Officer to enlisted SEAL

[WhitingTJ]

Indeed. Does your "friend" want an honest assessment of his situation, Well, I sure think he does.

or someone to blow smoke up his ass to give him false hope.

Moreover, why isn't he on here asking the questions? I thought that by posting this, he would see the wealth of knowledge that this site has to offer and hopefully sign up for himself. I am a huge proponent of this site to anyone interested in Navy or related aviation.

Why are you doing his dirty work for him? Quite frankly, I wanted to know for myself what his chances were.

I think we're all beginning to get a picture of who we're dealing with. Jeeze, sir. I'm sorry. I won't ask your opinion regarding him any longer.

Brett

 

[WhitingTJ]

I just had lunch with a "friend" who said you had a great shot.

What kind of "shot" are you referring to?

 

[WhitingTJ]

Yeah. Under one of his user names he asks about flunking out of flight school to go to BUDS and using his other name he asks about withholding medical information because the Coast Guard DQed him.....

I do have both of those accounts. I wanted to change this one, but I did not know how. Plus, I didn't want people to think that I was the person who was applying for BUD/S.

AW Rookie Lesson #1 learned.

I certainly am not the one to whom I am referring who is applying for BUD/S.

 

[81montedriver]

Brett's being honest and if you ever go into the military you will learn it takes thick skin to progress. Your buddy who failed out gave you his reasons and that's fine. Whether that's true or not, only he knows. That's the way it is w/ most attrites. Alot try and make it sound like they got screwed, or if they hadn't flown with a certain instructor they would have passed. Either way he needs to start researching shit for himself.

 

[Stearmann4]

Whiting, pass this to your friend. There are indeed some of the most eclectic characters you'll ever meet tenuring in the SEAL Teams. We have all made significant sacrifices, pissed people off to get there. Most of us have even "quit" a former career (NFO, aircrew, SWO, etc) for the opportunity to go to BUD/S. That said, I don't know of a single Sailor, enlisted or officer who's is in the teams that was allowed to attend BUD/S after quitting initial training...for whatever reason. Cutting short a contractual obligation, and quitting in the middle, or worse, near the end of a career designating school says alot about an individual. If you quit now, you'll quit later. It was the same 22 years ago as it is now.

Now if your friend was in his 1st year as an NFO and wanted to go to BUD/S, I would say, give him a chance, he's proven some sort of loyalty and perserverence. As it stands now, you can pass personally fromto him me that if I were still in the community, I would make sure he's not allowed to set his dirty, quitting, generation-Y boots on a BUD/S grinder until he goes out to the fleet and excells for 2 years at whatever the Navy would have him do to prove that he is worthy of such an investment.

"Gee...what should the Navy do for me, flight school, BUD/S, med school? Pay my dues..what the hell are you talking about...I deserve better than that" If he is bold enough to renounce his commision, giddeyup, I'll make sure he has an appropriate welcome waiting for him at ther BUD/S QD. Once a SEAL Chief...always a SEAL Chief.

If he would like to contact me personally, PM me and I'll be happy to pass my contact info, I'm much more enjoyable in person. Anonymity is for perverts. My spelling sucks, I'm in a hurry.

MR-

 

[ea6bflyr]

I failed b/c I was 7 seconds late out of standards on a low level stage check. Thats if the haters really need to know. And it was only my 2nd failure in 13 months of flight school, the icing on the cake was that my NSS dropped dramastically as a result of the 2 failures. Meaning that i passed my flights but not as well as my classmates so essentially my grade point average steadily got worse. Flight school essentially became an uphill battle as soon as i had a bad flight. And situations ard different from person to person. I had 2 failures while my OCS buddy had 9 failures through all of flight school. He was originally a pilot had 3 academic failures and was given a second chance thru the nfo pipeline....Oh and i was about 3 months from wings not 6 weeks."

To clarify a point, the STANDARD for grading on STRIKE-3X is +/- 2 minutes to low level entry and +/- 30 seconds to target. So when your buddy says 7 seconds out of standard, he missed it by a mile. As a former advanced NFO instructor, the strike stage is difficult to master in such a short period without practice. The decision to attrite him was not an easy decision and it was adjudicated by the wing commodore after multiple reviews.

If you are barely passing flight school and then FAIL one test, then you will get attrited. I'll bet your buddy was on SMS the whole time he was at VT-86.

Good luck to him on a transition to SEALs, but I do not see it happening at all.

-ea6bflyr

 

[ea6bflyr]

Student Monitoring Status (SMS) is a program that gives the struggling student help by providing more mentoring and training opportunities. Think of it as study hall for flight school.

His best option would be to follow the advice above: Go SWO, prove himself, THEN apply for SEAL.

-ea6bflyr

 

[phrogpilot73]

Rumor had it that only one of twelve in his class actually got winged. Who knows...

Rumor from who? Him? That's a 92% attrition rate. BUD/S doesn't even have that high of an attrition rate...

I think your "friend" is kidding himself/filling you with bullshit.

 

[81montedriver]

What's SMS?

Rumor had it that only one of twelve in his class actually got winged. Who knows...

Regarding the transition to SEAL, I don't think I see that direct transition happening, either. He is certainly on track to get there mentally and physically, but he certainly would be doing a disservice to himself if he shipped tomorrow. I think that it is quite possible for him to earn his way into it through various other venues, such as serving/trying to serve, for example as a SWO and having an impeccable record with glowing recommendations. I going Marine Option, Ground, then Recon and attempting to do BUD/S post-tour might be a possibility, but I speak with limited knowledge.

Why would you want to go through BUDS after going Recon? Do you even know all of the training required to get to the Recon level?

 

[KBayDog]

I going Marine Option, Ground, then Recon and attempting to do BUD/S post-tour might be a possibility, but I speak with limited knowledge.

Have you considered a post-SEAL tour as a JAG, a chaplain, or perhaps an astronaut?

 

[wlawr005]

You mean not everybody can be like this guy?

 

[ea6bflyr]

I think that's realistic.

Actually, I was thinking more like pilot first (since it is a pre-req for astronaut in so many cases), THEN SEAL, get married, law school to mooch off the wife, who will be the perfect bread-winning trophy wife, then JAG, which allows me to conveniently divorce to allow me to hit the seminary, become a priest, then be the first man of God to become an astronaut.

You may have jumped the shark with that last post.

-ea6bflyr

 

[SynixMan]

I think that's realistic.

Actually, I was thinking more like pilot first (since it is a pre-req for astronaut in so many cases), THEN SEAL, get married, law school to mooch off the wife, who will be the perfect bread-winning trophy wife, then JAG, which allows me to conveniently divorce to allow me to hit the seminary, become a priest, then be the first man of God to become an astronaut.

Breathe. Drink a beer. Go away from your computer. You're starting to sound like an idiot.

 

[CommodoreMid]

Methinks multiple people have broken sarcasm detectors.

 

[phrogdriver]

This is not about me, it's about someone I know. I have no idea what Recon training is like. Can't imagine. I'm going for a pilot slot, so finding out more info here is just to see if anyone came up with an answer that would provide a potential route for success.

I played lacrosse with a guy this summer who is at the Academy. He said that his first choice was BUD/S, second was Marine Recon since he'd still have the opportunity to go back through to BUD/S.

So, I guess the answer is, if you want BUD/S that bad, then you might not mind going Recon first if the opportunity is available, if for no other reason than to prepare you.

For officers, Recon is still not a primary MOS. You can't select Recon. You can do well as a platoon commander, then try to pass Recon indoc. Don't expect to spend more than one tour there. MARSOC is becoming a little more of a long-term career field, but one still has to prove onself in a regular grunt unit first. MARSOC is no joke, either. Its operator's course has grown to the better part of six months long. By the time it's all finished, it'll be pretty close to the SF Q-course.

BTW, Marines don't go to BUD/S, so all that stuff is about a 6-year detour if all you want to be is a SEAL.

Here's the big point. Do you want to do the SEAL mission, or do you want to be able to say you're a SEAL? It sounds pretty bad-ass, but after your third day lying in a hide site surveilling a hilltop in Asscrackistan, having a cool emblem on your SDBs in your closet 10,000 miles away is not that important.