Reassessing the Assessment of Special Operators: New System Overhauls Elite School’s Records
Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson
Maj. Stuart Gallagher
Capt. Kurtis Gruters
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
In 1941, the U.S. was drawn into World War II, the most catastrophic conflict the world has ever known. The country realized the need for nontraditional military capabilities and in June 1942, established the clandestine Office of Strategic Services, which was charged with recruiting, assessing and selecting, training and deploying special operations personnel to prosecute unconventional warfare and intelligence operations behind enemy lines.
During this time, the world also saw the beginning of a transition from human to digital computers, driven by increased demand for rapid and large-scale computing in support of the war effort. It was largely this work by mathematicians like Alan Turing and Claude Shannon that laid the foundations for the future of computing.
The legacy of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) endures to this day at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. But it is the convergence of the scientific principles developed by the OSS and the advancements of modern computation that promise a revolution in building and maintaining America’s special operations forces.
https://www.ausa.org/articles/reassessing-assessment-special-operators-new-system-overhauls-elite-schools-records
