Why 'SF Readiness Assessments?'

[18Ddave]

Seems there is some confusion or misinformation that revolves around ‘tryouts’ that SF National Guard units run usually at the company level. It deserves clarification since there is a notion out there that we (NG SF units) are running them like SFAS. This is true to an extent, there are gates we make the candidates go through; APFT, pull up test, road march of unknown distance (reasonable), team event and written exams on SUT, land nav, etc. At the end candidates are boarded on their performance and told whether they made the training team or not. Those not selected are asked to come back 6 months later as well as told what weaknesses they need to work on. We do NOT bar candidates from coming back. This is how we have been running our program for over 20 years. The last 6 have been under a new program that expedites the process to SFAS and the Q course by running a SFRA every 6 months and running a streamlined administrative process.

There are those in the SF community that believe we should send every candidate straight to SFAS and that we cannot run such similar events. Here are reasons why we must:

Our company, as an example, every 6 months, gets a list of candidates that say they would like to attend and request the SFRA information. That list is historically between 50 to 75 PAX, of that list only 15 to 30 show up. If we were to process that many people, the AGR staff in this office would not have any time to do anything else but process candidate packets. One man processes approx 5-10 candidates every 6 months for SFAS and the Q and it is his full time job. This includes; SF physicals, orders, school reservations, travel, training, interviews, enlisting, and then adjusting snafus that inevitably happen with candidates. Moreover, those that come out of different states, the reserves and sister service make it considerably harder to manage administratively. There is absolutely no way to process that many candidates, with different backgrounds without seriously affecting the rest of the unit’s combat readiness and quality of training. We do not disregard readiness and numbers, on the contrary, we have SFRA in place for that very reason; to produce quality candidates that will succeed against the rigors of SF training.

Running SFRAs gives a successful reality check to the candidates that do make the training team. Furthermore, it lets SF cadre focus on a small group to teach and mentor. Our success rate since we have implemented the new program 6 years ago has been a steady 95% GO rate at SFAS. We set up our candidates for success.

Fiscally, this saves substantial amounts of money on travel and P&A on someone who is not ready. This is particularly important now that we are facing substantially smaller budgets.

During a NG SF leadership conference a few years back it was suggested to give additional funds for a trial run at local SF recruiters (at company level) in order to increase the number of NG candidates at SFAS. An SF qualified soldier would be placed on a 1 year ADSW tour to see if the idea would work. He would give CAG type recruiting drives at units across their perspective regions and manage recruiting, the SFRA and candidate training. This would raise considerable awareness of NG SF units, while allowing the units to focus on the combat/company mission. This idea never came to fruition.

Lastly, our company has 3 combat tours to Afghanistan. The 1st two tours were with a full company. The 3rd trip was short handed by an entire 2 ODAs. By adhering to quality; getting rid of bad apples over the 1st and 2nd tour, and focusing on assessing and training smaller manageable groups, we reaped the benefits of quality soldiers. This was also a time when we received our 1st batch of candidates out of the Q course since our revised program. The last trip was by far the most challenging, dangerous and successful tour; a lot of bad guys killed and a lot of great ‘SF work’ accomplished. It could not have been done without the 8 candidates that graduated the Q right before we left who were also the product of our program and obviously that of SWC.

Aren’t two of the mantras for SOF truths “Quality is better than quantity” and “SOF cannot be mass produced?” Our program's success in SFAS, and our last tour proved it even though we went down range considerably shorthanded.