SFA capability is rooted in Individual Talent (part 1)

[Bob's World]

Unfortunately, the Army has no systemic method of ensuring the right person gets to the right job, we continue mostly as interchangeable cogs in the HRC machine.

It’s called "Special Forces Assessment and Selection."

This is not to say that there are not many great service members across the force with the mental ability, aptitude, and experience to conduct FID effectively; or the physical ability to be in SF; or both; that are not in SF. Clearly there are.

But you raise a great point, and that is that the big army sees this as one more mission that it tasks down to a BCT (or AAB) to execute, and that the standard promotion and assignment process will produce the right people in the right jobs to go out and do this just like they do every other mission.

My experience, however, is that the big army's approach to training of others tends to fall into the category of "there are two ways to do things the US army way per (name the reg); and the wrong way." Then, instead of seeking to understand why your training audience can't seem to perform "to standard" they tend to cop a "I'm better than you" attitude and then instead of changing your approach to fit the target audience, they simple keep trying to pound the square peg into the round hole.

Short war story: I did a lot of FID in my short tenure as an ODA Commander in 5th SFG, both with foreign troops in a combat environment, and with US law enforcement in an interagency environment. I made mistakes sure, but learned a lot about going into someone else's backyard to help them do their jobs more effectively.

Then I left the Regular force to go to law school, and joined the 41st "Enhanced Infantry Brigade" in the Oregon Guard. A great unit with a great heritage, but they had all of the problems inherent in being a closed gene pool of personnel that don't cross pollinate TTPs in general and have very little time to train to any standard beyond basics. As one of 15 "Enhanced" Brigades they received special funding above other Guard units, and therefore received special focus from the Active Force. Two teams of advisors were created, and I saw them all from start to finish.

One team was your good buddies who lived in the community and had office space at your armories. Though they often equated to being the same size as the full-time guard staff, they could only offer advice but specifically could not lend a hand in actually doing anything. So they would sit in their office and read the paper, and wander into the training officer's office 2-3 times a day to offer advice, and then go back to doing their homework for the college classes they were taking, etc. Good Cop.

The other team was based at Fort Lewis, and they were trainers and evaluators. Their job was to set up training lanes and evaluate units and staffs IAW the Mission Training Plans (MTPs). Once it was determined that Enhanced Brigades would get CTC rotations ("denying" an AC unit/commander of the same) it got ugly. The evaluators made it their duty to prove that the Guard units were not prepared. In fact, they applied "special" standards to the guard. MTPs have unit tasks, leader tasks and critical tasks. Army standard is that a number of unit/leader tasks can be failed and achieve a go. Missing one Critical task meant failure. The COL (Armor, I forget his name, but he probably remembers mine...) in command proclaimed that for the Guard, "since aren't all leader tasks critical?" that for our evaluations all leader tasks would carry the same effect as a critical task. Needless to say, compiling the higher standard with less experience and training resulted in an extremely high failure rate. Bad Cops

Guard units had to literally expand their BN and BDE TOCs to be three times the normal size in order to accommodate the platoon of "advisors" and "evaluators" that roared into your training site, 1-2 per GSA SUV, for every training event. One guy would tell you three ways to do your job, and the other guy would tell you three reasons why you suck. Evaluators at company level would countermand orders from battalion if it interfered with what they wanted the company to do. Tactical Platoon night movements to contact would be stopped in mid movement for AARs, complete with Gas lanterns blazing and easels and flipcharts of the standards.

I could go on and on. These guys were conducting FID/SFA, and they absolutely, for all of their expertise at the tasks they were attempting to impart, SUCKED at FID. And to a man, and I know a lot of great officers and NCOs who participated in this grand AC/RC operation, can tell you in great detail about all the ways the Guard soldiers and units failed to meet standards; but are clueless about how equally abysmal they were at FID/SFA.


I share this only to make a point, and the point is this: This is a mission that is about far more that providing advice and training assistance. Conventional units can play a major and important role in this; but this is best applied in a supporting role, so that they can focus on what they are really good at, and let others focus on what they are equally and uniquely selected and trained to do.