My son just left to see Navy recruiter.

[Jim Watson]

Good show.
A friend's elder son dodged the nothing college trap and joined the Marines. He is now in helicopter school, aiming for crew chief.
His younger son is an entirely different creature but still a good kid and it will be interesting to see his career track.

[VT1032]

If he is interested in special operations and isn't dead set on being a seal he should give the Army a hard look. There are just more opportunities, and more opportunities to walk right into it if you have the stones and the brains to make it through the pipeline. My brother went in on a ranger contract and went straight from osut to airborne to rasp to the regiment. If he didn't make it through there is still a much higher likelihood of ending up doing something similar to what he wants (ie. paratrooper or infantry) instead of stuck on a ship.

The Air Force also has some pretty sweet deals with their special ops units. If I understood the recruiter correctly while we were talking to him, air force combat controller tech school nets you a bachelor's degree and an air traffic control cetification.

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[Yung]

Never quit. Even if you no-go or wash out, never quit.

[Coyotesfan97]

I work with a former SEAL who used to do the physical prep school for the BUDS/SEAL contractees as a second job. Good luck to your son!

[Stephanie B]

Allow me to be blunt:

Recruiters are flesh-peddlers. Their job is to ship warm bodies to the RTC. As soon as a future squid raises their right hand and signs, the recruiter's job is over.

If it's not written down in the enlistment contract, the recruiter's assurances are tissues of lies and worth even less.

(One fine evening, I was the OOD in port. I was standing on the quarterdeck, in my summer whites, long glass held behind my back, as a very large and very drunk sailor told me in no uncertain terms how his recruiter had lied to him and that the Navy was full of shit. I figured that if push came to shove, I could get in one or two good swings before he tore my head off. But I digress.)

If your son's goal is to be an operator of some flavor, the Navy is not the place to go. If he bilges out of BUDS (and something like 80% do), he stands a good chance of being sent to the Fleet as an unrated seaman or fireman. The difference there is whether he's using a chipping hammer topside or in the bilges. I am not making this shit up. Then his path would be to strike for hospital corpsman, which may be a very slim reed to grasp from a ship's crew. I'd guess the odds of doing that to be one in a very large number.

If he wants to be an operator, as much as it pains me to write these words, he should go into a branch where carrying a gun is a major career path. The Army has the infantry, the Rangers, Special Forces, paratroopers, and maybe other things where getting shot at is part of the job description.. If he wants to make a career of it, he can stay in those fields or even go warrant helo driver. The Marines have similar pathways, but since the Crotch is smaller, they can be more difficult to get into.

This is a standard Navy scraper/chipping hammer:



If he goes into the Navy, the chances are that he will become intimately familiar with using one.

[rcbusmc24]

I'm never gonna tell someone not to pursue their dream, but if I had it to do over I would take that Ranger option contract that the Army offered me back in March of 2001, didn't know what I didn't know then, picked the Marine Corps Infantry instead and here I am almost 20 years later..... I know a bunch of FMF corpsmen who are BUD's drops of one sort or another. I wish him success no matter which route he chooses to take.

[Borderland]

If he's committed to NSW he needs to get into the water and work on his swimming abilities in addition to his other physical preparation. It won't help if he bombs out in the initial swim qual.

I say this as an old sailor, if special warfare is the goal he really needs to consider the army. I spent some time working with NSW and they're certainly capable, but they're a bit of a one show pony. The army has far more avenues for special warfare than the Navy. It would be easier for him to find a place where he fits best with the quiet professionals rather than the Hollywood commandos.

My neighbor was Army. Smart guy and got the technical training he wanted. Started as ordinance specialist and came out as electronics tech. He did two tours in Iraq. Works for the FAA now and does maintenance on electronic equipment at a major airport. The Army trained him to do that.

I knew a guy who made the grade as a SEAL when I was in the Navy. I think he spent most of his life working for security companies outside the US. Doesn't sound like much of a life to me but maybe that's what he liked to do.

I don't know this for a fact and maybe somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one has to enlist before you get a chance at any program. I was promised a tech school when I enlisted. Test scores were high enough but never did get the school. Once you sign up you're just a piece of meat with a number. Lots of guys joined the Navy for one reason or another and ended up a boatswains mate fleet sailor.

[TGS]

I don't know this for a fact and maybe somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one has to enlist before you get a chance at any program. I was promised a tech school when I enlisted. Test scores were high enough but never did get the school. Once you sign up you're just a piece of meat with a number. Lots of guys joined the Navy for one reason or another and ended up a fleet sailor.

This is emphatically not true of the current day military (for the last however many decades), with the exception of the US Coast Guard.

The majority of enlistees enter duty with a contract for a specific MOS. Those who don't, "Open Contracts", often get the shit sandwich.

[JohnO]

I got to talk to my son for a few minutes after his recruiter visit. He had to run off to work. Shortly after he arrived he texted to say he got to the gun store on time because he is headed to the range. He is either testing new AR builds or fixes on customer guns.

A few things he told me about the visit with the recruiter.
He thought the guy was laid back and not pushy at all. The recruiter told both my son and the former Marine he went with that statistically neither one would make it into Naval Spec. War. He told me when he left the office he asked his friend if that statistic comment make you want it even more? Sounded like there were a bunch of Hell Yeahs from both of them. He said the recruiter told them it was their job to prove him wrong.

My son is approximately 5' 7.5" and 150 Lbs. The recruiter told my son he was in the statistical sweet spot of the body type that makes it through the SEAL pipeline. I asked my son about his friend the former Marine. I never met him. My son said he is 2% over the weight limit for his height 5' 10" and added he has been doing too much drinking since he separated from the Corps. He added that his friend is down 15 Lbs in the last month. The two of them met at 06:00 this morning to hike and run together.

My son said he was given a code to unlock and take a practice ASVAB online.

I'm sure I'll get some more details tonight when he gets home from work.

Here he is at a training event 2 weeks ago.

[JRB]

I'm never gonna tell someone not to pursue their dream, but if I had it to do over I would take that Ranger option contract that the Army offered me back in March of 2001, didn't know what I didn't know then, picked the Marine Corps Infantry instead and here I am almost 20 years later..... I know a bunch of FMF corpsmen who are BUD's drops of one sort or another. I wish him success no matter which route he chooses to take.

^This, exactly this, a thousand times over.

A guaranteed Ranger option contract in the Army is by far the best and fairest shake you're going to get for any sort of SOF pipeline at initial enlistment. So long as he's PTing hard and can smoke the ASVAB he'll meet all the requirements. If they're not taking guaranteed Ranger contracts right now, WAIT UNTIL THEY ARE!

Beware of the 18X contracts, too. I know several Soldiers that enlisted on 18X contracts and got washed out for the smallest, silliest shit. In one case, a family history of diabetes (despite him being absolutely jacked) was enough to get a guy washed out of selection and reclassed to 92F (fueler) because 'needs of the Army'. Want to hate life? That's a good way to hate life. Better to enlist directly into a 35 series intel or counterintel MOS so you at least get a security clearance and do something cool with upward career progress that isn't just babysitting more and more of the same logistics weenie bullshit.

Ultimately, if your son can't get the doorkicker SOF game he wants - make sure he goes for something that gets him a TS-SCI clearance or medical schooling/training. He can hold out for a few years until the right Ranger contract or similar pops up and if that's what he really wants, it's worth the wait.