What do you think?

[E19]

If someone told you that he went through basic training and AIT while in Special Forces at Ft Bragg. Would he be 1. a BS artist? 2. playing with less than a full deck? or 3. for real?

[Hummel]

Either a really bad BSr or a really good insane guy.

[JY]

hi E19;

That would be impossible, check the #1 & 2 boxes 8) Was his name Arnold S.?

Take care...Jim

To the rest who went through Basic and AIT while in SF at Bragg, I don't want to hear from you...hehehehe 8)(unless you wuz in Delta too at the same time)

[RGV4]

Why would someone already in SF be going through Basic and AIT? Basic and AIT come waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy before SF.

Or was he sent in as a secret government spy to check out recruits at Basic? Hmm....

[Razor]

How old is this guy, E19? It may be he was what is sometimes called an "SF Baby". What that means is he enlisted in the late 70s/early 80s (those who know, is this the correct era?) under a program where he had an SF contract, similar the the Ranger contracts of today. He'd go through basic, AIT, jump school, then the Q-Course (there was no SFAS back then, that was Phase I's purpose). If he meant he did basic and AIT with an SF contract, and not while a member of SF, he may be telling the truth, although I wasn't aware that any SF babies did their basic and AIT at Bragg. I wasn't around the community then, so those who were, please chime in.

[E19]

Impossible you say JY? Then I did the impossible. I wore the SF SSI during Basic,
AIT at Bragg with the 7th SFG, and Jump School (TDY at Benning), then back to Smoke Bomb Hill where I donned the beret and completed SFTG. BS you say? Not playing with a full deck? Nope... I'm for real.

[E19]

Razor,

I believe the program you are refering to was started in 65. And you are correct they did not do basic and AIT while in SF. I was not in that. The only time I spent in the Army not wearing the SF SSI was 3 days at Ft Dix recruit reception station for in-processing and then
a bus ride to Smoke Bomb Hill and the 7th SFG. The year was 1966.

[This message has been edited by E19 (edited 12-16-1999).]

[Mark]

It was also possible for reservists in the early to mid '80s. They were refered to as REP 63s, I believe. However, I don't think there was any basic training at Bragg back then.

Mark

[Scout]

REP-63 is back in the Guard. But then, there's no basic or ait at Benning

[JY]

It would be nice if he would enlighten us poor, uninformed, lowly did it the normal way types as to how this worked. And how he attended both BASIC & AIT at Ft Bragg while IN Special Forces as stated in his first post.Sounds like an interesting story in the history of SF.

Not knowing it all I would be very interested, was overseas at the time quoted 1966, so may have missed something...Jim

[This message has been edited by JY (edited 01-06-2000).]

[E19]

JY,

In August of 1966 about 400 Special Forces Reserve & NG enlistee's were assigned to A Co 7th SFG for Basic, AIT, Airborne, and SF MOS training. After being processed into the Army at various reception centers across the country (Ft Dix in my case) they were quickly sent to Ft Bragg. Ten guys from the unit in Tampa had to bail out of a malfunctioning C-119 on their way to Bragg. Due to a shortage of barracks (the 7th was in the process of moving from the old wooden buildings on Smoke Bomb Hill to the new buildings by JFK) the trainees got to spend the first five months living in squad tents. At least we never had to sweep the dirt floors. We sewed on the SF insignia the first day, however we wore those wonderful baseball caps until we came back from 3 weeks of TDY to Benning for jump school. Jump School was the only part of our training that was not conducted by SF. As a result of our physical training regimine we recorded the highest completion rate for any group ever going thru jump school (previously held by a group from West Point). Upon or return to Bragg we were presented our berets with the deadfull "candybars" and sent home for Christmas. After New Years we were told what SF MOS training we were assigned to take (mine was commo). There was a group of guys that were told they didn't qualify ( I suppose they failed the psych eval among other things). They were shipped to Ft Campbell to become guerilla's for an FTX with the 101st and then sent home to their units. The medics course was shortened (they did not go to Ft Sam) and they were the first to finish. Commo was the longest, it took 9 months total. We were awarded our
MOS certificates from SFTG and our Berets with flash. Looking back, I know we were fortunate to have all out training from some of the best in the world. Best of all we didn't go through the usual "chicken-shit"
crap like regular boot camp. Smoke Bomb Hill was rather isolated (that's why Col. Bank chose it for SF) so they set up some picnic tables and brought in a semi-trailer
(mobile beer store) and parked it near our tents....Only in SF!!!!!

[JY]

Thanks E19;

Appreciate the answer, it would make a good story. Started thinking after seeing the E19SFG, this may have been what happened. We RA types of that era tend to ignore the ER and NGs of the period I guess.

Well it makes sense now, take care of yourself...Jim

[Spotlight_Ranger]

This whole thread brings up interesting aspects of our history. I had a company SGM a few years ago that had never been to Mackall. Never in his entire career. What had happened, he was assigned to the ASA field station on Oki (This was before INSCOM). He was already a partly trained communicator I presume the old 05H high speed morse intercept operator. He was put through jump school on Oki, many of you may not know but jump school was a post school on lots of bases in the 50s and 60s, and I think there were still 6 in the late 60s early 70s. He got his advanced commo training on the island, and shipped over to Viet Nam for his graduation phase. 1st Group rotated people in and out of Vietnam throughout the duration. In the early 70s I had a Ranger Indtructor going through jump school with me,
and in the mountain phase a couple of my instructors were not Ranger qualified, and one of my class mates was from the mountain committee. I'm bringing this up because I have seen a few oddities in our traning questioned such as when Spooky 8 went straight to his unit without AIT. That happened in about the right time frame he described. My own father was attending a form of Ranger School (or so they called it) at Ft Hood (circa 50-52) before it was consolidated at Benning. Oddly he was still required to be a company commander while he went. The purpose of this post is to give a little historical perspective, so nobody jumps upwaving the BS flag, because they didn't do it that way in the last five years. Thanks for bringing this up E19.

[JY]

Hi Spotlight_Ranger;

That was pretty common, after TET in '68 we raided Oki for "volunteers" and they were sent to jump school at Ft Buckner(sp) Okinawa and a rush training program given by the Ist SFG. They received the beret with candy bar(no flash) and assigned to the 5th SFG as support types.

SAFSEA was stationed on Oki, (Special Action Force South East Asia) which was part of the program using the 1st SFG people on a TDY basis in 'nam, amoung other more spooky types.

I totally forgot about the ERs and the rush programs during that sporting event, glad E19 brought it up too.

Take care...Jim