[The Reaper]

There are Reserve component all over the Training Group working as IMAs.

IIRC, Guard soldiers are occasionally brought in for courses, but not normally as Primary Instructors (PIs). The NG Groups are busy enough with deployments that I suspect they have other things to do while they are back home. If an NG soldier wants to be an AD soldier, all he has to do, in most cases is to ask.

It takes approximately six months to put an AD E-7 or E-8 on the platform as a PI.

FOGs already fill many of the jobs in SWCS, from old soldiers, guys with profiles, guys who just need to be back home for a while to recharge, retirees back as contractors, guys who are back as GS employees, etc. If the schoolhouse was restricted to AD SF soldiers only, we would have to shut down half the courses, cut student load in half, or cannibalize an AC Group to man the positions. LR1947 is one of our FOGs, as is ODA 564, I probably qualify as well. The senior civilian within SWCS, probably half of the GS positions, and most of the contractors are prior AD SF personnel. This will be hard to maintain as overseas contract work becomes even more financially lucrative. I think there is a major exodus underway right now by guys who are eligible to retire and take the overseas positions. The next few months should tell.

When the Germans stripped their schools to fill their units, the war was pretty much already in its final stages. We let the Schoolhouse slide for many years, dropping from six to four SFQC Classes per year, cutting instructor manning and authorizations, etc. This was done to maintain the manning in the Groups, which is an extremely myopic plan. The followup plan was to zero out one ODA per SF Company so that the remaining teams could be manned fully, as well as SWCS. This also failed. This culminated in graduating a grand total of about 250 soldiers in 2000 or so, which was about 1/3 to 1/2 of our requirements. Numbers have improved significantly since then by a number of methods, which did not include lowering standards. Big actions and big money are currently underway to produce 750 SF soldiers per year within the next few years. This is requiring additional resourcing, to the tune of an additional 500 permanent party personnel. Hey, anyone remember that old saying, "Competent SOF cannot be created overnight"? It takes SF soldiers to make SF soldiers, and it is a very manpower and contact hour intensive process.

FYI, SWCS enrolled over 10,000 students in some course last year, and if you count total students, cadre, and contractors for the year, had more people assigned or attached than the 82nd.

HTH.

TR