Should I enlist or should I…?

I get this thread of questioning every week, so I thought an article was in order.

TL;DR - It’s complicated. You need to grow up; 18 year old boys are idiots. But how you grow up has consequences. Every situation is different.

We’ve spent over 25 years deeply studying Special Forces Assessment and Selection. We’ve studied its history from the inception, we’ve tracked its growth and updates, and we’ve seen every part of its execution. We’ve watched thousands of candidates and hundreds of events. We’ve talked to Cadre, Candidates, and leaders. We helped shaped SFAS from the inside and we know exactly what happens...and why. We thought that others might benefit from our understanding.

This is where you start…

BLUF: You get good at doing hard things by doing hard things. The more hard things you do, the less hard they become. But there is a catch, read on to learn more.

“I want to go SF and I’m trying to decide between Officer and Enlisted. I heard…”

College in the Army is a little weird as it’s almost universally recognized as good, it helps you get promoted, it’s pretty well-funded, but there is no real plan. What usually happens is that you show up to your duty station, Big Sarge (TM) tells you that you need some college, so you go down to the base Ed Center and sign up for classes. Rinse and repeat for every assignment and what you end up with is a bunch of credits that don’t transfer and you get frustrated and just stop…with your 169 useless JST credits and no degree. Nobody has a plan.