time we are still considered by the infantry branch.

We can find at the head of an ODA, a young ltn with an second in command freshly welcomed to the unit.

The officer career is the same as the conventional one and we aren't a special branch as you. Every ncos or officers can apply to the unit regardless the origin.

Here we used to say that officer is a able to manage every kind of military activity regardless his background.

So after leaving the boys I could count and recount socks (military ones of course:) ) for two years and go to Paris to be a human ressources manager for two another years. That's the way it is.

My € .02

A 180A (Warrant Officer) is a bit different from an 18A (Commissioned Officer) - here is public info for all - NCO, WO, O.

http://www.bragg.army.mil/sorb/SORB_..._CRITERIA.html

Bonne lecture et bonne chance! ;)

Richard's $.02 :munchin

First off, I am not a SF Officer but I am an Officer.
But I have a point to make about several posts in these forums by High School Students, ROTC Cadets, West Point Cadets, and Fellow LTs.
As an Officer or a future one, you should be able to accomplish simple tasks in life. For example, utilizing Google or basic information gathering skills. 80 percent of the rabble that is posted by HS students, ROTC, WP, and LTs is something that any basic Google search would pull up. As I delve into these forums there is so much great and useful information to be gathered and processed, but it is randomly interrupted by some 17-21 year old that ask the most annoying questions. Agreed many of these questions I once also wondered about, but had the College level thought process of looking it up. Do for yourself before you ask others to do for you. It doesn't take much to use Google, which will pull up all the basic information from GoArmy about the SF timeline. Additionally I found about 10 other sites that give very good unclassified information about the path and all admin questions, restrictions, and basic qualifications to go to SFAS/SFQS. Asking group members/ former group members basic admin questions would prove to me you don't have what it takes to be an Officer. Let alone one in charge of Combat Arms Soldiers. And not even close to the ability to lead a Group of Individuals who has about the same level or in most cases more Intelligence than you. Those same individuals who have 10 times the experience in doctrinal & combat training and most likely are at least at the same college level degree as you. So please don't waste any ones time asking basic admin type questions.
Go to webpage below and read everything!
Then...Ask unanswered questions that are intelligent that don't embarrass you and me.
http://www.goarmy.com/special-forces.html

Thank you for your Time. I will jump off my 6 Foot Soap Box now!
:boohoo