Ep 205: Special Reconnaissance Deep Dive Part 3- The Entire Pipeline Explained!

foreign welcome back to the team room everybody we're we're doing a series right and the series is called one or personality that you love and one personality that you hate guess which one it is today hi I'm Aaron I'm not the one that you like and we're with Trent sitting in the team room we hear you we're gonna try to answer some questions they're all going to be tattoos yes tattoos absolutely I thought we were going to talk about PJ tattoos and when you should get one no I already addressed that on a different podcast I've talked about why I don't have my green feet Trent this is about you stop trying to make it about me you know how this is gonna go first off we'd like to say thanks for following liking subscribing please go leave a review leave a uh you know go subscribe to all the stuff on Spotify or on Apple or anywhere you listen to your podcast it actually does help it's free just like and subs and subscribe smash that subscribe button if you would and make sure that you guys are following us everywhere we are go check out ones ready for new merch drops and all the good stuff and uh on all of our partners we got a reading list on there there's a ton of stuff that you can find so always start with gratitude thanks y'all would be here if it wasn't for you moving on we get these questions all the time we're going to do a deep dive special reconnaissance so the man the myth the legend the Trent segmenter is going to talk special reconnaissance and we're going to answer every single possible question that we have and we're going to try to build this one so follow me here baby birds get in line little baby ducks we're gonna try to go from start to finished Cradle to grave we're going to answer all of these questions so we'll put it in the timestands down below we'll make sure that you understand where it is that we're talking about stuff but we're going to talk from the very beginning of the pipeline and the swovi process so Trent step one for a special reconnaissance person number one you got to look good number two you have to not suck so those are steps one and step two one look good two don't suck but after you get those knocked out you're gonna go talk to a special operations recruiter how does the process look from the very start then what it does for prayer rescue uh come by control and attack p you go to the recruiter and figure out how to get yourself into the air force which is I I I think it's easy for us to forget how big of a hurdle that is uh just to just to get into the air force especially these days and then also to be qualified for these afses so I mean that's that's what you need to focus on first thing you know like get in there make sure you're you're physically and medically qualified and then really start to look at your your physical fitness you know as you look towards the ift so you can be competitive for the job that you actually want and not the job that you know someone else wants to give you yeah for sure and we're gonna back it all the way up so in order to find a recruiter go to ask backward.com and use the find a recruiter function we've talked about it a million times and we talked about how long you should wait to hear back from a recruiter check the other podcast we'll throw some cards in there of recruiters like no kidding talking about this and and letting you know like you're not the only person in the world they have a hundred other candidates blah blah so go to aspectware.com use the forairforce.com and find the uh find a recruiter tab you can put one in by ZIP code and you can actually get to a special operations recruiter the difference between a special operations recruiter normal Air Force recruiter they both know the same stuff it's just Special Operations recruiters are a little bit more sensitive to the special Warfare career Fields you're going to go into what Trent just described as the swo V program special Warfare operator enlistment Vector program so Trent speaking specifically to Sr when you go into special Warfare are you gonna is the recruiter gonna tell you okay 100 you have a guaranteed contract you're going in for Sr no and and this is I even if I take a step back uh just like everything else having some education before you walk into a situation where you're going to start asking questions is going to be you know very very important so you can ask the correct question to get the correct data if you walk in your recruiter and you're like hey I'm interested in being something like you know a Navy SEAL or something then you're going to get responses that are very very big and and it's not going to give you the data that you want to get you know like they're going to be like oh well these guys are kind of like the same thing but you started out the process the questions in in a not very uh precise way so you're going to get not very precise answers so then once you get into the pipeline and you should understand this going in it is an open enlistment for special Warfare and everybody's always like well how do I get the job that I want it's just like everything else in this community it's based on your performance uh so uh tacp uh Power rescue Sr CCT they all come in open uh the attack PS get picked out of the switch course the special Warfare candidate course a little bit earlier to go on their Vector because their pipeline's a little bit different and the rest of us uh go on to the to be assessed and selected I know I jumped ahead and Aaron's giving me the look like you did I have dude dude we're baby birding this and stop jumping yeah I even said like this is meant to be the SR Deep dive to end Sr deep Dives like this is supposed to be the one I don't know when it's ever going to happen it's never gonna it's never gonna end no we got it so when Trent says you're going in open it's not like you're going in open General you're not just going okay I want to be in the Air Force you're going those four career fields that we talked about tattoo special reconnaissance pair rescue combat control they're all in the same bucket it's like going in the easy people hate when we compare ourselves to the other services but when you go into the army there used to be a thing called the 18 x-ray program where you didn't know what you wanted to do you didn't know if you wanted to be a medical Sergeant or a weapon Sergeant or an engineer or the other shutouts of the 18 series but you know you wanted to be an army Special Forces Green Beret this is like that but better because we're in the Air Force so it really pulling in you're putting your name up you're like I want to be a special operator in the Air Force and you're gonna go into the swovi program so special Warfare operator enlistment Vector they have their own acceptance standards Trent what's the ASVAB score 50. 50 or 49. it's if you score a 50 you're in if you score a 49 you're out yeah yeah score 50 kids I'm not saying you can't make it with a 50. I'm just saying it's probably gonna be tough so you go in and some of those physical requirements we had a whole episode I will mark it here oh look there's a little Mark button bam I'm gonna mark this right here here I didn't do that how did you do yeah exactly that's exactly I did so we're gonna Mark to the ift CFT and oft fitness test you're going to need an initial fitness test for you to go in I'm going to pull it up right now Trent is going to talk in general about what the AF uh the Air Force Special Warfare ift is so Trent just describe it in general and then I'll pull up the actual um numbers that they have to hit in order to be qualified well generally speaking it's the easiest physical test you're going to take in your career if you make it I don't know that's way too General uh you got a mile and a half run you got your cows or your I'm sorry we'll start with cows pull-ups and then sit-ups push-ups mile and a half run uh two 25 meter underwaters and then a 500 meter swim that's true so I've got it right in front of me the latest uh things right now to qualify for PJ CCT Tac p and Sr are as follows you got to do pull-ups and these are all on a time limit and we've talked about in the in the ift CFT episode but we'll go over here briefly you have to do pull-ups you get a two minute break you need a minimum of eight you got to do 50 sit-ups I'm sorry then you move on to your setups you need 50 sit-ups at a minimum after the pull-ups then we go to the push-ups you need a minimum of 40. ladies and gentlemen these numbers are not high for a reason this is your entry just to get into the program after a 10 minute rest period after your push-ups you're going to move in your mile and a half run which Trent mentioned that's going to be a 10 20. so a minimum of 10 20 for people out there that don't want to do math that's just under a seven minute pace so if seven a seven minute pace would be 10 30 for a mile and a half and that math checks I had to do it before we con we came on here but it does so you have to be under 10 20. you get a 30 minute rest and then you have to do your underwaters so your underwaters need to be uh on a three minute rest period so you'll have a 30 minute break to get into the pool and then a 25 meter underwater you'll have a three minute break and then another 25 minute underwater and then you go in at a 500 meter swim that's in 15 minutes or less okay so assuming that you've done everything that you're supposed to physically you're qualified you don't have any felonies on your record you don't have any serious drug abuses you don't have any surgeries you don't have any weird medical diagnosis and we've talked about this ad nauseam and maybe we'll put another little Mark in here to get you to one of the FAQ episodes but as long as all those things are clear and the ift is good you are now going to enter in to the development program and let me lay this out for you again you do not have a job yet you may think you want to be a special reconnaissance Airman you know that that's the only thing that you're going to want to do you're going to come home with your Shield or on it you're going to burn every boat behind you you're gonna who's gonna carry the goats that person is you my guy so you know that you're going to do it but you still don't have a job okay so you're going to enter into the development program as a hopeful Sr candidate but you don't have a guaranteed contract so people get all up in arms on this we're like wow they're not giving me a contract no they totally are but it's on you to perform so Trent talk a little bit about the development program and what goes on there I mean it's exactly what you think you're gonna get not only the the physical um development through very focused uh training iterations with your developer uh but they're those your developers out there are also there to Mentor you you know to tell you about their experiences in the community and people that they've met and things that they've seen uh to get you in the right mindset you know like uh the last one I was at was it was really pretty awesome the development session was good but then the developer was like Hey guys like you're all here I gotta go but it doesn't look like you'll have a lot to do maybe knock out another workout together maybe talk to each other maybe maybe set up another thing where I can't be everywhere at once and I'm just getting you into that that mindset of of uh lifestyle versus you know hobbyist when it comes to to these types of things and and really putting yourself out there and working hard and and you know all that other stuff so that's that's what you're going to do you have to go through a few development sessions before they'll sign off on you and not every development session is just an ift uh they're going to try to get you in the water and obviously this is like a nationwide program right and Nationwide and Beyond and so getting the the correct resources and getting pools and everything I know it's challenging in different parts of the country um but they're they're doing their best and we spend a lot of money on this as the as a force uh to to make sure that the candidates or the people out there that are wanting to be candidates have access to the resources that the rest of us didn't you know like that who knows how many folks in the middle of Iowa never even heard of us you know like I've never had the opportunity never had the resources that there's no swimming pools or whatever it's like that's what this is for is is if you're interested we're going to bring the resources to you a little bit uh which you know to bothers some of us older guys you know just a little bit um of course you guys get something I didn't get but to give you the best possible um a chance to make it right like they're going to lead you to water but you got to drink it not not literally don't be drinking the water on your 25 meter underwater it's not recommended that's not gonna work right so the the greatest things peaches and I had the uh distinct pleasure going to a couple of these development sessions too we hit one over in Dayton Ohio it was awesome and and it was awesome exactly for the reasons that you said trans because you have maybe they're not all the time so not every single developer out there was a prior aspect or Airman but what they get is Rangers Army Green Berets other special forces from other branches other people that have done hard assessment Selections in the military and then they're trained and sensitized to our Air Force Special Warfare so they're going to give you the experience that they have to get you where you need to be and the other part of it that I wanted to hit too is you're going to start establishing that Community you're going to start in that development program just like Tran said you're gonna you're gonna meet friends you're gonna meet training Partners you're going to meet people that you didn't know that become friends become training partners and this is a new one Trent get ready I'm gonna mark this clip right here so before you can be a subject matter expert you have to be a subject matter Enthusiast you have to really care about what it is that you're doing because as I've always said and Trent has never said this Excellence is a habit but you have to establish that habit somewhere and you got to start making those moves towards your goal and the development program is where you're really going to start doing that in Earnest because I bet the first couple development sections you go to you may think you're in good shape you may think you're ready to go you may have all of the information in the world and you've listened to all of our podcasts and you know all of the requirements when the rubber meets the road it's a little bit different in that development program from T3i is where you're going to start feeling that difference and oh by the way then you're going to get that mentorship from somebody that's been there and done that and that's super duper valuable and we we saw that the question and answer section and the mentorship section was longer than the physical portion of the development session I went to way longer because just you know dudes and dudes and gals being Bros and dudes sitting around talking later that part was more valuable than any of the push-ups that we did as a developer I might only have you for like an hour and a half to three hours per month whatever but you have you 24 hours a day seven days a week right right that's where where it matters I'm sorry for interrupting no you're good and if you're serious about it you'll you'll figure that out you'll make the most of those development sessions um speaking specifically about development there are a minimum number like you have to get signed off on your developer he's going to give you he or she is going to give you that blessing to go something they always ask Trent I'll ask you directly okay when am I ready to go what magic numbers do I need to hit to where I'm actually ready to get into the Air Force it's a very personal question for everybody it is a very personal question and I like it too because nobody agrees if you ask five of us this question you'll get 40 different opinions which is cool well it's like everything else the more data you have the the harder it is to answer this question we know people that with the correct mindset will hit the bare minimums and and be on that growth trajectory and enter the pipeline and this is unusual just so you all know and just grind and hit minimums for the entire Pipeline and then get on team and actually be really good at what they're doing but the the amount of like uh willpower expended for that person to get through the pipeline is ridiculous like those people are crazy yeah how do you live your life how do you it's like you know the the meme of Hillary Clinton where she walks into the into the uh apartment she's like oh my God how do you live like this and it's just like a normal apartment how do you live just making the mins that's that's a crazy thing that's crazy it's so crazy you're just always always riding the lightning baby always on that red line I'm definitely more like the other person that is like I'm too lazy to like have to work hard at every PT test that I go to you know what I mean like I'd rather put in the work like every day what a hard statement to try to unpack so what you just said was you're too lazy to have to try your hardest at a PT test so you're gonna try hard in order to be lazy yeah but if I do like like just regular workouts on a regular basis then when it comes time for the PT test like it's not that hard as long as I'm consistent with everything right and then they're like oh my goodness you have to go out here and like run in a nine or whatever and do these things like I would rather not I don't know and also I like the cushion right I don't want to be like I have to Max myself out to hit the minimums today it's like I would like to know that I can go out there and run like a 60 and pass right it's it's comfortable for me 100 we've talked about it a billion times at this point a billion billions and billions and billions of time we talked about it a bunch of times but it gives you the bandwidth to be okay the further away you are from that red line the further you are away from those minimums the better you're going to be so as far as when you're ready to go in and when you're going to be ready for the pipeline hey that's that's going to be on you you can go in doing the minimums if you want or you could wait another two years and you could go in doing graduation standards of the SR pipeline whatever those you know whatever numbers you attach to that really it's going to be on you it's just how long do you want to wait and how comfortable do you want to be there are some indicators that we figured out through data analysis shout out to everybody that's actually doing the right thing down at ANS and getting these numbers Trent there are a couple different factors that lead directly to the success at ANS what have we found out even before you go in what have we found out that will lead the bigger rates of success at ANS better run times better run times lower run times 10 20 is the bare minimum if you're running a 930 right like let's say let's say that you are just an absolute physical stud and I put the physical stud kind of marker at like 8 45. that is a fast as crap mile and a half right like I would have to train for months I don't even know if I could do it like maybe my dumb lizard brain right now is like oh well maybe I'll try to get down to that I'll see how long it takes and then I remembered how bad I hate running and how much I you know say things in the morning when I don't mean them I believe in you thanks I've running stop anyway so you know but if you're running an 845 that is fast as crap right like that is physical specimen Zone if you're running an it you know that person that runs an 845 they can slow down and run a 915 they can slow down and give themselves a Break by 30 seconds and still be a minute ahead of time that person is not going to have a lot of problems exactly what Trent has talked about those lower run times really do translate to higher rates of success and it's not because the the course favors faster Runners that's not the point that point is that leads to a cardiorespiratory cardiorespiratory and physical fitness level those things correlate to a fitness level that is more likely to graduate at ANS so those lower run times we're not saying Focus only on your run we're saying when your run is at a great time where you're well ahead of the standard and your cows are well ahead of the standard you're gonna have an easier time getting through again if you're right at those minimums and you have to redline just to make the 10 20 timeline that ain't gonna work in week three week four further on like it's it's just not going to no no no and I always recommend people go to check out Taylor starch right because they're like well if I'm if I'm a runner there's this this misconception that if you're a runner you also can't um lift things right and then first of all there's there's a dude that what did he do squat 500 pounds in the same day ran a sub five minute mile on TV out there yeah let me we're gonna have him on the podcast he's training right now at the Olympic Training Center for skeleton because now like he's literally an Olympic level athlete he's a combat controller named Matt Beach Matt squatted 500 pounds and ran a sub five mile on the same day yeah and I mean he's a big guy and then you go look at Taylor starch but like you look at Taylor starts and you're like look at the weights that he moves around too and he's not a big guy but he can run forever so like don't don't get caught up in like these body types or these these misconceptions that you know Runners are Runners and just because you've seen marathon runners like that's not what we're talking about right and lifters or lifters like you need to be well-rounded so having that huge aerobic bass line also being able to carry some weight like I I can't I can't imagine that doing more Farmers carries are going to hurt you for your grip strength and also carrying weight around like because that's that's a huge part of what we do so um just don't get don't get caught up in any of the nonsense and all the data from the 80s that was 180 degrees off from what reality actually is 100 there's some other factors that help with ANS Trent can you come up with another factor that leads to success at ANS yeah and I was going to talk about this a little bit earlier when you first get into your death pool is is your ego and and teamwork and all this other stuff that that you're gonna have to confront so there's a few things right like you're you're a composite of The Five People You spend the most time around right so when you get into that Dev pool and you start making that Community um you may either have to check your ego because you're not the as good as you thought you were and you're gonna have to make friends with people that are better than you and that might be a new experience for you or you might come in and be like the number one person like throughout your entire Dev experience and you're gonna have to learn how to learn from the people below you or or not not below you but like in that environment that you're outperforming um it's okay to say below you there are hierarchies are a thing Trent and there is somebody that is the best and it's okay to say that you were better than other people it's not okay to be an elitist yeah but I'm smarter than that guy so just kidding you know what I mean that guy was me I'm the one who said it so but yeah like like learn how to get along with your team learn how to to help people out and give advice without coming across a certain way and how to make your team better right and those are all skill sets that you need to develop before you get to ANS because you can't go to ANS and be like all of a sudden I'm gonna learn how to be a good teammate I'm going to turn it on I'm gonna because you're not gonna have the energy to be that person in front of the Cadre and then to also be that person when you go back to your Hooch at night uh surrounded by these people you haven't developed relationships with yeah that's true we used to say that you're you know your reputation started day one of indoc we used to tell people all the time you know there's going to be no light bulb that comes on when you get your Beret at the end of this pipeline there's not going to be a magic scroll that you're given that the instructors would be like here you go and you're like oh I'm a good dude my my reputation starts now the only thing different about that statement is now that we now we back it up now we're putting eyes on you a year sometimes a year and a half before you get in the Air Force and those people that you're in development with those are going to be your peers throughout your entire career you're going to know those people if you both stay in for 20 years if you both make it through your pipelines you're going to know those people and work with those people for the next two decades of your life so dumb stuff that you do okay we all have dumb stories about our friends but they're gonna know if you're a good person or not and you can't just turn it on you have to start working on yourself there one more thing that does lead to success in ANS it's a little something we like to call time on feet Trent you want to talk about what time on feed is that's exactly what it sounds like it's gonna be spending a lot of time on your feet yep so there's been a lot of research there's been a lot of people talking about this stuff it's it's you just need to spend more time on your feet like um it's a different world we live in than a lot of us grew up in and not only is it easier to spend more time like sitting down staring at a screen or whatever like it's expected in a lot of in a lot of ways like if you're in college and all those other things um so or High School um so find a way to spend more time on your feet like if you go for a run go for a walk afterwards you know like um and it doesn't have to be anything crazy but the the number of issues we have with the the muscular Muscular skeletal issues lower uh whatever leg issues it's huge and it's going to cause problems so yeah uh yeah and that starts in BMT you're gonna spend a lot of time on your feet in BMT and you're gonna swick spend a lot of time on your feet and that's going to spend a lot of time on your feet and then we're gonna try to drown you in between those things so all right it's gonna be fun it's gonna be totally great if there's a lot of research to suggest you know four to ten thousand steps a day has ridiculous Health um benefits the only reason that that study even exists is because the scientific Community looked at humans today and they're like wow these dudes sit around a lot they are not on their feet at all and we see that in lower leg injuries shin splints and all these other things so the more time that you can stand on your feet if you can stand stand whatever you're doing in your life put your weight on your legs walk around I know that it might be a short trip to the grocery store maybe it's a mile away or something maybe walk that mile maybe one time a week go take a walk you don't even necessarily have to rock we're not telling you that you need to do these huge rocking programs for ANS there's news flash boys and girls there's not a rocking standard none of our none of our PT tests right now have a rocking standard you're going to be held to a standard on rocks but until you get to the CFT and the oft or the CFT does it have a rock yeah okay so the CFT has a rock the rock is exceptionally easy it's not fast at all and for the shape that you're going to be in it's not fast and I'll tell you the oft as a matter of fact like everything else has a minimum that Ruck has a maximum like it just says get this done in 49 minutes and you're good but the point is try to get it done as close to that time limit as you possibly can it's not fast it's not heavy it just when you when you do that over and over and over again it leads to those lower leg injuries so get time on your feet make sure that your run times are low give yourself a little bit of bandwidth and really start developing yourself and indoctrinating yourself into the culture right if you're if you're behind you need to catch up if you're ahead you need to reach back and help those people behind you because you guys are going to the team the other thing that we just dropped the other thing that's going to happen inside of your development phase is the folks down at SWIC which we're going to talk about in a second special Warfare candidate course they have designed a 16-week program or is it it's a 20-week program a 20-week program for pre-assession strength conditioning cardiorespiratory Fitness it's a whole workout program meant to take you through 20 weeks of preparation prior to you getting to BMT we are going to drop it here as soon as we can it's in the final stages of getting approved we are going to blast that thing out wide so go check out the Discord go check out our onesready.com page we're going to link to it we're going to have this thing for y'all it let me just have some expectation management you might personally look at this program and go oh I don't need this and I'm totally it's way further but no that's the Baseline okay if you're if you're crushing your ift if you're getting you know top 95 if you're King of the development program or queen of the development program wherever it is that you are fine it might not be for you but for 95 percent of the other people this program is really going to get you ready for the stresses that you're going to see because from what I understand it focuses on a lot of the weak areas they basically looked at where are students failing and what are we seeing that's weak and then they designed a program to shore up those weaknesses to make you a more well-rounded athlete so that's coming out soon can't wait to see it the the special Warfare candidate folks uh Canada course folks are amazing they're awesome we just did a full Deep dive with with all those cats and we're gonna have a swim coach on because somebody hopped up in the comments because we were bagging on swim coaches and they were like uh let us come on and talk about how good the swim coaches are because you guys gave us I was like all right Ty we're gonna have a swim coach on too so it'll be our second swim coach on if you count uh half acre if you count Jeb I count Jeb's awesome what if I want a more like personalized workout program though that from somebody that definitely knows how to make me successful not only for the ift but the entire pipeline where would I where would I go for that I'm glad you brought that up you know I would go to 18 Alpha Fitness myself so coach Kevin Edgerton runs 18 Alpha Fitness he was a prior 18 Alpha guy so the 18 x-ray he was an officer he's a jiu jitsu practitioner he was a strength and conditioning coach in the aspect War uh training wing for a long time and then he went his own way and he's devoted his life and his business interest towards helping candidates get ready for every single assessment selection out there so Edge walks people through from cradle to grave like you can you can do all this on your own I'm a testament to that like you can be stupid and you can train on your own and you can actually make it I'll tell you what it was not easy for me and I wish that I had coach Edgerton because he gives video coaching he gives personalized workout plans he has plans not just for assessment action but if you want to be a better Jiu Jitsu practitioner man go get his kettlebell for jiu jitsu fitness program it is a life changer it is it is completely different Edge and I have been in talks I am going to test that program all the way through I'm recovering from a little surgery and as soon as I'm clear to work out 100 again I'm going to coach Edge and I'm getting that Jiu Jitsu uh kettlebell for a jiu jitsu program so go check them out 18 Alpha Fitness you can find him on anything that we do because we tag him and everything so go look at 18 Alpha Fitness we have a code for you as always because he's a good friend of ours and we want to collaborate to help you get not just through the pipeline but through your entire career right like just make you strong durable harder to kill check out 18 Alpha Fitness the code is one like the number one ready all in one word code one ready over at 18 Alpha Fitness go check out coach Edge in that program all right y'all welcome back little technical difficulties because I'm an idiot but we all know this so we just got done talking about 18 Hour Fitness go check them out one ready that's our code over with 18 Alpha Fitness go check them out so that gets us to basic training and Trent was saying just before we hit record here the second time are we only at basic training yes all right so so you're in the swovie program again you do not have a job yet you're just in a bucket of people that want to be special Warfare operators they don't know what it is you think you want to be an Sr person Airmen tight so we're going to BMT is there anything different for the SR candidates in BMT yeah yeah there's a there's a some of our coaches go over there there's you get some separate workouts you get some pool time it's not going to be stuff that's going to make you better and especially because you're in BMT and your cortisol levels are jacked up uh because you're in a new environment I don't care who you are it's a stressful environment and so you're going to have a little extra PT excuse me I get I get you know I get all excited to talk about basic training you know I love it it's a gateway to the Air Force Tran everybody loves it so yeah the other thing that you want to think about during BMT hey I get that you want to be a high-speed door kicking drone flying electromagnetic spectrum having pewter Beret wearing are you guys are gray uh you know pewter is here oh man imagine uh you want to be this high-speed Airmen that's tight you have to be in the Air Force first you have to give all of your attention to BMT we have harped on it a bunch of times I get it you're going to be in abstract War this is not something to gloss over because if you suck at BMT people are going to realize that when there's a challenge that you don't think is important to you you don't give it your 100 Trent go go ahead Trent um a bunch of Navy SEALs don't have to go through like Navy boot camp just like everybody else no they do oh yeah and and Green Berets and Rangers and marshock Bros everybody has to go through their service boot camp and just what if I told you that the highest speed operators in every single service SEAL Team Six Delta Force Marines they all have to go through basic training and guess what if you suck at basic training your friends look at you and they go oh you can't even do basic training right oh okay cool no I'm sure you're going to be the highest speed special operator again there's no light switch the way you do anything is the way you do everything shout out to Dan Holloway and citizen pot I stole your statement but no big deal you're as smart as you have a way bigger following nobody even hears us so beard for them fantastic so we get through basic training right done we move on we go to swick we just did a whole episode on switch so we're not going to get we're not going to get too far into it what are some things the the biggest thing that I want to talk about for Sr and swick is that this is where you're going to declare what you want to be assessed for okay so at about how long is it in SWIC where do they declare for which job so I think in basic you put down on a piece of paper what you want to do okay and then in swick you do the same thing and and swick it's more to to parse out between Tac PS and the ga St Gardner Angel St guys yep and then when you get to a s is when the the actual determination is made so um it but it's when you start to like really figure out where you want to go and so it's Little Steps first right like you want to go attack p or do you want to go this other way you know like do you want to be a a combat diver or do you want to be a land animal right yeah and I'm not saying Tech piece came so there's a lot of great swimmers over there techies I love you I'm sorry yeah I'm not sorry for seven million of them like just by you know sheer numbers it'd be really bad to make all those dudes bad like if if I'll tell you what if those attack p kids could read and ever coordinate we'd be in a lot of trouble um thank goodness so uh you're gonna you're gonna finally raise your hand and say okay I want to be an Sr Airman one time in basic and then in swick they're going to evaluate you and they're like okay cool you get out of swick there is a little bit of something called PRT we're not going to talk too much about it it's very super secret it's got a whole bunch of stuff like you you were gonna it's a good one um so we'll let you decide how much you like it after you're done and then it's a quick trip over and we go to assessment selection okay this is where the rubber meets the road this is where you put forth all of those things that you've been training for all of the months and possibly years that you spent training for it you got to go to ANS we have the secret for you everybody we have the number one thing that you can do to get picked up be a good dude and put out easy right every single podcaster in the world says the same thing well the Air Force cliche you know yeah be a good dude and put out there you go now so we've talked about ANS a million times assessment selection it's an attributes uh based uh selection model there are several attributes that they're looking for they want to see you holistically perform as a person that has the raw material right we're buying you you are raw material so essentially the Cadre are looking at all of this raw material you might start with 110 folks and they're looking at 110 folks and they're going okay who has the raw materials that we need to build you into the operator that we're going to need for the next fight that's no kidding what they're doing and it's everything from psychological evaluation to physical evaluation to personal evaluation they want to see everything that you do lead to being a better operator assessment selection is four weeks long and at the end of assessment selection they will you've been assessed and then they will select you so Trent can you talk us through how to get the job you want we we've raised our hand we say I want to be an Sr operator how does that work through assessment so every every career field gets a percentage of the selects right based on the size of the career field and it's one of those weird things where the percentages usually just kind of work out like based on how many folks one of you PJs selects how many selects one of the pj's combat controllers and Sr guys and so I think SRS getting like 10 to 15 of the selects right now and then these numbers vary a little bit throughout the year right like if if we have fewer people one select class I want a BSR and more than x class like so the percentages just have to kind of work out at the end of the year and so we would try to give the performers uh what they want but if you're at the bottom of the class and there's only one thing left and it's you know something that wasn't your number one choice at that point your choices be part of the community or don't be part of the community right um so yeah yeah and here here are the options I love boiling it down to like brass tacks option number one is you put out you're a good dude or do that and you get selected for the job that you want this happens 99 of the time almost 99 of the time if you make it through you're selected and the instructor say you have the raw material that we want and they have the percentage available for you you're going to get your job so 99 we say 99 I still haven't found I don't think we've still had anybody come back and be like well I was selected but they told me I couldn't have my number one job I had to take my number two I still haven't heard that story yet we've had Chief Cox Chief Nate Cox on the on the podcast and uh I don't know if you notice he's a pretty straight shooter and I don't think he would lie to me about this now so he hasn't yeah it doesn't work I get it from yeah we say 99 we we mean 100 but when you start speaking in absolutes that's when people on the internet well actually so listen Okay 99 you're gonna get your job that's koa1 code two course of action number two is that you get selected however they don't have room for you in your career field and by the way this means that you didn't perform this means that other people beat you out right so when we're talking about this thing here it's you you made it through the assessment you were selected but you weren't good enough to get into the top spots if there were five spots this means you placed sixth so again the number one thing that you can do to get your job is perform and be the best to quote Chief TJ Gunnell be the best it's a competition it's a job interview but these people are trying to take your job you want the job go in if you don't win and you're still selected you could have the opportunity to do a different job and as as you just said it was perfect the way you said it you're either going to be in the community or you're not let's say you're trying to be a special reconnaissance Airman and you don't make the cut for special reconnaissance but they tell you that you can go they're like hey your skills are good we want you to go try to be attack p your skills are good we want you to try to go be a controller if you want to stop your feet you don't want to accept that okay that's fine maybe go do a different job in the Air Force and you know thanks for coming out uh the third KOA that you can have here is that you won't be selected there's a couple of different things can happen here maybe you're just not good enough for the job maybe you weren't physically prepared maybe the Cadre saw something in you that they thought wasn't going to be conducive to being a good candidate whatever that is you cannot quit you can get all the way through and you cannot be selected how do you feel about that that's fine there's it it just like how like 99 of the people get what they want that are selected uh 99 of the people that are not selected it's because of physical performance right we just we we don't have like we're selecting for the the base standard here to get in the community which you have to be a pretty terrible person for that to be the reason the sole reason why you don't get picked up you know what I mean because like there's there's a and we select people with reservations like if you're at the bottom of the the select pool your paperwork is probably gonna be like select with reservations right like keep an eye on this person um but if you're not picked up more than likely it's just physical performance like you didn't say I quit but um it's just like hey you're last at everything you're not you know you're just not there yet and this is not a personal process this is a very impersonal process and people are just assessing you I mean like you know come back in two years that's right almost always what happens like hey good try come on back give it another go and you'll get good feedback they'll tell you why it is that you didn't make it they'll tell you what it is that you need to work on you'll get a good out brief and you'll understand it before you part ways with the Chapman training Annex and and get over there but you know to be honest with you it's it's pretty cut and dry because uh if you didn't meet the physical standard or you quit we know what happened like you know what happened you don't even need somebody to tell you that's what I'm saying like we do we hear every once while like oh they didn't sit me down and like give me like line by line what I what I didn't do right it's like hey if if you can't see where you you stacked up with everybody else if you had no idea that you were in the back of the pack then maybe this wasn't for you anyway right you know at least not not today like if your ego can't overcome the fact that you weren't performing as well as everybody else right um and you're lying to yourself then you know give it some space figure it out and then and then maybe come back right yeah not quitting is the expectation that's not the end goal not quitting is is the expectation that is the bottom of the barrel like you're not yeah no kidding you're not supposed to quit all right so assessment selection happens you're good that's a four week time period and immediately so you graduate that course on a Friday and on Monday you enter pre-dive Because Sr are all diving boys now what's that they're all diving boys all diamond boys you know that pre-dive is exactly what it says it's it's getting you ready for dive school so uh psychologically for the students pre-divers the first time that you're not going to get babysat you show up you do your job you do exactly what you're told with the the equipment that you're told to show up with and then you you go back you recover you eat as much as you can show up the next day knock out these tasks it's very task driven Course and there are things that you have to do the the the standards you have to meet before we're gonna ship you off to dive school um so a s is like a a point where we decide to invest more in you because you've shown that you're willing to invest back the other way and then pre-dive is really where you show that you're 100 invested in the process you're going to do exactly what you have to do to get to get through the rest of the pipeline yeah and and to make it through and that that's a great point you know that this is the first time assessment selection is do you have the raw materials that we need to build you into this and when you move into pre-dive it's like okay well the Cadre have essentially co-signed for you at that point they're like we think that this person can make it through the pipeline and then pre-dive is your first opportunity to prove that no more you know it's I wouldn't say it's like you're not fully a real boy yet or fully a real girl yet but you're getting closer it's not you're not getting smoke for absolutely everything that if you show up and you to quote Mr capabianca who runs the pre-dive along with Mr Kilbride if you show up and you do your job you're going to get left alone show up train be motivated get the task done in the appropriate timeline and you're going to Breeze right through it's going to be awesome and now poof we're in the pipeline first stop combat dive School combat dive school is what combat dive school is it's a six-week course multiple infiltration methods you'll learn Salvage diving and open circuit techniques infiltration and closed circuit techniques there's a bunch of surface swims there's the you know it's basically split up into three weeks is the is the the initial dive portion it's you know your Open Water week then your pool week and then your dive week you're going to dive down to 105 feet you're gonna do search Dives you're gonna do blacked out navigation Dives you're going to do the same thing at night in open circuit then you transfer over to closed circuit you're going to do the same thing to include a full mission profile where you have to infill go over the beach performance simulated Mission there's a huge graduation event dive school is awesome it's also super duper hard good thing we have a whole pre-dive to set you up for it attrition rates out of dive School aren't that big you know for this reason you know we're doing really well at dive school you go to the Air Force dive School in Panama City Florida so down at the ndstc which is the Navy dive training and something Center I don't know overly complicated acronym and exactly yeah no reason um you know PT is still a thing you're definitely it's definitely a challenging course it's definitely not a gentleman's course but you're treated a little bit more like a grown-up and you're going to see this kind of as a theme throughout the pipeline the more that you have behind you the less that people are going to kind of screw around with you so we hit dive not a lot of talk about there we're going to do a deep dive on the dive school as soon as we do then you go on to your other infiltration schools so talking Airborne you know you get to spend three weeks with your army Bros it's really an Air Force appreciation course down at Fort Benning Georgia nothing really to speak of here you know the Army has has been rigging trucks and tanks to drop out of airplanes since the 1940s on static line they're going to do the same with you it's just your shoot smaller so as long as gravity is still a thing and as long as the aircraft is still opening your Chute the only thing you have to do here is really just clown on your army Bros because the Army Josephs that attend this course it's a great time for you to tell them that you're in the Air Force and make sure they know that you're better than them and we know it that's really all it comes down to keep your feet really together it'll be fine yeah feet knees together yeah parachute Landing fall and you're good and then you're gonna go to sear which is like a vacation it really is how dare you I love sear is great so it was a great time that's what I'm saying it was yeah serious Syria is really really awesome and this one is the first time where it's you know it's not as much physically stressing as it is mentally stressing there are some physically stressing parts of it and we're not going to get into it because you can't talk about it but you're going to get the highest level of seer training the dod has to offer by Seer Specialists that that's their whole life every single person that works at that organization lives and breathes being a survival evasion resistance and Escape specialist and instructor and they're going to teach you everything that you need to know to work in today's weird environments uh Sierra I've always said is one of my favorite schools oh my God they talk about handcuffs the way the PJs talk about ropes they really do they love handcuffs for whatever reason words yeah you'll be with other aspect War folks too so in your little flight it's here like you're gonna be with nothing but aspect War folks so you'll be running around with your your future PJ and controller Bros and uh it it really is a good time and as long as you go into winter class I won't make fun of you for being exceptionally soft I went on a letter class so yeah because obviously you're an artist it was it was easier I'm not one of those guys that like tries to tell people like oh when I went through everything was was harder since the moment I made it into the community everything to get into my career field has only gotten more difficult so timing is everything your timing is impeccable um so the the other thing that we'll hit here and where does free fall fall into the the pipeline for y'all know well it's a it's a logistics thing it's either going to be before or after The Apprentice course so the majority of folks are going to be four um uh people are like why is free fall such an issue there's a few different things but there's one really positive thing is when we went through free fall it was very basic like we're not we're not strapping nvgs onto us we're not actually like working up to the point where you need to be to be on team it was just fall out of a plane strap some equipment to you pull at the right altitude don't crash yep um but it's a lot more involved than it used to be so while I understand that there's there's issues and you might spend a little bit of time on Chapman Annex just hanging out waiting for your free fall course or things might seem a little you know discombobulated there's some goodness that comes out of that course it's just we're working through the wickets right now and uh it's gonna get better soon so maybe by the time this drops uh we'll have some some real solutions that are cleaning this up right yeah and the Free Fall course like you said when I went through it was completely individually focused right I never did a grouping jump I never there was like a long delay the drop zone out there is huge there's a along the leg getting off the ramp and then when they were like they kind of talked about grouping and they kind of talked about stacking but they they only did it they would just like avoid the person like just don't run into each other and just land it was like a beehive above the pi that is not the way it is anymore they do grouping jumps they do stacking they do like they want the students to fly together they want everybody to look like they're supposed to all the way upsets yep yeah bottom of the container open like nobody's nobody's pulling rip cords anymore everybody's jumping rocks and they're correctly mounted front mounted non-lowered fashion people are jumping with nvgs your nvg qualified you know right out the gate so it's good logistically it does suck there's a bottleneck there sorry uh your news flash everybody you're in the military you're gonna have to hurry up and wait every once in a while and this is one of those times that you might have to hurry up and wait so that gets us to The Apprentice horse The Apprentice horse has gone through some changes let's talk about it tell me about The Apprentice board The Apprentice course is awesome so the the combat can controllers and the the SR guys show up to Pope uh kind of together but that there's there's differences right so like the combat controllers got to go through their air traffic control stuff because that's their job is to manage austere airfields to to you know basically create and manage auster airfields wait so you're saying that a combat controller's primary job isn't to be a jtac and it's to manage austere airfields it's it's they're they're primary yeah I mean jtackery is part of it calling for fires and all that other stuff that's one of their one of their main jobs you're saying that that's a qualification and not a whole job wow I know I know we're gonna rub peaches is gonna hate us forever I know it's gonna be great um but so like my guys go in there You're Gonna Knock Out uh a few of your Sr line items real quick and then you're gonna go to your shoot me shoot move communicate phase your line nav all that other stuff with your combat control uh Compadres and then uh the SR specific stuff is is really exciting we took all the best stuff from the Army as far as like the the base level reconnaissance surveillance things and we we basically stole all their curriculum we put it into our course you're gonna have some like long range shooting it's also your intro to swas uh your your drones for everybody out there and um you know you're gonna do your stocking lanes and a whole bunch of other really cool stuff so I the The Apprentice courses is killing it like the guy's coming out of there like I was signing one of my buddies the other day and it's like these these students that were graduating these days are so far ahead right of where we were so yeah um I mean you can deep dive into exactly what we're doing but like you're you got to get your like soldiering Basics out of the way and then we're gonna intro you to the um the the foundational special reconnaissance capabilities right uh so it's it's not it's not as as much as you're gonna want which is coming but it's it's gonna wet your beak a little bit on on all the really radical things that we're getting after and that's exactly what we do and every single other pipeline power rescue you're not doing crazy rope systems you're not doing crazy patient care you're not doing crazy infiltration The Apprentice course you're getting a baseline understanding of all of the different Mission sets that you can do and that's the same thing you're doing at this the s-rack the special reconnaissance Apprentice course so that those are the things that you're getting done and this is going to come up a couple different times because people hit us on it all the time they're like well yeah but tell us like why do you need Recon why do you need those things as you heard Trent just say we took all of the things like we took the training that the Army does we took some of the training that the Marines do for Recon we took the pieces that will help Air Force teams Air Force Special tactics teams get after Air Force specific problems so no we're not like Army Recon or lures or Cavs scouts or whoever the whoever else does some sort of Recon function we're not saying that we're Marine Force Recon or a MARSOC team we're not saying that we're our Sr guys are on par with army Recon dudes that's not what we're saying at all we're saying we took those skill sets applied them to special Warfare saw where we could have a capability that would enhance Air Force Special tactics teams and get after mission sets and then we made a course to make that Airmen to get us there so all of these all of these cool things right the Free Fall the dive long distance shooting close reconnaissance far reconnaissance to include electromagnetic Warfare Spectrum stuff to include suas encounter sua stuff those are all things that we took and molded into a course to get after our own problem sets Okay the Air Force doesn't need Recon I'm going to tell you straight up the Air Force doesn't need Recon Air Force Special tactics teams need a Recon capability in order to be successful in the future fight so that's why we have Recon that's why there is no security forces Recon teams okay because Air Force Special Operations in the next fight is going to need a Recon capability and that's what we engineered for the special Recon Apprentice course any follow-ons on that one yeah yeah I missed a little bit of what you said because of Technology but we talk about problem solving all the time I'm not sure if you talk about this but you can't solve a problem if you're not in the space of the problem and so that's what we're getting after when we talk about airspace and all those other things things that we need to dominate from the from the ground all the way up to the the sun you need to have all the data and you need to be in that space and have the capability to solve those problems uh to to own the air so that that's the way I see getting after it and it's really hard to solve those problems if you can't get there and if you can't get out you know yeah no you're totally right so that gets us through the pipeline congratulations you put your Beret on and now you're back at the bottom of the totem pole now you're just a crappy three level on a team well I don't know if you're crappy you might be no we I mean we've got a stts and stts is is awesome right now right so that's where you you get way more into the the you know preparation the environment stuff and and some of the the like the three level course will let you beat to the foundational stuff the five level course is going to wet your beak to like that secret swirl stuff to where we we start to get really vague about stuff that we talk about like we you know we say electromagnetic and all these other things but more long-range shooting uh you know you're gonna go through iterations where you do show up to work in your civilian clothes and do different things and maybe you're not on base all the time when you're doing these things and and uh and getting after that and understanding how your skill set fits into the real world and not just on a base on a training range uh getting trained to to do what you do yeah stts is special tactics training Squadron for now it's down at Hurlburt Field Florida and this is a little bit different when PJs graduate their pipeline they go directly to their teams when special reconnaissance and combat controllers graduate they go to special tactics training Squadron and then go through their next skill level upgrade so some of the things and again it's the this is the area where everybody wants us to just like open the book and show you everything and start using acronyms and be like well what exactly is that here's what we can say okay special reconnaissance has the ability to not only do drone stuff but do counter drone stuff okay they have the ability to protect the team from drone incursions we know that lawyer and Munitions and drones that want to collect on us we know that that's a problem in the future in the future space you're going to start getting the tools to protect your team against suas in this thing and then employ our own drones right which is highly used I can tell you from personal experience having an Sr guy that is good at using the drones that we have is highly valuable it's it's insanely valuable to a special tactics teams some of the other things that Trent alluded to there are some teams out there in the army that have a human capability I will say that we have the same capability on our Air Force Special tactics teams it is not to the level of the CIA you're not going to be Jason Bourne right but you are going to have a baseline of those skills that you're going to be able to use through a number of different training things and you're going to be able to continue those skills underneath the umbrella of what we call special activities special reconnaissance Airmen are heavily invested in those special activities can we tell you exactly what that is no because they're protected so you can continue to ask and you can continue to hit up the comment section and so you kind of know what this is you know what the acronym is okay fine go out and find it for yourself if you want to if you want to know that you can find it on Google but that's just not our lane but I'll tell you what it is highly interesting it's really really hard it's a hard problem set and Sr Airmen are on the Forefront of that problem set and you know it's really like and it's not just us and I keep saying it like as we as we PJ go through this program by the way also do this this thing but yeah yeah so everybody's going through this transition and and coming out of a a direct action War type of thing and getting back to like a lot of the things that make us unique and and and and and uh operating in the environments that we're going to be operating in and getting used to it and getting soft back to soft instead of you know like I think we went through the grinder for like 20 years because it's super exciting so like if you're like oh man like like why is Sr doing this and no one else is like everybody's doing this stuff everybody has to be in place to do their job to solve the problems that they're trained for so uh everybody has like their Specialties but there's a lot of like we've talked about how many times like there's a lot of crossover uh between the afsc's like you you're in the team room with these guys you're training with everybody right you know like you're gonna pick up some additional skill sets obviously I'm not I'm not trying to drop bomb stands your clothes or anything else like that but like you hang out with enough controllers and jtax and spend enough time on airfields and you spend enough time with your PJ Bros like everything kind of like comes together and if you have a team of guys that need to be in a certain place to do certain things like that type of training that you need not only to get there and to get out but to be safe while you're there right everybody has to have that kind of training to do it so yeah that's fast and then my favorite question which we're going to hit up here in a second is like what's the day-to-day like I'll tell you no matter what day it is in special tactics and I know like just get your heart rate down no matter what day it is in special tactics you're going to need coffee to start that day so head over to trenchcoffeecode.com and check out their amazing Brands uh are their amazing uh blends of coffee they're fantastic they do an awesome stuff so it's run by other special uh special operator friends of ours over at trenchcoffeeco.com our code over there is that one's ready so use that code at checkout it's going to get you a sweet discount I prefer the cowboy blend that stuff is fantastic because it's got enough caffeine in it to kill a horse which is where my caffeine tolerance is these days so uh they're awesome there's also a function you can go over if you just go over again at trenchcoffeecode.com you can actually send a bag downrange so you can no kidding buy a bag for the it's called trench to troops and you can actually buy a bag it's only ten dollars right now and you can throw a bag out you get a bag and then somebody downrange gets a bag I have been lucky enough on my last deployment trench hooked it up the entire time I was there I did not go a single day in that team room without some coffee from trenchcoffeeco.com so shout out to those dudes they're awesome dudes um you know out of Vegas proper and those guys are amazing so go go check them out for all your coffee needs but Trent what's a battle Rhythm like for an Sr guy once you get on team you know like when we talk about day to day I always just want to go back to like to the holistic thing like your day is what you make it yep there are things that you have to do and then there are things that you know opportunities that are there that you need to be seizing you know like whether you're you're looking to get into the community or you're in the community like that that's that's what it is so like you you gotta you know set your routines for certain things that you knock out what you can in your workouts you know if your home station and then and then sees all those opportunities for training or to get after the next problem set and and that's all it is it's it's it's always being focused on the next problem set and moving towards Solutions whether you're you're in the dev pool or whether you're on team so I know that sounds super big to everybody like oh what but what what is it what is it like like this is not a community where someone is going to hand you a problem with all of the data that needs to be solved right like as an individual it's a very individualistic Community I think that's why it's such a hard question for me to answer is that someone's gonna be like hey like I think this is a problem like do you know like how are we going to get after this and then you and your buddies or you by yourself you all get together and you start figuring these things out you figure out what you need to know and then how to get after these Solutions so I mean that's why you're listening to this podcast right now if you're out there and you're thinking about getting a Dev with your you're Gathering data to start solving the problems that you see in your life once again in the community like once you get on team it's the same thing it's just having that that mindset to get after problems and to have the skill sets and to build the skill sets to solve those problems for yourself and for your teammates like that that's what every day is and then get out there and perform and I'll lay it out as clean as I possibly can right so coming out of the pipeline you're gonna be a five line uh five level you're only going to one of the two series units so right now Sr is not an ACC Sr is only in appsock so you're going to go to the two one the two two the two three or the two six okay so there you go you're not going to go overseas maybe if you're like a cross trainee or if some wacky thing happens and you can go over one of the overseas SCS is okay fine but this is the 99 percentage you're going to go to one of the two series units yeah you're going to show up you're going to work out every day under the under the watchful eye of your Human Performance optimization staff and you're gonna go through your training for whatever your team is getting ready to do okay the day-to-day is going to be working on a mix of core skills and full mission profiles and Advanced Employment capability abilities it just depends on where you are in the cycle how long can you expect to spend at your unit before you start that that ramp up to your first deployment it doesn't mean it depends on on where they are in the cycle you know right and I know and what's going on in the world like I know I gave like the big picture answer like oh mindset blah blah blah and you're like hey man like you go to the two series units like what are you doing like you would know better than I do but like you know we have guys that show up and it's like hey jump into this uh this pre-deployment training you got six months right yeah yeah and sometimes you show up and the team's gone so there's two ends of the spectrum right like we have a 20-month training cycle that is not and that's 24 months now um but there's a 24 month training cycle so we just changed it it's you're gonna gonna prepare individually and then as a team and then work with joint partners and then you're going to go down range wherever it is that you graduate we try to time these up and we try to like there is some method to this madness we don't just shotgun blast the SR people across we look at like where the teams deployed where could these students or where you know now five level Airmen where can these five levels be best utilized where are these units in their training cycle it doesn't make any sense to send three or four Sr guys to the 2-2 if everybody's deployed yeah right so the people that are making these decisions understand that intimately and then they they go oh okay cool maybe we should send them to the 2-3 because they have enough time so you're going to be able to immediately jump into your team's training cycle you're going to work on your core skills first right shoot move communicate or the basic food groups there are singles every single special operator when you hit your unit we add that fourth one and shout out to Colonel Matt Allen shoot move communicate lead those are the four things that every single Air Force Special operator does is shoot move communicate lead and then we start adding in our specific skill sets and for Sr those specific skill sets are all housed inside of those Recon skills right your suas your counter sue us at long distance shooting that um you know oceanograph oceanographic I don't know what that word was what the water you look at water and figure out how to do stuff so you're taking information from the environment and giving it to your team in order for them to to have success help in Mission planning and then you're working all the way through those skills and integrating into your team so let's say Trent there's a mission that comes up and you're on an st team and it's a recovery Mission what does an Sr guy do on that mission well it's funny you would ask because you you you want the data for where you're going right like so say like you're going on a recovery Mission but like it depends on the environment and the terrain and everything else where we're going like if you drop like an stt when you're offset by like you know 10 kilometers or whatever it is and you can throw up a swass and see where you're going and also if you can um detect things that could or could not be threats in the environment that you're in and and keep your team safe and and then provide like best routes and all this other stuff and then and inform your your team leader on on courses of action like that's what you're going to be doing you can also have that reach out capability to keep your team safe while they're heads down doing what whatever else they need to do you know like it's not like the that PJ doesn't have the capability to reach out and touch someone with a rifle but like that's not his job like right there's a medical situation that like ropes and all this other stuff nerd stuff and or someone finds some Pomade out in the woods you're like the SR guy is going to have to be looking somewhere else and doing his job thinking about the stuff that other people don't have the time to think about what a great day I wish I was on some sort of recovery Mission and just came across from Outer eggs Pomade do you know how happy I would that's going right into the old cargo pocket not maybe a dump hatch and that's that's exciting um yeah and people people get wrapped around the axle all the time they're like well what if you don't need an Sr guy what are you talking about I always need another gun I always need some I'm taking my whole team every single time that I've ever done a mission okay and let's say for the sake of me not getting flamed on the internet let's say I had one mission in my entire career and that one Mission when I do my mission planning I'm like how many people can I bring yep that's always what I'm asking I'm like can I bring the whole team for this like do you need the whole team I'm like if you want it done in 10 minutes yeah could I do it with two dudes sure I suppose but it's going to take six hours how about I bring 12 dudes that I trust that I've been training with for 24 months and we come out they're like well and in some weird scenario or somebody's like well you don't even need Recon this is pretty cut and dry well I need another rifle I need a guy that I know went through the same training that I did I need I need a guy next to me that I know that if the [ __ ] hits the fan I know exactly what he's gonna do because he lives and breathes in the team room that I breathe in so you know saying like well we're going to do an Airfield survey well you don't necessarily need pjs for that well okay unless something wacky happens and somebody has a life-threatening injury and then you're gonna be like oh I guess we did need them but even even if he didn't even if that didn't happen you'd still want that extra rifle on the ground you still want that extra operator there yeah we're we are break glass in case of emergency type folks like that's what we exist for so like to think that you're gonna be moving into an environment where you know everything and it's going to go cleanly the whole the whole way like you're telling me like once everybody starts leaving that plane to get down on that Airfield or to get get down on that rescue mission that everything's going to go exactly the way that we we plan it out that's insane that's that's insane every every plan is only as good as the first Contact you know everybody Mike Tyson said everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth and these things are true and it might not necessarily be like a gun fight it might not necessarily be a life-threatening injury you might get on the ground and you might look around and go no this is none of this is right we we there was something wrong in planning we got fed some bad information we we didn't do it right like you might need those Exquisite skills that an Sr guy has in order to make that mission happen um sometimes the helicopter drops you at the wrong location that's team leader number one baby you know where you're you know exactly where you are Geo located to attention to attendage according and you know where you're going sorry that's that's helicopter 101. I'm just saying like in the past 20 years like these are things that have happened like you guys have like come out the back of a helicopter on the air landing and start running towards a building and there's been Air Force guys they're being like hey hey hey that's not the building that was supposed to be going towards that's a bad building no no no bad bad building all right so let's talk about some of those additional skills that you're going to get throughout your career so you know we've talked about everything from the day to day through your deployment um you know let's let's talk about some of those Advanced skills you're going to be able to go to sniper school you're going to go and have that long range and give courses you have to because it's in your it's in your stuff what other courses can you go to can you be a jump Master as a special reconnaissance Airman oh oh are you asking this yes I'm sorry asking you I know I know it's for it's for all of our favorite people out there in Internet land yeah uh yeah yeah I mean just like I I don't know how many times I can like jump Master tandem you know tandem jumping uh all your dive quals your is it called a dive Master yeah that too is that we don't call it a Dive Master because the watch is that what what killed it no it is yeah the oyster dog Master no the yeah dive supervisor is the uh qualification in position but all your all your fast roping you know repelling all these other things any of the quals that are out there that you can get like you know Airfield survey qualifications uh there's a million calls that you can get out there as long as you have the time and a a decent reason to get out into these things you know we always need more jump Masters we always need you know more people to lead every iteration of training so yep yeah you're gonna get out there and you're gonna get it yeah additional reconnaissance courses right and yeah and MSO courses and all these other things and here's where subject matter Enthusiast turns into subject matter expert right so now we're able to take those skills that we had that we really care about we really worked hard to develop and now we're going to have those skills round it out and if you if you fall in love with long distance shooting and you want to be the long-distance shooting expert on your team guess what we have a space for you if you fall in love with jumping and You Love free fall and you love Tandem and you're the best tandem delivery Master on the face of the planet great you can be an SRI and do that the other thing that we're going to expect you to do is lead so there is the and people kind of gloss over this because we don't talk about it a whole lot but in special tactics you can have an Sr guy that is a troop Chief or a flight Chief you can have an Sr guy that leads its own element so we we kind of gloss over and people talk about Sr and they're like well yeah it's this really cool like multi-tool sort of thing where the team leader can reach back and go oh get me the SR guy news flash everybody you could be leading one of these special tactics teams well that's that's like a lot if you read the the description of like your sniper courses that's a team leader course it is that's not it's it's more about it's not just the glassing and the shooting it's it's understanding anything Force yeah so I mean that that's what we're getting after that's why it's a seven level requirement like I want you to get the glass time I want you to get the shooting time but I also want you to understand you know how to lead people how to employ people correctly and how to get the job done and get your people back home right so it's very important let me clarify something not any idiot can pass a sniper course it's a very hard course that's not what I was about to say and any idiot can do their primary skills and be good it takes a real master and a real leader to be able to see the capability that they have and then place it on the team where it gets the best Battlefield effects and you can do that as an Sr Airmen all the way through your career right we're getting all these cool skills and we're layering them on top and we're doing all these things it's really to when you get into those leadership positions you're intimately aware of okay you know what this mission calls for precision fires I know where to put the best person to have those Precision fires lay okay I might need an OverWatch position I know for a fact that this is the best place for a shooting team to go into this OverWatch position and you're going to be given those opportunities to grow and put all those tools in your toolbox till eventually you're the you're the team leader you're not going to be the one on the gun your entire career right now I want to talk about Trent how long can you expect to be really on the teams as an Sr Airman before you're you're moving on and doing those higher level things can I touch on the the like the planning and Leadership thing a little bit absolutely not this is a podcast where we don't explore ideas I think one of the really cool things I ignored that uh one of the really cool things about our our community is because like that there are there's problems with us being siled a little bit right and all of us wearing different colored Berets right right but when you are like a team sergeant and you're planning something and you have a combat controller that's been to two or three different sts's and I've been on a bunch of deployments you have a PJ that's maybe even been an ACC rqs and then been an AFS oxide and maybe even have attack pee in the room and you have some Sr guys like the the amount of of knowledge that goes into that mission planning process or any problem-solving process that that you have like the different perspectives I think one of the things that makes our community so successful is those very precise perspectives that go into everything and and the leadership's ability to like open up the door and and be open to everybody's input um because of the way that we operate so I I'm not saying that other other you know soft teams are not that way but it's a little they're structured differently you know and they're all like I'm a seal you're a seal it's like no no like I'm a I'm an Sr guy you're a PJ like we're we're Bros right but like if my pj comes in it's like hey during this phase of the operation like these are things that you need to consider yeah like I'm listening to that dude and yeah I think it brings a lot of goodness to having those like very technical very specific capabilities across the board and the way that we look at things um I just think it's it's pretty cool well a great example of that and I saw this firsthand one of my Sr guys we were on a full mission profile and there was a patient that was at the bottom of a hill and it us as PJs were like all right tight time to tie this rope system time to figure out how to access the patient or Draw them up as our guy was like hey give me a second launched a drone went down looked at the patient looked around I was like don't need to there's actually a little path that we can walk down right here we could package them up and there's a path where we can walk out and you don't even have to hang anybody off a rope and I was like not only did he make it infinitely faster it took him about two minutes to get that drone up not joking two minutes to get the Drone up visualize the patient tell me what was wrong with the patient no kidding and then tell me that we could access a patient in a different manner that's how you access and by the way my controller is working air ax fill all at the same time the entire time and then everybody else that doesn't have work you know what they were doing providing security getting bags together making sure that we're ready for the movement so that when I said hey it's time to move everybody was like yeah Roger that we're ahead of you we were just waiting on you to tell us to go so man that feels like a good place to end it yeah it just it all comes together it all comes together and that's how everybody we wanted to talk about special reconnaissance because we're constantly getting questions about it hopefully it answered some of your questions more importantly I hope it raised some more questions so leave him in the comments section down below we'll make sure to chalk this thing full of all of the cards in previous episodes that we've done so you have a holistic look at every single thing that you could possibly need to know about becoming a special Warfare Airman specifically for special reconnaissance but I want to end with gratitude as always thanks for coming out staying with us following the stuff that we do go to onesready.com all of our links are there the reading list everything you could possibly need to know along with our partners we talked about trench and we talked about 18 Alpha Fitness go check them out 18 outfitness the code is one ready the number one and then ready and then for trench Coffee Co go to trench coffeecode.com and that's ones ready to check out the USB discount we appreciate it please like And subscribe to the podcast it's free it doesn't cost anything it really does does help us out we would like to continue this momentum that we've got going we appreciate you Trent I'm going to hit you with it what's your advice to anybody trying to be an Sr Airman educate yourself that's it tight like it all starts with with education you can't be you can't be truly motivated about stuff if you don't know anything about it so you're right educate yourself focus on the next step keep keep you know like you're you're focus on your front sight post everything else beyond that is blurry for a reason and uh just focus on that prompt site post so that you can accomplish that that first goal fantastic all right everybody thanks for coming out have a great week GO train hard and we'll see you later

Channel: Ones Ready

Views: 17,795

Keywords: Special reconnaissance, Special recon, Air Force special reconnaissance, USAF special recon, AFSPECWAR, USAF SR, air force special tactics, Special tactics special recon, AFSOC, Air Force special operations, Ones ready, OnesReady podcast, Ones ready sr, Military, Special operations, SOF, Special forces, USAF special forces, USAF special operations, navy seals, army green berets, marsoc recon, recon, marsoc, marine corps, pipeline training, special recon pipeline, SR training, USA

Id: RlPRmzGEx7Y

Length: 74min 44sec (4484 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 01 2023