Rolled-back

[Mike]

I was talking to a foreign guy years ago and I mentioned that BUDS/SEAL allowed candidated to rolled-back (if that is the term for injury and allowing to complete with the next class or so). He said his country do not allow rolled-back. A way to tell me his country was tougher physically than our, but we are more tougher mentally than them.

[tdrogers21]

A couple of years ago I took a tour of Europe visiting Austria, France, and Spain. In each country I met people(usually students and military wannabees) who constantly tried to tell me how much better their Spec. Ops. units were than our own. I cannot help but wonder if they suffer from some sort of national inferiority complex. It amazed me to see how adamently thems people proclaimed their units to be the best. Any thoughs?

[Nissan]

Well personally I think its just the mnetality...all SpecOps units believe they are the best. Its one of those things that keeps up morale and unit integrity.."Hey were better then they are..if they can hack it so can we" I've found that the case in alot of different things..not just SpecOps and it always seems that those teams are highly motovated and won't give up..because they are the best and can't be beaten..

just my .02$

[nightinsertion]

That's just ridiculous. You know how many good guys would be lost if they were dropped completely just cause of an injury. thats not tough thats dumb.

[tacintelct]

rollbacks SUCK. never happened to me. i wasn't there. hehehe

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mopar/mofn/toto station/bf390

[TonyM]

OK, here's my 2 cents (cdn, which equals about 1.2cents US)
I've noticed a lot of the "ours is better than yours" everywhere. I've had the privilege (I mean that) to work with SEAL, Force Recon, SF, FAST, Brit PARA, Ghurkas, Royal Marines. Every one of them was critical to some extent about other units, but they were (mostly) respectful also, the mark of a true pro. During MARCOT we were enemy force with a SEAL & FR unit. Some guys you swear could walk on water, some I wouldn't want to be around if they had a loaded weapon. Maybe he was working though an injury, maybe just a bad day. Who knows? Happens to me. I'm sure every unit has it's good and bad members. But I didn't go around telling everyone that the SEALs weren't as good as FR based on my one observation. Everything in this area is dynamic. A kick-ass team today might be next years wasters due to attrition, promotions, etc. During NORTHERN EDGE, our guy's recce'd right into the FAST HQ (one of them actually stepped on my cpl's arm as he lay in the snow). Does that mean we're better than the FAST teams? Not in my wildest dreams. But we all performed to our max because we were up against the best. Some of the "elite" troops use foreign ex's as a kind of holiday and are interested in finding out about the nightlife, now that's something I know I'm guilty of (I know I'm not the only one, either), and I've seen guys make an opinion based on that "..Jeez, these paras are hung over every day,yada,yad..Not like the Royals now they kick ass.." Didn't affect their performance in Kosovo last year. All the top units have roll-back now, it's a cost thing. The Royal Marines say it costs about $35,000-50,000 US per man to train, I can only speculate about a SEAL, but no service can afford to waste that kind of money today, not even the FFL. Yes, even they roll back injured recruits.

Now if I've offened anyone, please don't report me to my OC. I've recieved my diversity training which means I'm allowed to kill but not offend, sexually harrass or embarass.

[GreenGhost]

I love the comment at the end TONY. haha..... I thinkt he thing is that these guys go through such hard and rigoruos training that they would like tho think that after putting up with such a task that they are the best of the best. But like you said every branch does their own thing. Some branches over lap on stuff and a few SPEC OPS do the same if not similar things. But if we really wanted to settle this.... anyone who says they are better then another SPEC OPS should go through that branches training and then talk. Don't judge the man till you walked a mile in his boots.

[trident86]

Excellent post, TonyM. Especially the comment about competence being a perishable skill due to attrition, changes of command, how far into a workup or deployment a unit is at a given time, and (Marines and SEALs) how long a unit has been aboard ship away from a live fire range, or jump/dive training, etc.

I would hope that guys from each unit felt that his unit was the best place to be. We need to consider esprit-de-corps, comraderie, unit effectiveness, retention, and operational history, as much or more than the number of high speed methods of insertion/extraction that unit may be qualifed to do.

When you train knuckleheads to fast rope or SPIE rig, you still have high speed knuckleheads. Now you just increase the chances they will hurt themselves or each other.

[pete]

TonyM

iam just curious, are you from Canada? and are you apart of JTF-2? if you are can you inform me on them.

[TonyM]

Yes I'm Canadian. Just an ordinary grunt. Luckily, I have been leading a recce det( 4 man reconnaisance patrol) lately and it's a the best job in the Infantry. Lots of sneaky-peaky and nobody to screw things up (execpt yourself). HQ gives you a task, it's up to you to plan & accomplish it so the raids/ambush/attack/advance can proceed later. That's a lot of responsibility for Corprals and Privates in any army. Negative on JTF, but one of our platoon Warrant Officers has joined them. 2 others in the unit (to my knowlege) have tried selection and failed. People don't talk about it much because, hey it's Canada, we not supposed to (openly) want "special forces" type jobs, why that's for the US! I think this is why you don't hear about JTF. Just try going into a CF recruiting office and ask to join the army to get into "special ops". This is the way I see it in our unit, anyone else's outfit different?