WHY SPECIAL FORCES SELECTION MUST ALWAYS REMAIN THE ULTIMATE SOLDIERING CHALLENGE?
PART 1. Introduction
The opening of a four week inquest into the deaths of 3 army reserve candidates attempting SAS (R)Selection coincided with the death of a Royal Marine trainee undergoing the final Commando Test, the 30 miler.
The wider public has long been fascinated by what recruits are put through during Special Forces training, which has arguably the most demanding Selection process in the world. While ‘inclusivity’ is encouraged in many a workplace, the SAS, and other military elites, seek the opposite. Naturally, when it all goes wrong such incidents draw attention to the extreme level of hardship associated with elite military training, and prompt inevitable questions as to whether fatalities like these are avoidable in the pursuit of ‘elitism.’ As the Telegraph’s defence correspondent Ben Farmer pointed out on 1st June 2015, “Britain’s Special Forces have already reportedly been ordered to soften their selection exercises after [the SAS training] deaths”. Similar demands may now be placed on Royal Marine training following any inquest that may take place.
In times like this, thoughts go out primarily to the immediate family of this as yet unnamed young Royal trainee, as well as those of Roberts, Dunsby and Maher, all who had respective dreams of becoming a Commando or Blade. But my thoughts also go out to their parent units and wider Royal Marines family who will feel a profound sense of loss at the death of one of their own.
‘’Royal Marine Training is gruelling but must remain so’’ was the headline in former Royal Marine Mark Time’s thought provoking piece following the death of a trainee on the 30 miler Commando Test. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11643558/Royal-Marines-training-is-gruelling-but-it-must-remain-so.html It’s never easy to articulate any sort of justification for the extreme demands imposed on candidates for entry into elite military units, certainly not any that the general public or an occasionally cut throat media would sympathise with, support or ever fully understand. To really know and understand you’d have to have been through the system and lived and breathed it as written word or any other attempt to explain or justify would always fall short. To address the current inquest, Special Forces Selection has always remained that great unknown and that’s the thing with the unknown, it has this capacity to make people feel threatened or uncomfortable and that tends to breed hostility, resentment and antipathy. In some instances there will be bodies who will want to attack and break down that ‘unknown’ so that it fits with whatever paradigm makes them feel comfortable or morally or ethically right with the regard to the right to life. Health and Safety will now be building a case and waiting patiently like a sniper, an omnipotent force that even the SAS and SBS will be unable to resist.
We now have a coroner’s inquest into the 2013 deaths of the three candidates on SAS Selection, the press are having a field day with misleading headlines and cut and paste quotes of evidence given from SAS soldiers and Regimental support staff from behind closed screens and under the scrutiny of a coroner. Some of the more accusatory testimony has come from perhaps somewhat biased candidates who failed the summer 2013 Selection course and the media have of course been generous in allocating column space and associated headlines to what these young men had to say. Inspired by Time’s own defence of the rigours of Commando training I felt compelled to defend the Special Forces Selection process and hopefully in the process dispel a few of the wild myths and inaccuracies that have emerged from the inquest and subsequent media reports. This is no easy task as Selection, for all its simplicity, has many variables, some of which can be controlled and others that are untameable, especially so if entry in to UK Special Forces is to remain the ultimate soldiering challenge.
WHAT IS AN SAS / SBS TEST MARCH?
Each test march is essentially a TAB (Tactical Advance to Battle). In the Special Forces context the exercise replicates advancing in small teams from the point of strategic insertion towards the theatre of operations while remaining undetected. By definition the main part of the mission commences once the TAB has been completed. The ability to TAB is essential to SAS/SBS soldiers and other elite military units such as the Parachute Regiment and Royal Marine Commandos who are required to cover large distances at speed over arduous terrain while being completely self-sustained (carrying extremely heavy loads made up of essential personal equipment, weaponry and ammunition supplies, radio communication devices, survival provisions and food and water). If a trooper/marine is unable through injury, poor personal administration or lack of fitness to be operationally effective and fulfil his role, he will become a liability and have put others’ lives in jeopardy. The ability to TAB, is therefore the bread and butter of the Special Forces soldier.
The nuts and bolts of these marches are so simple. Carry all you need over a certain distance. No man made obstacles or tricks, just man against nature, pitted against the unforgiving elements and the unapologetic and silent adversary of rock and earth. But simple does not mean easy. Simple can also be primeval, brutal… all the mental & physical excess swept away by absolute necessity.
https://beyondthatlastbluemountain.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/why-special-forces-selection-must-always-remain-the-ultimate-soldiering-challenge/
...that's just me..
