Great post lrsrng. Although I wouldn't chat tp a recruiter online, especially if I worked across the street from a recruiting station. Braddock, the main thing that I would worry about if I was you is the physical part of it. You are obviously a smart guy, so no problem there. What routine are you currently doing? How is your cardio conditioning (ie - what are your ruck/run distances/time)? How is your muscular endurance (ie - how many pushups, situps, chinups, flutter kicks, etc)? I have to admit, I am excited about my future. I said excited, not optimistic. There is a big difference...and I am completely honest with myself. For example, I want to be a Marine, but I am certainly not happy with my muscular endurance or run times. On the other hand, I am a straight A student and can easily do well on the ASVAB, etc. If you are not ready for SF physically, then prepare yourself. I would recommend a Stew Smith workout from Stewsmith.com (very original). If you are not ready for SF mentally (I doubt you will have any problem here), then read some books on tactics, strategy, SOCOM, the history of SF, etc (orient youself with everything...of course, you wrote a book on this stuff). Ask yourself this: If no one ever knew I was an SF operator, and no one cared about SF being 'cool', and no one remembered what I said about SF on a website, and no one cared, would I still want to be a SF operator? This can be a very important question. Alot of people want to join SF because they have a reputation as being HSLD and they think others will think they are 'cool' (so their rep will immediately go up)...I have >obviously< never been through SF training, but I will gaurantee you that those motives will not get you through the Q course. When you are cold, tired, hungry, and you have to complete a 20 mile ruck, nothing will get you through that training unless it is something that truly motivates you and real. Talk it over with your family and friends. This is extremely important. What does your wife/girlfriend think of this? What about your kids? Your parent's? Your friends? I promise you, if your wife and kids don't want you to go through training, then don't go. SF is not anywhere near as important as your family...and even I, the young pest of this board and site, realizes that. If you have any doubts at all about your motives, don't do it. Go to the tactical MP team, do your best, and be happy.`

SWAT Teams Everywhere Are SWAT teams and other forms of "paramilitary" policing becoming much too common in the United States? I ask because in Slate today, Daniel Engber writes as an aside that "By the mid-1990s, more than 80 percent of American cities had active teams, as did more than half of all law enforcement agencies in the country with more than 50 officers." He links to a 1997 study by Peter Kraska, who found that the number of SWAT teams in America has not only risen dramatically since the 1980s, but that they've been used much more frequently: Traditionally utilized for highly specialized action, such as barricaded suspects and hostage situations, the teams are increasingly engaged in traditional police work, especially work related to anti-drug efforts. The research shows that between 1990 and 1995 SWAT units were employed in their traditional roles for only a small number of occasions. Instead 75% of their activities were devoted to serving "high risk" warrants, such as "no-knock" warrants, mostly drug searches. "In SWAT units formed since 1980, their use has increased by 538 percent," said Kraska. He added that such units are now being deployed as full-time roaming patrols. One survey respondent in the Kraska study described his department's use of SWAT teams this way: We're into saturation patrols in hot spots. We do a lot of our work with the SWAT unit because we have bigger guns. We send out two, two-to-four-men cars, we look for minor violations and do jump-outs, either on people on the street or automobiles. After we jump-out the second car provides periphery cover with an ostentatious display of weaponry. We're sending a clear message: if the shootings don't stop, we'll shoot someone. "Ostentatious." Many of these units have been trained by the military and armed by the Defense Department, as the "war on drugs" under Reagan increasingly involved the military in domestic law enforcement, thanks to a 1981 Congressional amendment to the Posse Comitatus Act, which authorized the military to "assist" civilian police in the enforcement of drug laws. According to a 1999 CATO study, that led, among other things, to this: Between 1995 and 1997 the Department of Defense gave police departments 1.2 million pieces of military hardware, including 73 grenade launchers and 112 armored personnel carriers. The Los Angeles Police Department has acquired 600 Army surplus M-16s…. Of 459 SWAT teams across the country, 46 percent acquired their initial training from 'police officers with special operations experience in the military,' and 43 percent with 'active-duty military experts in special operations.' Almost 46 percent currently conducted training exercises with 'active-duty military experts in special operations.'… Because of their close collaboration with the military, SWAT units are taking on the warrior mentality of our military's special forces. So that's the basic state of play. But what of it? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? One police chief notes that "because of the extreme response tactics of the SWAT teams, they actually fire fewer shots." This idea that more "specialized teams" lead to fewer casualties is a compelling one. Researcher Darrell Ross has found that police shootings have declined dramatically since the 1970s, and credits, among other things, "more sophisticated police training. (I don't know if anyone has critically examined Ross' research yet—certainly groups like Human Rights Watch have found plenty of police brutality to go around in the United States even today, and of course causation is hard to determine.) On the other hand, Kraska argues that the trend towards more SWAT teams and paramilitary police squads is "militarizing Mayberry" and undermining more "community-oriented" policing methods. Via Nexis, in 1995, the Boston Globe reported, "Cities such as Fresno, Calif., and Indianapolis routinely send officers into communities to patrol in full battle dress, giving these communities all the ambience of the West Bank." And here's a description from the San Francisco Bay Guardian of a SFPD raid in 1998: Just before Dawn on Oct. 30 1998, 90 law-enforcement officers wearing black masks and fatigues and armed with assault rifles stormed the Martin Luther King Jr./Marcus Garvey Cooperative in the Western Addition. They used special "shock-lock" shotgun rounds to blow apartment doors off their hinges and cleared people out of rooms by throwing "flash-bang grenades," which produce nonlethal explosions that terrify and disorient people. At a Nov. 4 police commission meeting, a train of furious and sobbing residents from the raided housing complex - all of them African American - described how officers slapped them, stepped on their necks and put guns to their heads while other officers ransacked their homes. Weeping and terrified children, some as young as six, were handcuffed and separated from their parents. Some urinated in their pajamas. (P

>>Good for you Braddock. I am guessing a tactical MP unit is something like a SWAT team. I am glad you realized that any unit can be a special force.<< I'm pretty sure he means garden variety field MPs, who do have a battlefield role as combat support troops. Not really SWAT, though they certainly train to do some door kicking -- MPs maintain real SWAT type teams who handle the same sort of mission set as civilian LE SWAT types, only on army posts, but it's a far cry from Special Forces, or even just the DA mission set for SF.

>>I'll be successful at either place. In the guard, the recruiter is at the armory. I just expected the SF community to let one of their own recruit from their personal armory, as some recruiters don't like to push the SF agenda. << Why would they waste an 18 series soldier on the paperwork side of recruiting? If you ever show up to do a face to face interview with their recruiter you'll be getting evaluated by SF personnel in short order, if not during your initial interview. They'll have plenty of authority to take you or toss you back to the curb, regardless of what the recruiter says.

Its amazing that you have SFC Smith at the top of your list.

Horse Soldier Off to 20th Group I go. They are worth the travel. It won't hurt to do a face to face. I surely won't be tossed out on an ascertainment basis concerning SF ways and means. GOP I have reinstituted my terrain exertion negation factors. Cardio/ruck/ sit ups/Pushups.

Irsng If you have the courage to post those Military Police links that you posted under your initial light reading post, I will show you a thing or two about real U.S. Army/ARNG MP training. If you have the courage to respond to my challenge.

>>I have reinstituted my terrain exertion negation factors. Cardio/ruck/ sit ups/Pushups.<< Sounds good, but I definitely think you should add some pullups in there. I would also isolate the forearms. You need to be able to do 12 pullups at least before you go to 20th Group(A)...20+ is optimum.

We may have a problem. I can fix it though. The SF Groups do have that obstacle monstrocity at Fort Bragg don't they? Braddock "Axl" Rose

>>We may have a problem. I can fix it though. The SF Groups do have that obstacle monstrocity at Fort Bragg don't they? Braddock "Axl" Rose<< I don't know, but the obstacle course is the reason why you need to do pullups. Anyone who does a military tranining program without pullups is wasting his time. Go do some pullups, maggot!