Steve Blair, great article. They tried this before around 74 if I remember, you could enlist off the street to be a green beret. Everybody had seen the movie "Billy Jack" (Tom Odom will know about this one ) and wanted to be a green beret but didn't want to work for it and their ranks were so depleted because of Vietnam that they came up with the idea to train them right off the street.

They waived the original requirements of 2nd enlistment, E5 or above and be airborne qualified. If they made it through the Q course you could not wear a complete flash on your beret just a colored bar of the group you were assigned to. We used to call them "candy strippers." when Regan was elected that stopped and they went back to being a professional outfit.

Hope they don't make the same mistake again.