Here's Why Most Army Rangers Never Make it to Special Forces Selection

the only accepted reason to leave Battalion was like you either got picked up for Delta or you died if you left for any other reason you were like a horrible traitor so you used ranger battalion as kind of a gateway to Special Forces I did yeah definitely and was there any animosity from oh yeah was there yeah the only accepted way to leave ranger battalion at the time I don't know if it's different now probably it's probably about the same the only accepted reason to leave Battalion was like you either got picked up for Delta

or you died if you left for any other reason you were like a horrible traitor but it's kind of funny because regiment follows essentially the same rank structure and career progression as the Infantry does so really as you move up the ladder there's less and less ability for people to stay there so like if you're an E5 you're going get a fire team E6 you'll get a squad but past that there's only four platoons per company so if you're going to get promoted the dirty secret is a lot of Rangers end up going to SF

like it's just not it's not discussed it's not talked about so you still kind of you know the leadership still gives you the uh the speech so I got the speech before I left for Special Forces uh selection which basically was if you don't pass you don't have a job here anymore so you better pass that's pretty good motivation that is damn good motivation right yeah so so what so you leave Ranger Balan and then and what happens you you show up to selection yeah go to selection um standard you know you get your first

couple days where you don't do a lot like do we you take a PT test there at Fort Brag um and that's where everybody shows up like so if you look at Special Forces class numbers it's like we started out with like 300 or whatever because they'll kind of let anybody come and take the PT test this again this may have changed but this is you know 2001 um and so they weed out a bunch of guys on the PT test and then they take you out to Camp Mcall which is where the majority of

selection is once they weed out that initial CR and I think we had only been there for a day or two and they they call us all in the classroom and they're like America has been attacked and I'm thinking like that's weird like is there a scenario because you know you do training missions and they're like here's the scenario the country's been attacked and now we're going to war in this country and so they start talking to us about like how America just got attacked and I'm like man this can't be actually real and then

they actually bring in some TVs and then they say hey if you're from the Washington DC area or from the New York area the offices are open just go grab phones and start calling your loved ones to make sure they're okay and I was like holy yeah I was like that makes it real yeah yeah so then like the next day they bring in all the Cadre and stuff like a special forces selection the Cadre are famously very stoic like they don't say very much to you uh By Design but after the attacks they would

break rank or break break character probably like once a day where they would give us newspapers and they're like hey you guys are in a bubble here you got to realize how the country is changing and so they would bring in newspapers that we could read before we got heavy in the stress phase so you could kind of understand what was going on so this is right at the very this is like day two yeah that's like September 12 13th I mean talk about even more motivation yeah if that's I mean you know you're going

to do yeah what you signed up for did that how did that hit did that hit you at the time I was afraid I was going to miss it because like all the other conflicts leading up to September 11th they had been like you know if you were in the right place at the right time you got to go to war but if you weren't in you know third ranger battalion you know in the right company you missed out on Mogadishu you know like same thing with the Gulf War and all that so I was

like crap man am I am I going to be out here rucking around in the woods trying to get into SF while my ranger battalion is jumping into combat like and so I was like well I I maybe that's the way it's going to go because there was that it's hard to remember now but there was that pause right after September 11th there was initial push into Afghanistan but it wasn't really until he kicked back up in Iraq again in 03 when we invaded Iraq that we were at war in two different countries there was

that pause there it's like okay are we just going to do a handful of strikes and then kind of go back to business as usual because that I mean b line had already attacked the country twice I mean we had we had the embassies that got hit in Kenya and Tanzania and we had the coal in Aiden and so there was a lot of us that were like and I I was kind of of this mindset I was like I don't think we're g to do anything I think maybe we're going to like launch some

cruise missiles but are we really going to do it this time yeah yeah was there I mean was there any hesitation at all about going to war no I was afraid I was going to miss it at that point I was like man I'm I'm gonna be one of the because you you also for all the combat vets you met in the late 90s you also met a lot of other guys that had been in the Army for a really long time and they had just you know dumb luck they missed out on their shot

to go to combat so I was terrified of being you know not those guys fault but I was terrified of being one of those guys I was like crap man am I going to be wrong place wrong time for myti damn career you know yeah yeah how so I mean that's interesting so day day two September 11th happened you see it you realize it's real how I mean how did that affect the attrition rate of that particular class that's an interesting question um I don't I don't know I don't know if there was guys that

that factored that in um I don't really know I I think there were some guys who are hes who had the same fear that I did that they were going to miss their their chance to go to combat um I think then though it was still kind of I think the whole idea of like everyone's going to combat was kind of abstract I I I don't think the Army at least where I was serving I don't think we really wrapped our heads around that until a couple years later when it was like oh okay now

we now we're invading Iraq with like the entire military um this is this is going to be something that everybody is more than likely going to experience yeah yeah I mean so I mean just and and you know you're not going right away I mean you have to get through selection then I'm I don't know how I mean how long would it have been as long yeah yeah so you're you're talking years before you get the opportunity yep to roll out yeah so I get selections about a month and I get back to to ranger

battalion um in whatever it was October and my my squad leader had just gone to to Delta selection and so we're back there with like all the rear detachment guys and he's like hey we're going to go we're going to go load all the ammo pallets and we're going to go meet the rest of the Battalion in Europe and we might we might be the ones that jump into Afghanistan and I was like this is sweet I just got selected for SF we're going to jump into combat but then like of course a day later

a day later we see that Third Battalion jumps in so I'm like I guess that you know we were supposed to leave in like two days and so so that didn't happen so I was like well that's a sign I should probably just go to the Q course and you know hedge my bets with special forces and maybe I'll get because at the time the men on horseback thing it just happened and I was like okay well those guys were right there at the tip of the spear like right after this happened so I'm on

the right track nice nice so you went to selection yeah what was the most challenging portion for you um selection is interesting because it's probably the only place in the military where you're you're alone for a lot of it um there's there's a team portion but the team portion to me coming out of Battalion I was pretty familiar with if you're from a combat arms unit I think the team phase they have there it it should be if you're from a decent unit it should be relatively familiar because you're with a group of guys you're

trying to solve a problem you know it's hard you're sleep deprived all that type of stuff uh it's definitely hard it's very physically hard the team events but the the isolation and not getting any feedback in Ranger batal you get feedback all the time it's usually negative feedback telling you how stupid you are but at least that's some feedback in a special force selection like the instructors just say hey take all your commands off the Whiteboard you know your ruck should weigh 50 lbs and we're going to weigh we're going to check it and you're

going to move that direction until we tell you to stop moving and then the Land Navigation portion where you're actually having to move through some some pretty hairy trrain and you're having to make independent decisions on your own um I thought that was that was pretty challenging coming out of a very team heavy environment I ended up liking it once I got used to it I was like actually this is pretty cool I'm just out here it's kind of all on me whether I succeed or fail um but I think that gets a lot of

guys I think a lot of the attrition in Special Forces selection is that isolation portion where guys are like I don't I'm not getting any feed feedback am I doing this right you know can I I can't ask anybody anything there's no other teammate I can lean on it's it's completely all on you this is selection or the Q course this is selection yeah okay how does the Q course differ from selection the Q course is more um academic there's still cutting guys there um but you have your your job phase I was weapons guy

um because it was the easiest thing that translated from from infantry and I was like okay that's weapons and demo or Engineers those are the two shortest ways out of the Q course like if you're going to be a medic and go to the 18 Delta course and then go to Language School like it's basically a two-year Endeavor um and then combo is just a little bit shorter you know combo is like a year and a half you can make the thing probably about an even year if you're weapons or demo so I chose weapons

so the weapons portion isn't it's actually pretty fun I mean you're getting to learn you're getting to learn foreign weapon systems American weapon systems how to employ them how to shoot them a lot of shooting um and then there's a small unit tactics phase which there's some some of that is is you know they they they pour on the uh the challenges for sure it's kind of like a little mini Ranger school just to kind of get everybody on the same sheet of music with small unit tactics um and so there's some attrition there but

that's not bad but the majority is your your MOS phase and then the unconventional warfare block it has some challenges but it's probably the most fun I had had in the military because it's unconventional warfare you're you're play it live you're actually in a small community in North Carolina and half of them are the resistance that you're trying to recruit and mobilize and organize to conduct gorilla Warfare against the other half of the Town that's the occupying force and so they actually the Special Forces school goes all out like they put a lot of resources

into that make making that as realistic as possible so the unconventional warfare portion is really really fun no matter where you're watching Shan Ryan Show from if you get anything out of this please like comment subscribe and most importantly share this everywhere you possibly can and if you're feeling extra generous please leave us review on Apple and Spotify podcasts