Recruited for Navy SEALs, Many Sailors Wind Up Scraping Paint

[dimsum]

Recruited for Navy SEALs, Many Sailors Wind Up Scraping Paint (Published 2022)

The high failure rate of the elite force’s selection course shunts hundreds of candidates into low-skilled jobs.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Recruited for Navy SEALs, Many Sailors Wind Up Scraping Paint (Published 2022)

The high failure rate of the elite force’s selection course shunts hundreds of candidates into low-skilled jobs.

www.nytimes.com

This also happens to many NHL draft picks

Think they are gonna play in the show, instead they end up playing in Minors

 

[daftandbarmy]

Recruited for Navy SEALs, Many Sailors Wind Up Scraping Paint (Published 2022)

The high failure rate of the elite force’s selection course shunts hundreds of candidates into low-skilled jobs.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Gunnar]

In other news, sometimes when you do things, it doesn’t turn out. Better call Reuters

 

[CBH99]

Recruited for Navy SEALs, Many Sailors Wind Up Scraping Paint (Published 2022)

The high failure rate of the elite force’s selection course shunts hundreds of candidates into low-skilled jobs.

www.nytimes.com

Yeah...

That's why its called BUD/S & it's a selection for an elite SOF organization, and not The Boy Scouts...

If you don't pass selection, you back to doing menial work. It is what it is, nothing remotely new here...

(Direct entry right off the street? Back to doing whatever it was you were doing before. Mind you, Army SF has a direct entry program also & are also starved for people, so I guess there is a 2nd shot there)

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

 

[OldSolduer]

Recruited for Navy SEALs, Many Sailors Wind Up Scraping Paint (Published 2022)

The high failure rate of the elite force’s selection course shunts hundreds of candidates into low-skilled jobs.

www.nytimes.com

The pass rate for BUDS might be 33% or maybe lower. Its been said this is an SOF organization, not a Boy Scout camp. Come to think of it some people in the military might not make in the Boy Scouts either....

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

The pass rate for BUDS might be 33% or maybe lower. Its been said this is an SOF organization, not a Boy Scout camp. Come to think of it some people in the military might not make in the Boy Scouts either....

Or girl guides! We gotta be inclusive here!

 

[quadrapiper]

That's why its called BUD/S & it's a selection for an elite SOF organization, and not The Boy Scouts...

If you don't pass selection, you back to doing menial work. It is what it is, nothing remotely new here...

There was another article shared on here that described a steadily decreasing pass rate, ascribed to increasingly more (excessively) demanding training practices.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Just trying to break the pay wall...

15% pass rate is pretty much in line with other SOF units, like the SAS etc. The abuse claims are worrying though, if true:




Classes that started with 150 recruits were finishing with fewer than 10. In Navy records, nearly all the dropouts appeared to be voluntary, but sailors said that, in reality, a majority were sick or injured. It was not unusual, they said, to see men carried to the bell because they could not walk.

Recruited for SEALs, many wind up scraping paint

NAVAL BASE KITSAP, Wash. – A sailor fresh out the elite Navy SEAL selection course slung his gear over his broad shoulder and clomped down a steel ladder into the

buffalonews.com

 

[dimsum]

The abuse claims are worrying though, if true

Exactly.

 

[CBH99]

So is it actual abuse, or do we have a generation that is starting to get to the age where SOF is now an available option for them…and ‘damn those instructors can be mean!’

(I legitimately don’t know)


We all know that abuse can happen anywhere, but I’m thinking a course like BUD/S isn’t where it’s happening.

The instructors are extremely professional from what little I’ve seen.

But there is also medical staff present, senior officers who pop in to check the course serials, and a very well padded ‘complaint chain/process with confidentiality clauses, redresses, appeals, etc etc’ that could hang over a member’s head for a long time.

The US military as a whole has made it a priority for this stuff to be stomped out as publically as possible, especially with their current recruiting woes.

If a complaint is taken seriously, that SEAL could be subject to removal as an instructor, possibly non-deplorable while the investigation does it’s thing, etc - plus it just degrades someone’s reputation

I don’t know if a currently serving SEAL would want the claim to fame just because he got to make life extra difficult for an applicant undergoing BUD/S for 6 days…



But again, who knows At least their teamwork points should be checked off if other candidates had to carry the coursemate to the bell to ring it

 

[daftandbarmy]

So is it actual abuse, or do we have a generation that is starting to get to the age where SOF is now an available option for them…and ‘damn those instructors can be mean!’

(I legitimately don’t know)


We all know that abuse can happen anywhere, but I’m thinking a course like BUD/S isn’t where it’s happening.

The instructors are extremely professional from what little I’ve seen.

But there is also medical staff present, senior officers who pop in to check the course serials, and a very well padded ‘complaint chain/process with confidentiality clauses, redresses, appeals, etc etc’ that could hang over a member’s head for a long time.

The US military as a whole has made it a priority for this stuff to be stomped out as publically as possible, especially with their current recruiting woes.

If a complaint is taken seriously, that SEAL could be subject to removal as an instructor, possibly non-deplorable while the investigation does it’s thing, etc - plus it just degrades someone’s reputation

I don’t know if a currently serving SEAL would want the claim to fame just because he got to make life extra difficult for an applicant undergoing BUD/S for 6 days…



But again, who knows At least their teamwork points should be checked off if other candidates had to carry the coursemate to the bell to ring it

I've been through various 'tough guy' type selections over the years and never once saw an instructor assault a candidate, or deny medical treatment, in the ways described.

In my old mob, leading a training team, any instructor guilty of doing so would have been charged and I would have lost my job for not providing adequate oversight of my NCOs.

 

[quadrapiper]

Just trying to break the pay wall...

15% pass rate is pretty much in line with other SOF units, like the SAS etc. The abuse claims are worrying though, if true:

The abuse claims are worrying, as is the mismanagement of talent: assuming "hypermotivated overachievers, often with college degrees, who have passed a battery of strength and intelligence tests," described in the article, it would seem there's better ways to employ them post-BUD/S.

I wonder what causes washouts in the SAS and comparable courses, compared to the SEALS: recent articles seem to suggest the BUD/S 85% not passing tend to be due to medical/physical resilience issues, versus e.g. problem solving, group cohesion, hands-on skills, etc.

Looking at this, and your other post re: masculinity in the US Armed Forces, as well as descriptions of their various Basics, there seems to be a habit of retaining and exaggerating practices that either made sense in a particular context (express processing of hordes of drafted men) or were created on a potentially improvisational basis (SEAL and predecessor training created during and post Vietnam), but not generally reviewing and refreshing training approaches to ensure they actually match the desired outcome. There also seems to be a habit of theatricality, and a reflexive desire to ascribe "deep" meaning to every act, object, and practice.

 

[KevinB]

SEAL training is extremely physical as opposed to most other SOF selections that have physical, mental, emotional etc aspects.

One might question the validity of the extent that they go through to push candidates often past their breaking point physically, while often overlooking some other traits that probably would have candidates removed from training in other pipelines.

 

[brihard]

SEAL training is extremely physical as opposed to most other SOF selections that have physical, mental, emotional etc aspects.

One might question the validity of the extent that they go through to push candidates often past their breaking point physically, while often overlooking some other traits that probably would have candidates removed from training in other pipelines.

They obviously make sure they can write.

 

[KevinB]

They obviously make sure they can write.

Ghost Writers can make even a SEAL seem literate

 

[OldSolduer]

Ghost Writers can make even a SEAL seem literate

They eat crayons too?

Abuse might be “the nasty men made me do PT”

 

[dimsum]

Abuse might be “the nasty men made me do PT”

Perhaps, but the article said that one of the candidates died in Feb.

 

[OldSolduer]

Perhaps, but the article said that one of the candidates died in Feb.

We had candidates in recruit training die as well. Undiagnosed medical conditions