Have SFAS standards changed?

Jack Murphy talks with Dr. David Walton, retired Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel and former director of Special Operations Education, about the rumors surrounding relaxed Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) standards. Has SFAS become easier? Does the inclusion of women candidates have an impact on standards?

[Rascal-of-War]

'Every generation thinks they're wiser than the next one and smarter than the one that came before'

I feel like this in some ways applies to the military.

[blazegulizack]

When I was in team week, recently, we did 3 events per day. The earliest my team finished was 7pm (starting at 430am) some teams finished at 3am with less than an hour of sleep between days.
Started with 310 and 91 got selected

[jarrodmurray]

Very informative. Started the video not paying attention to the length, and listened the whole thing through.

[HeyItsJoe]

I wonder what was the last generation that didnt think the next were weaker and worse off? WW2 to Korea?

[blazegulizack]

Selection has changed. Land nav is harder now and the Cadre are more selective. Our csm told us that in our brief after selection

[exoticluke]

i was not expecting that ending at all.

[taz]

A friend of mine went to Delta selection (a little off subject) with 185 SM’s; in the end 6 including him made it.

[SlimeSquare]

This was a fantastic listen. I finished MARSOC selection early 2008 right out of SOI, and as someone on the outside looking in, Marines going through the new 14 week Infantry Marine Course Experiment are vastly better prepared for Recon and MARSOC selection compared to Marines who attended the legacy infantry course during OIF/OEF. The Marine Corps hopes to achieve this by standardizing a scaled down version of the Recon Physical Assessment for all Infantry Marines. Simultaneously, the Army will be implementing higher combat fitness standards for EIB qualifications starting this year, again by implementing a scaled down version of the Ranger Battalion Physical Assessment.

At the outset, it appears this strategy will invariably produce more advanced infantrymen outside of Rangers, Recon, etc. while better preparing them for selection with a quantifiable degree of predictability, which I'm sure big Army/Marines and SOCOM will enjoy. However, physicality is only one factor of the selection process. My question is, do you think scaling the physical requirements will result in higher quality candidates entering selection, resulting in units operating at a desirable higher capacity? Or, do you think this will only benefit infantry units because of other intangible characteristics, such as critical thinking, interpersonal skills, etc.?

[jessicarabbit]

Standard psyche eval. Not disrespecting the military BUT- rather organically close to a green beret who committed suicide. No relation to me but first blood to someone I am close with. His wife said (after the fact) that he was experiencing terrible headaches after several combat deployments . Care to comment? I would be interested in your thoughts here- he died in 2020.

[heythere]

Interesting video and great guest speaker!

[JG-ycfr]

So he's not currently in though but can attest that standards aren't being lowered. Call bullshit

[taz]

No log or the rifle PT? Injuries or not, those were the ultimate gut checks👍

[thegreenberetlife]

Nonsense, they stopped requiring getting all your points for the Star Course, allowed “people” to get away with multiple road kills, eliminated even the need to pass the PT test moving from phase to phase and overriding the peer process. They also removed the language training from the Q Course and moved it to group. They may have come back to the center a little but there is no denying what happened. Read the “night letters”… A general was forced to retire! This man works for the command, message disregard!

[fdny]

The psychology behind assisting the women raise their ruck will not translate well on the battlefield

[hanwagu]

complete b.s. standards were changed. the very fact gender neutral accommodating standards for entry means standards were in fact changed. David talks about physiological differences in relation to the gender netural standards as being biology not bias, is an absolute absurdity. The enemy or dragging a 200 lb comrade out of a vehicle does not care about biology. If you accommodate for biology you are in fact placing a bias to even the playing field that does not exist against an enemy. The enemy isn't going to give a female an extra minute because of her biology. That is what lowering the basic entry point does with gender neutral standardsz. Granted, this also applies for lowering physical standards because the US population has gotten fatter. SWCS has had frequent ebbs and flows with standards or other euphamism for the same effect. The reality is that no matter what SWCS did, to include lowering standards pre-females in the reboot of SOF baby program through initial packing of ODAs at the beginning of GWOT, the results were basically the same on attrition and selection. So, it isn't surprising that the outcomes of gneder neutral standards resulted in the same attrition and selection, but let's be clear the standards were changed, just as they were in an effort to boost numbers to pad up ODAs early 2000s. The conclusion there is no pressure to force women through the program is also an additional absurdity. There is subjective decision making in passing someone in SFAS and Q Course. Of course from SWCS perspective there is no pressure. What is the SWCS going to say, oh we completely know the Administration and the bureaucrats are pushing this thing but we aren't going to adapt to accommodate? It was always expected and everyone knew it that SF had to pass at least one or two females. Don't know how David concludes there was no bias when the interview of male candidates very specifically admitted not calling out weak performing females and basically said not my problem, shifting to cadre. David somehow whitewashed the cadre directing candidates to conduct task or role, saying cadre normally direct a team to do a task not individual. Cadre do assign the team leader for a task and will continue to assign a person team leader roll, which he omitted. It is bias when other candidates taks less physically demanding roles within a task like riding in a jeep steering, that isn't a weak candidate avoiding more difficult position, that is the male team leader not wanting to fail a team leading task by not making cut off time. That is an inherent bias that SFAS allows. Cadre would not allow that continual babying of a weak male candidate. Hogwash that this isn't a performance standard, it precisely is. So when David says altering no interference ethos would bias against women, well frankly that ethos is only being applied to the females. Allowing females to skate by riding along doing less demanding tasks is biasing for women, especially if the female candidate isn't volunteering to do something else that is more demanding. Frankly, statistically there is no question that a female wouldn't qualify anyway, so realistically there was no fighting a handful passing. The subjective assessment and selection is real, because it happened plenty of times pre-female SFAS. Heck, my buddy gradauted from a class where one guy was selected even after failing, and then passed Q course after failing a primary skill test. David probably knows the guy, since their Q course time seems to mirror. I read the warontherocks synopsis and frankly there was alot of accommodating, outright massaging facts, and worse completely ignoring points. Plenty of gaslighting.

[FieldWordsworth-mn]

Williams Frank Jones Laura Thomas William

[heythere]

Love an older gentleman being honest 27:20 “I’m certainly not woke” lol like woke just means to be aware on injustice so how can you DOL without awareness of those countries injustices. Again great interview but funny moment

[vitigaymer]

One things for sure. I think we now have definitive proof that BUDS > RASP/SFAS in physical and athletic demands.