For most Green Beret hopefuls, getting through Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) in a single attempt is a point of honor. But for the SOAA member we’re calling John Smith, taking on the first component of the Green Beret pipeline three times shaped him into a more effective leader, teaching him to “learn through failure.”
First Attempt: RUMINT and Pride
SFAS is divided into three components. The first, Gate Week, is filled with mental testing and physical challenges. During the second component, students’ land navigation (LANDNAV) skills are evaluated during long, overnight rucks through rough terrain. Finally, students take on Team Week, where they perform physically and mentally demanding tests as a unit.
Smith completed Gate Week without issue and when he entered the LANDNAV portion of the course, he had few concerns because as a Marine Corps infantry officer, he knew his way around a compass.
During LANDNAV, SFAS students were issued two compasses, but received none of the instruction Smith had received as a Marine Corps infantry officer on how to specifically utilize their gear. After a quick mental calculation, Smith decided that he would waste too much valuable time holstering his compass in a pouch between uses, as had been the Marine Corps’ method for compass care.
When he set off on his first night of finding targets, Smith explained “I had [my first compass] tied to me, but dangling like a pendulum.” As he ran through the forest without lights, Smith said that he ran into several trees that he couldn’t spot in the dark, leaving his first compass “so banged up the needle wouldn’t even rotate” by daybreak.
At the end of every day, students had the opportunity to turn in and replace any broken gear. There was a persistent rumor, however, that “if you turned [gear] in, [instructors] would take down your name and hold it against you for failure to keep good accurate accountability of your gear.” Smith decided that because he still had his second working compass, he would not turn in his broken one.
During his second night of LANDNAV, Smith needed to score two points to move on to the third phase of SFAS. He felt confident that he was in good standing as he took off.
Among the rules for the LANDNAV exercises, candidates were not allowed to travel within 50 meters of the roads because they would be an easy navigational tool. Smith was running far closer to the road than he was allowed when he ran into an intersection where “a fuzzy blob” began talking to him.
“What are you doing in the middle of an intersection?” the blob asked.
Smith recognized that the “blob” was in fact a member of the SFAS cadre, Green Beret instructors who oversaw the course.
“I’m just crossing the intersection,” Smith replied.
“How far were you off the road?” the cadre asked.
“Probably about 50 meters, Sergeant,” Smith responded.
The cadre sent Smith on his way, and as Smith reentered the forest, he ran headlong into a tree and heard the distinctive “sound of my compass whipping up and slamming into” it. With his second compass now broken, he “spent the next seven hours” using the North Star to navigate to a burn barrel that marked the only space in the 12-square-mile expanse where students were allowed to congregate. Once he arrived, Smith was able to trade another student for a working compass, leaving him with just 30 minutes to dash three miles uphill with an 85-pound ruck to find his final point.
Smith was three minutes late arriving at his mark. Because he was short of points, he was dropped from the course.
Given a one year return date to take on the SFAS again, Smith said that his “major takeaway was to realize my limitations and throw pride out the window.”
Second Attempt: Overtraining and Body Breakdown
Smith’s date of return was extended further by an eight-month deployment. Because he had not been able to prepare for SFAS while he was overseas, Smith decided to test his endurance by rucking the 38.5-mile Trans Catalina in a single day, the week before the course started.
“It was like doing a bunch of sprints before you do a marathon,” Smith explained. “When I should have been resting and rehabbing prior to a big physical event, I was throwing on the gas.”
Despite his overexertion, Smith seemed to be in fine shape during the beginning of SFAS, passing easily through Gate Week and LANDNAV.
As Smith took on a leadership role during Team Week, he found himself running on fumes. Students had traveled three miles to a large construction yard, where they were acquiring parts to build a vehicle that they would eventually push together along a three-to-six-mile course. For every piece of equipment they took, students also had to carry a five-gallon water jug, adding to the strain of the effort.
It was during the 18th hour of training that Smith’s left hip began to seize. As he fell to the ground, the cadre came over to assess him.
Smith explained that he did not want to see a medic because he didn’t want to be dropped from the course. The cadre allowed Smith to get up and continue, but five minutes later, his hip seized again, and again, he crumpled to the ground.
“If you fall one more time, I’m going to order you to stay down until a medic sees you,” the cadre warned.
Smith said that he would be fine, and stood again. Two minutes later, his whole body began to seize and he collapsed.
When the medic arrived, he said that Smith’s “body [was] breaking down.” As the medic told Smith he would be pulling him off the course, Smith tried to convince the medic he was still ok.
“No, you’re not. Leave your stuff. You’re done,” the medic said.
Smith was taken to the emergency room. Doctors there were so astonished by the condition of his feet, which “kind of looked like hamburger” with some of his toes “fully split open,” that they took photographs. Smith was also diagnosed with a wing scapula on his left shoulder and rhabdomyolysis, a rare and life-threatening condition resulting from muscles breaking down due to overuse.
Before he could begin his recovery, Smith was restricted to quarters for a month so that his feet could heal.
As he worked through the unforeseen setback, Smith said “the motto” he learned was to “hunt the good things. Sometimes life’s going to suck. Sometimes you bring it on yourself, sometimes you don’t.”
Rebuilding from Zero
Once he could get up on crutches, Smith went to see the major on duty at SFAS to ask about a possible return date. The news he got was crushing.
“You’ve been here twice, you can’t come back again,” the major said. “We’re going to give you a never-to-return (NTR).”
Smith was brokenhearted as he returned to the long-term healing quarters he shared with other students who had failed SFAS. “All I ever wanted to do at selection was go long enough where the cadre had the opportunity to evaluate me,” he explained. “I thought I was right for the job, but I couldn’t know until the cadre told, based on whatever their grading criteria was. But both times I had taken myself out of the pool before they could assess me.”
When another officer who had also been dropped from his second attempt at SFAS returned to his rack later with a smile on his face, Smith was surprised.
“What’s going on?” Smith asked.
“Brother, they’re letting me come back a third time,” the student reported.
The student explained that the major had told him that his third attempt at SFAS had been denied because too many attempts at the program could slow down his Army promotion cycle. When the student told the major that he did not care about getting promoted, the major agreed to allow him a third chance at SFAS.
The next day, Smith hobbled on crutches into the cold to wait outside the major’s office at 7:00. As soon as the major arrived an hour later, Smith explained that he would like to make a case for a third attempt at SFAS because he was unconcerned about his promotion schedule.
“Well, if that’s your intent, I’m here for another year. If you can get healed up within a year and send me a request for a waiver, I will get it signed for you,” the major said.
At that moment, Smith said that “hope came back alive.”
Smith says that another quote that “guides” his life he “saw written in graffiti on a wall in Long Beach, California. It said ‘Until it’s done.’”
Those words motivated the long, difficult process of getting his body ready for SFAS. During his initial physical therapy sessions, Smith could only carry five pounds in a ruck. He also had to work through the imbalances that rhabdo left. Realigning his wing scapula took three full months.
Five months into his process, Smith was able to get through his 12-mile graded ruck and submitted his waiver for approval to attend SFAS once more.
The army told Smith that he had to return to selection before the end of the fiscal year or he would be pulled from the pipeline and returned to the infantry. Smith’s approval came seven days before that deadline.
Third Attempt: Practice Leads to Progress
Through all the trials it took to get there, Smith’s third attempt at SFAS was a stunning success. Not only did he accomplish personal goals, but he was also “able to mentor my way through and coach through” each phase because of his prior experiences. As a result, he graduated within the top 10 in his class.
Even with his SFAS journey finished, Smith had more to learn. While on a four-month delay to start the Special Forces Qualification Course (Q Course), Smith had the opportunity to go through the Pre-Ranger Course, which was another humbling experience.
Just one week into the course, Smith failed his first LANDNAV challenge because in spite of reaching each of his objectives, he was at the wrong location when time was called at the end of the day. The next day, Smith once again achieved five out of five objectives, but because he recorded their order improperly in his log, he failed a second time. “That was a painful reminder that I’m fallible,” he said.
In Ranger School itself, Smith was recycled in week two on account of a leadership decision that taught him to better understand Army tactics. However, he then passed Ranger School without any further recycles.
Each of those errors helped Smith “be incredibly successful in the Q Course,” he explained.
Looking back on all his experiences, Smith insists that he would not have been as skilled a leader had he not gone through the challenges that preceded the Q Course. “Because if everything’s handed to you, you don’t know the cost of suffering and failure. It doesn’t allow you to empathize with other people who’ve been through those things. If you’ve always won your whole life, you’ve never felt the pain of losing and then it’s never forced you to really want to win.”
