Why do you put such a premium on rucking in Special Operations?

[rangerrebew]

Why do you put such a premium on rucking in Special Operations?

by Steve Balestrieri 

We frequently get a lot of questions about the Selection part of the training pipeline, what the candidates for the various Special Operations units in the SOF umbrella must pass. Selection, as we say is just the first step, but it is a continuous process and never really ends.

Candidates during Selection will be assessed on their ability to pass the qualification courses and give an idea on how well they’ll fit in the various SOF units. It isn’t an exact science, never was, never will be. Some candidates make it thru the entire pipeline only to fail in the units. That is because the level of training the operators must possess is far above what is required in the courses. Those are just to get your foot in the door. You’ll be assessed all thru your career in every new job, regardless of rank or position.

And one of the biggest discriminators as we’ve said here countless times centers around rucking. And I’ll repeat it here just to refresh everyone’s memory. Rucking is the basis of nearly every training scenario that you’ll encounter in Special Operations. In almost every case, an operator will have some rucking built into a mission.

https://sofrep.com/specialoperations/why-do-you-put-such-a-premium-on-rucking-in-special-operations/

[sneakypete]

If you ain't sharp enough to realize that on almost every mission you go on that you will be taking in everything you need to fight and survive on your back,you probably ain't smart enough to make it to a team.

And the paragraph is correct. Training Group is just the test,physical and mental,that you have to pass in order to be able to determine if what you have is good enough to allow you to go to a team,where you will be tested again virtually every day of your career. Your own attitude is key to everything. You have the basics,or you wouldn't have been accepted for the training,but the only way attitude can be tested is by surviving stressful surprises by putting you under a LOT of stress in a leadership position,and then pulling the rug out from under your feet to see how you respond.

Yeah,Training Group comes up with a series of scenarios to try to determine how well and how quickly you can adapt to changing circumstances "on the fly",but there is no course that can challenge you and kick your ass like real life. People who can adapt and adjust get to live. People who can't,are lucky to make it back home.

Where the rubber meets the road is completing the mission and coming back alive.

Even once you get on a team you will learn there are some teams that are basically training teams that do nothing but training and routine missions. The "high speed" (best) teams get to pick and choose who they want and who they don't want just like the other teams,but their standards are higher,and who they choose is entirely in the hands of the team sgt. He makes the decision,and doesn't have to explain his decisions to anyone. Which in real life is no big deal because if there is an empty slot on a team,the team sgt will come and ask you if you want to serve on his team. You have a right to say yes or no,but that's it.

On the other hand,the team sgt ALWAYS has the right to say "no" to any potential team mate the head shed tries to assign to him. It HAS to work that way,and if you are not chosen,it is NOT a slight on you. I once had a good friend refuse to accept me on his team because he was about 6'5" and 250 lbs,and thought I was too little to be able to pick him up and run with him if he got hit. There was nothing personal about it. He was the man who might live or die according to his decision on who replaced his dead assistant team leader,so he was the man that got to make the choice. Who can argue with that?

The good news is that once you get on one of the "high-speed teams",life is truly a wonderful and exciting thing. There are very few people in this life who can look around at the people around them and say with conviction "I trust every one of these people with my life,and they trust me with theirs".  There are damn few people in civilian life you can trust to pay back a 20 dollar loan,never mind come charging through gun fire to throw you on their back and run to safety with you.

You will only understand what I mean when you are at a SF camp and word is filtering out through the radio room that there is a team surrounded and under fire that can't move,and they need an emergency extraction. You understand this when you grab your gear and run to the helicopters on the airstrip and find out you might have to fight somebody to get a space on one of the rescue choppers flying out. You will see SF guys there that aren't even on "go teams" due to jobs in supply,arms room,radio room,or dispensary,or because they are wounded, damn near coming to blows to try to get on one of the helicopters going out to land under fire in a small clearing in order to try to rescue wounded and surrounded SF guys. Some will even be officers,hoping to go out as just one more team member and rifle toter.

 Sometimes they can't even land,and you have to rappel out of the helicopter on ropes while under fire.

That's when you will begin to really understand why nothing is more important than training,and nobody can ever have too much of it.

[TomSea]

If you ain't sharp enough to realize that on almost every mission you go on that you will be taking in everything you need to fight and survive on your back,you probably ain't smart enough to make it to a team.

And the paragraph is correct. Training Group is just the test,physical and mental,that you have to pass in order to be able to determine if what you have is good enough to allow you to go to a team,where you will be tested again virtually every day of your career. Your own attitude is key to everything. You have the basics,or you wouldn't have been accepted for the training,but the only way attitude can be tested is by surviving stressful surprises by putting you under a LOT of stress in a leadership position,and then pulling the rug out from under your feet to see how you respond.

Yeah,Training Group comes up with a series of scenarios to try to determine how well and how quickly you can adapt to changing circumstances "on the fly",but there is no course that can challenge you and kick your ass like real life. People who can adapt and adjust get to live. People who can't,are lucky to make it back home.

Where the rubber meets the road is completing the mission and coming back alive.

Even once you get on a team you will learn there are some teams that are basically training teams that do nothing but training and routine missions. The "high speed" (best) teams get to pick and choose who they want and who they don't want just like the other teams,but their standards are higher,and who they choose is entirely in the hands of the team sgt. He makes the decision,and doesn't have to explain his decisions to anyone. Which in real life is no big deal because if there is an empty slot on a team,the team sgt will come and ask you if you want to serve on his team. You have a right to say yes or no,but that's it.

On the other hand,the team sgt ALWAYS has the right to say "no" to any potential team mate the head shed tries to assign to him. It HAS to work that way,and if you are not chosen,it is NOT a slight on you. I once had a good friend refuse to accept me on his team because he was about 6'5" and 250 lbs,and thought I was too little to be able to pick him up and run with him if he got hit. There was nothing personal about it. He was the man who might live or die according to his decision on who replaced his dead assistant team leader,so he was the man that got to make the choice. Who can argue with that?

The good news is that once you get on one of the "high-speed teams",life is truly a wonderful and exciting thing. There are very few people in this life who can look around at the people around them and say with conviction "I trust every one of these people with my life,and they trust me with theirs".  There are damn few people in civilian life you can trust to pay back a 20 dollar loan,never mind come charging through gun fire to throw you on their back and run to safety with you.

You will only understand what I mean when you are at a SF camp and word is filtering out through the radio room that there is a team surrounded and under fire that can't move,and they need an emergency extraction. You understand this when you grab your gear and run to the helicopters on the airstrip and find out you might have to fight somebody to get a space on one of the rescue choppers flying out. You will see SF guys there that aren't even on "go teams" due to jobs in supply,arms room,radio room,or dispensary,or because they are wounded, damn near coming to blows to try to get on one of the helicopters going out to land under fire in a small clearing in order to try to rescue wounded and surrounded SF guys. Some will even be officers,hoping to go out as just one more team member and rifle toter.

 Sometimes they can't even land,and you have to rappel out of the helicopter on ropes while under fire.

That's when you will begin to really understand why nothing is more important than training,and nobody can ever have too much of it.

You must be 5'9 or something, I don't know what you are calling "too little".... you humble us all,  you don't answer how all of your experience makes you the better judge on everything....so, you are humble yourself too.  It really blows some of us away.  I've read similar to what you just wrote.

Those are totally hellish conditions you speak of.

@sneakypete

I'd be just a little wary of too much training.

[sneakypete]

You must be 5'9 or something, I don't know what you are calling "too little".... 

@TomSea

Nope. 5'6",and about 160 lbs back then. I could do multiple 220 lb reps and dead lift a little over 400 lbs back then,though.

Gee,I wonder why I have back problems now that I am old?

I knew I wanted to be a paratrooper from about the time I was in the 3rd grade,though. By the time I was in the 5th grade,I was wearing jump boots to school. Quit high school on my 16th birthday and enlisted in the army as "Airborne Unassigned" on my 17th birthday. I had the choice of any school in the army,and I picked jump school. I clearly was in desperate need of advice.

It all worked out in the end though,and I was as happy as a bug in a rug right up to the time I was medievaced from VN with open,bleeding,infected sores all over my torso. They were calling it "tropical acne" back then. Today they call it "Agent Orange".

I had to leave SF and go to the conventional army because I wasn't deployable,but I was offered a chance to re-enlist,and even offered a promotion if I did. By that time I had already spent several months in the regular army,and all I wanted was OUT.  Should have sucked it up and stayed in long enough to get retirement. I got out though,thinking the condition would eventually go away,and I would be able to enlist again if I wanted. That never happened

 

[roamer_1]

@sneakypete

I have rarely pulled 20 miles in a day with a pack, and fair duress... Which is a fairly redundant statement, since the only reason you would do that to yourself is because of some dire urgency. 15 miles is a whole lot easier, until the second day of it... And the third. That's still haulin ass.

And I also understand what it is to live out of a pack long enough to have run out of packed-in food days ago, and stay up there anyway. I don't know how you do that with more than 2 ppl
 (both men btw), but  do know what that is.

I am probably geared somewhat differently than y'all - I would be geared way harder toward tools than your avg backpacker, and even that being more toward durability and absolute necessity than toward weight. But not like an army either, that relies very heavily upon supply lines and resupply...

I know it can't really be compared, but I reckon the living out of a pack part is pretty similar, considering all the ammo and iron y'all had to pack around, which likely limited your vital living necessities to something near the same.

It is quite a science, putting together a kit you can live with and carry, for all intents and purposes, indefinitely... And to resent the tiny bauble of comfort that has no other purpose, because that damn pack has grown so very heavy by the end of the day.

But man, is that living. Some of the very best times of my life have been under a 10x10 tarp, half hungry, living off of whatever the traps brought you, with no idea what tomorrow would bring, and not a care in the world beyond somehow filling your belly. Simple, succinct, REAL.
 

[PeteS in CA]

1. As @sneakypete pointed out, team members have to carry in everything the team will need for their operation. A team member who cannot carry "their share" means others will carry more or something necessary will be left behind.

2. Endurance. Exhausted people are able to do less, think less clearly, and notice less. The farther out team members reach the exhaustion point, the more effective the team is for a longer time.

[thackney]

They need mules.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

2. Endurance. Exhausted people are able to do less, think less clearly, and notice less. The farther out team members reach the exhaustion point, the more effective the team is for a longer time.

This is the exact reason that the Marine Infantry Officer's Course has humping (our "rucking") standards that are more extreme than what you are likely to do in the field.  It's the only way to simulate the requirement that the "hump" is not enough -- you still must have enough energy and strength to do what is needed to be done when you get there.

[sneakypete]

They need mules.

@thackney

Yikes! Imagine the "jaws" you could put on that thing!

"SIC,'EM,LUTHER!"

[sneakypete]

This is the exact reason that the Marine Infantry Officer's Course has humping (our "rucking") standards that are more extreme than what you are likely to do in the field.  It's the only way to simulate the requirement that the "hump" is not enough -- you still must have enough energy and strength to do what is needed to be done when you get there.

@Maj. Bill Martin

It also shows who can make good decisions when exhausted and under pressure,and who can't.  Anyone who can't,and it is NOT their fault,washes out of the course because exhaustion is the closest you can get people to reach the state you reach while in combat and all is confusion and screaming,and EVERYBODY on a recon team and EVERY officer MUST be able to calm themselves and reach rational conclusions and issue calm orders.

This isn't a problem in SF or on recon teams because they are all trained and experienced,but in conventional units composed primarily of VERY young men,the last thing they need to see is their senior NCO's and officers panicking and acting hysterical. Hysteria spreads faster than a brush fire,and nothing will get you killed quicker.

Since the military can't repeat actual combat conditions in a training scenario,exhaustion is the closest they can come to it. And,truth to tell,it's a pretty accurate indicator.

[jpsb]

Why do you put such a premium on rucking in Special Operations?

In my day that was called a forced march.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

@Maj. Bill Martin

It also shows who can make good decisions when exhausted and under pressure,and who can't.  Anyone who can't,and it is NOT their fault,washes out of the course because exhaustion is the closest you can get people to reach the state you reach while in combat and all is confusion and screaming,and EVERYBODY on a recon team and EVERY officer MUST be able to calm themselves and reach rational conclusions and issue calm orders.

This isn't a problem in SF or on recon teams because they are all trained and experienced,but in conventional units composed primarily of VERY young men,the last thing they need to see is their senior NCO's and officers panicking and acting hysterical. Hysteria spreads faster than a brush fire,and nothing will get you killed quicker.

Since the military can't repeat actual combat conditions in a training scenario,exhaustion is the closest they can come to it. And,truth to tell,it's a pretty accurate indicator.

100% agree.

[sneakypete]

In my day that was called a forced march.

@jpsb

Probably still is in conventional units.

SF and recon units carried rucksacks instead of the tiny little packs carried by conventional units with supply trucks following them around. They had enough food to last a day,maybe two,and that was all they needed.

SF and Special Operations Units (NOT the same thing) carry rucksacks because we have no supply train following us around,and we have to carry everything we are going to eat for a week,plus enough ammunition,grenades,mines,boobytraps,wire taps,cameras,and various other explosives to endure a fairly long firefight until we can be rescued by a quick reaction team. Sometimes that means we are all on our own overnight,and even have to resort to stuff like tying a strobe light to your radio antenna,and calling in air strikes on the strobe flashes,telling them to bring it in "danger close".  Sometimes this results in you or your own people getting hit,but you have no choice. You can actually FEEL the bullet strikes hitting the ground around and making stone vibrate when you do this and have a couple of Spooky Gun Ships flying in a tight circle right over you. It damn sure makes the bad guys lose all interest in overrunning your position,though.

The loudest and most terrifying sound you will ever hear is the sound a hammer makes hitting an empty chamber.

[jpsb]

@jpsb

Probably still is in conventional units.

SF and recon units carried rucksacks instead of the tiny little packs carried by conventional units with supply trucks following them around. They had enough food to last a day,maybe two,and that was all they needed.

SF and Special Operations Units (NOT the same thing) carry rucksacks because we have no supply train following us around,and we have to carry everything we are going to eat for a week,plus enough ammunition,grenades,mines,boobytraps,wire taps,cameras,and various other explosives to endure a fairly long firefight until we can be rescued by a quick reaction team. Sometimes that means we are all on our own overnight,and even have to resort to stuff like tying a strobe light to your radio antenna,and calling in air strikes on the strobe flashes,telling them to bring it in "danger close".  Sometimes this results in you or your own people getting hit,but you have no choice. You can actually FEEL the bullet strikes hitting the ground around and making stone vibrate when you do this and have a couple of Spooky Gun Ships flying in a tight circle right over you. It damn sure makes the bad guys lose all interest in overrunning your position,though.

The loudest and most terrifying sound you will ever hear is the sound a hammer makes hitting an empty chamber.

Back in my day "conventional units" fought the wars. USMC 1969

[sneakypete]

Back in my day "conventional units" fought the wars. USMC 1969

@jpsb

That's odd. The things I described above were things I experienced in 68 and 69,and I could have sworn I was fighing in a war. Sure felt like it,anyhow.

[jpsb]

@jpsb

That's odd. The things I described above were things I experienced in 68 and 69,and I could have sworn I was fighing in a war. Sure felt like it,anyhow.

So you are telling me that Marines and Army infantry did not fight the Vietnam war?  F U

[sneakypete]

So you are telling me that Marines and Army infantry did not fight the Vietnam war?  F U

@jpsb

Are you actually retarded,or did you fall down and hurt your head recently?

WTF do you think Special Forces is if not US Army infantry?  A very advanced form of infantry maybe,but still ground-pounders that carry weapons and MUCH larger rucksacks and more equipment than jarheads or grunts because we don't have all the support units following us around that you have. Our whole unit is comprised of just 12 Americans when the team is full. Typical patrols are only 2 or 3 Americans,and the rest locals.

The closest thing the USMC has to us are the Force Recon people,but even then they are all Marines and no locals.  BTW,I have met and trained with some USMC Force Recon people,and they are pretty damn sharp mentally,and 100 percent dedicated to their jobs. VERY good people.