All right everybody. Welcome back to another sweet and juicy episode of the Ones Ready podcast. Welcome to the team room. We're going to get right into it today. Talking about assessment selection, all the changes. What's it like day to day. All right, everybody once again, welcome back. It's great having you guys here on the second episode of the Ones Ready podcast here in the team room. We know it's your five meter target. We know it's why you're here. We're going to devote an entire podcast to it, hopefully answer all your questions about the new assessment selection for all the career fields. Lucky for you. We have guys that wrote curriculum for those. We have guys that worked as instructors, we have guys like myself that have experience in running the cross trainee selections. So we're going to get you the most up to date , most relevant information and hopefully answer all those questions that you got. No further ado. We're just going to jump right into it. We're going to get the talk and then the stick over to Old Brian and he's going to talk about that assessment collection. So Brian, take it away.
All right guys. Um, welcome back again, Brian Silva here. So I'm just going to talk to you guys a little bit about , um, some of the history and where we came from and what selection is now. Because I know that there are people who are still emailing me or messaging me and asking, you know, is indoc actually gone and what it's like now. So yes, I was an Indoc instructor and they changed it over to A&S, what's called assessment and selection. So the difference there, and there's a pretty big fundamental difference between selection and the indoctrination course. The indoctrination course was a set, just a, it was a course that you had to go through and if you found yourself on the other side of the final evaluations, then you made it through the course. Obviously there are variations from class to class, you know, winter to summer and all that kind of stuff and the way that we tested you guys. But the indoctrination course was if you made it through and you were able to do the standards, then you made it through the course. Um, and that was what we trained guys to do and there was a lot of yelling. There was a lot of um, you know, other stuff that we were able to kind of impart on you guys. So it was more of a, a little bit more mentorship driven. Um, so assessment is selection is, you know , exactly that. So they, they took out some of the weeks that we had it Indoc, which was around, well I'll start it out. 11 went down to nine weeks and then , um , now assessment is election is approximately four weeks. They keep on changing that every once in a while too. But um, before you go into that course, you have eight weeks of the special warfare development course, which is a course that's you know, tuned to make you physically and you know , somewhat mentally ready to go into selection . So they, they kind of a linked in the prep course and shorten the actual selection time. And one of the key differences between the old school way of doing it and the new is that this is an actual selection to where even if you make it through and you pass all the tests, you find yourself on the other side still on the team. You haven't quit after the four weeks of selection is up, then you may still be let go because of your personality attributes or your mental attributes. You know, it wasn't enough attention to detail. Wasn't a team player, wasn't able to, you know, think on their feet kind of thing. So that's what the selection portion of it means. And the assessment means that you have instructors that are not as much yelling at you as they are kind of writing down and keeping tabs on however you're reacting to these things. So they have data points that they can debrief and go over , uh , when it comes to the time to bring you up to the big table and tell you whether or not you've been selected onto the team. So those are the key differences right now for, for the courses that are going on. Um , Trent , you want to add anything on that cause you're still working down there and a part of the whole thing.
Yeah, there's a, there's three basic phases to the A&S right now. Uh, the first phase, what you're going to see right now is the trainability phase. And that's basically if I give you instructions, can you execute? Um , and that's during that portion of the course of what you're going to get a little bit of feedback from the instructors. But it's not going to be like the yell, scream and like we had in the past. Uh , second phase is going to be your durability where when we talk about , uh , physical events , uh , that are a little more heinous , uh, your, your lack of food, your lack of sleep, and we're going to see how you react to that. And if body and your mind can put up with it, and the last phase is your suitability. And so we're not just taking the worthy instructors anymore and running it through our matrix, our matrix. We are also asking your teammates what they think about you because that's incredibly important when it comes to being on a team. So your peer evals, you will think about you. Are you , uh , uh, are you the same person in every location and every situation? So we use all these tools, all these physical tools to peel back the layers and see who you really are and see if you're a good fit for the team. Um, so people are like, there is no physical standard. That doesn't mean it's not incredibly physically difficult. We're just using the physical , uh, tools , uh, to see who you are, to peel back the layers. Cause at a certain point you're going to show us who you are. Um, and, and , and we understand that. Um, I'm not working at A&S right now, but they understand that, Oh well we're right sizing this for some just coming into the air force. This isn't a , we stole a lot of things from , from other places, but they understand that if I , if I have an 18 year old person come in like a level of trainability suitability or ability that they're supposed to have that stage in their career, that's what we're looking for. So , uh, that's about it . Now when it comes to that , uh, Aaron , anything .
AARONYeah . So the big thing to remember here again is that we're looking to eliminate false negatives and false positives. And basically what that means is you could have a super fit dude. Like let's take it back to the old structure. And there is a super fit dude that can do grad standards from the day that they got to selection to the day that they graduated. And they just powered all the way through. But he was a terrible teammate. He had serious psychological issues. He was just a bad person to be around. You don't want that. That's as important. Character is almost more important than competence when we're talking about special operations, career fields. So we want to eliminate those false negatives. And the way that you do that as you include things like peer review, you include things like psychological evaluations. It's not just let's punch everybody in the face every single day. And then when the smoke clears, you're on team. We realized that there were, there were people that did not belong on team that got there. We also want to include , um, you know, those false positives, right? So you have a guy , uh , and let me, let me backtrack for a second. So what I just described you as a false positive. False negative is a guy that might not a guy or a girl. Let's say we set the standard at 70 for whatever you want, 70 pushups. Let's say that you have a teammate that was the best teammate that you've ever had. He was a solid leader. You knew that he was going to do well in combat and he was going to go on to do great things, but he could only do 68 pushups. Do those two pushups really mean that they shouldn't be a pararescueman or a combat controller or a special reconnaissance man? No, absolutely not. We need to be able to suss out those false negatives and those false positives so that we get the absolute best candidate. Now there's a lot of feelings on this of everybody and I'm sure you guys can weigh in with, you know, especially Brian and you know Trent working down there and getting the brunt of the career field, like, Oh, you're changing the standards. Absolutely not. The attrition rate, so the amount of people that we pass or the amount of people that we fail, whichever way you want to look at it has not moved. When I was the operation superintendent at the para rescue combat rescue officer school house , we did not see any uptake. As a matter of fact, our class numbers were going down because it's still hard. And we actually gave the instructors at assessment selection, more tools to select out for those false negatives and false positives to make sure that we're getting the best candidate possible. I think when we look at, look back at this in a year or two years, I think we're gonna find that we made the right move. But all change is scary and especially when something is as steep in tradition as that entire organization at Lackland air force base, there are always going to be feelings over it. Uh, however, you know, I think what we're looking for now, the way that we structure the course with stress inoculation, the evaluations, the mental evaluations, establishing that culture of teamwork, that personal accountability, looking for those attributes of a soft operator. I think that we're going to find that we're on the right side of history on this one, but change is just a little bit, a little bit scary. So , um, you know, Brian , how , how do you feel on the changes?
BRIANYeah. I think the important thing to remember is like you were talking about before, you can see somebody that's a high performer and they're just able to knock out a hundred pushups, you know, they're able to skill wise, do their three knots series or whatever underwater in like 15 seconds and they just got everything down. And I think that a person like that can be either they can tip a team one or the other way because everyone's going to look up stat guy and everyone's going to be like, man, how do I do this? And if that guy is a total, you know, piece of crap and he's not into being a teammate, then do any of us really want that guy to go out and be on our team? Maybe he's a superstar and he's like, you know, he's on the pro shooting team and he's just amazing at every single thing except for being a teammate. And you know, do we really want that guy to be on the ex with us whenever , um , you know, we're trying to go in a room and to trust them to have our back. Do we trust them to do those kinds of simple tasks that I think we want to , you know, breed into our, our own personal teams that we've had. Um , and I think the obvious answer is no, we don't want a guy that is just a performer and is not a teammate. We want people that are of high moral character people that, you know, we can talk to if something goes wrong because none of us are invincible. We know that things are going to go wrong. You know, somebody in the family passes away or you know, we something else bad happens, car accidents, whatever. We want guys that are going to be like, Hey dude, are you all right? Like, let me drive out there and make sure you're good to go. So what we want is that, and I think, you know, the old indoc standards wasn't able to really produce that. We did have peer evals and we gave you guys feedback on whatever we, you know, we thought we saw throughout the day and I gave them all candid feedback. Uh , but at the end of the day, we, our hands were tied and we weren't able to say like, you know, this guy may have performed, but he barely made it by, and he kinda just wasn't a teammate. He wasn't this even at the school house, who knows what he was like back in the dorm because that's a whole nother thing that we didn't even get to see all the time. Right . So , uh, you know, this is I think a step in the right direction. And like I said, it's, you know , sucks. We , we like our traditional thing, you know, we held indoc up to this high standard and it was a very high percentage attrition rate. Um, it's like you said, you, you're tracking the metrics on that and you know that it's still staying the same way. It's not going to be something easy this handed to you or anything like that. Um, just changing the tools in which we chip out our future operators. So , um, I think that change is always necessary, which is why we're making this whole podcast thing. Um , and we want you guys to be able to learn from this stuff. So yeah , again, we're, we're ever evolving. If we don't evolve then you know, we get left behind or die out. So. Yeah .
AARONAnd Jared does important that I want to hear, I want to hear your input on those man. Like you're, you're the hybrid , you're the old guy in the room. Uh , you're also the shortest guy in the room. You just look bigger on camera. The camera adds five inches to your height. But I mean, you went through it back in the day. I know you don't have a ton of experience with A&S as it stands now, but man, what's your personal experience with watching guys go through that old model and you know, do you disagree with us man? Like I'd love to hear your opinion on kind of how it went back then.
PEACHESSo it was, so when I went through, it was '99 and it was 10 weeks long. There was no, so what we did have is before, depending on when you would graduate basic training, you would do what was called prep team. And itwas , um, you know, one or two guys, one or two instructors that would run these guys through a prep course and then entering to indoc. So it was 10 weeks at the time. Um, it was, I mean, put her lightly, it was a a kick in the nuts, right? I mean, just like A and S is now, u m, I think we are training smarter now I think is not just the medical, you know, but also the, the physical and the fitness has increased. We've, we're training smarter and we're selecting smarter now in terms of the three 60 feedback or t he peer review, like we do that on team now. Like that doesn't stop and, and I think it's an important aspect and Trent. I know you brought it up that, that um, we're looking at every aspect of people and, and Aaron, you said that, you know, if one guy, misses , uh , misses a time by two or misses a , any vent by two pushups, should that God be on the mountain with us? You know, I , I think he should, if the guy can perform because guess what, if I've got a mission going on and the dude or the girl can, can run up the mountain and be able to talk to aircraft the fastest, but when they pick up t he mic, they just, they got nothing. Right? That doesn't do me any good. Right. But maybe I get the average person that can hike up the mountain and i s maybe a bit slower but then can also perform once they get up t here. Like that's the person that I want to be around and that's the person that I don't want on team and the person that I want either leading me or I want to lead that person. And that's been my experience so far as being a team chief. U h, when I was at my previous unit is these guys were, were switched on and much, much better than I was when I got to a team. I was, I was not impressive.
AARONWell that's good . The thing for me too, cause I , I mean I am an older guy. Like, I'm almost 40, but it's , it's really funny to hear guys in my peer group, like guys that are younger than me but have been in the career field longer than me and they're lamenting all of these things that these young guys are getting. I'm like, don't you want to grow bigger, faster, stronger, more well rounded operators? Isn't that your end goal? Um, so I always find that hilarious has been one of my favorite parts. Um, so the question like naturally begs itself, right? So we get to A&S we know what it's there for. Stress inoculation. We're going to do this physical and those mental evaluations. So that's awesome. But what can you do? So what can the average candidate do in order to set themselves apart and you know, taking physicality and all that other stuff out of it. So, you know, Trent I to want to , I want to turn it over to you. So what are the instructors looking for when you were an instructor down there? And when you're evaluating people for whatever career field, what do you, what are you looking for? What is the return that you want when you talk to students?
So when I was at the , the selection course, I was never part of A and S I moved to the desk a little bit before that all happened and I was over the prep course . But , um, I just want to see a good person, you know what I mean? Like I wanna see the positive mental attitude. I want to see someone that makes their teammates better. I don't want to see someone that's willing to push themselves , uh, for, to, to make mission happen. Cause that's at the end of the day, that's, that's everything. Um , yeah, the, the, the numbers that are, they are what they are and , and what candidates don't often see is sometimes we would have the guys in the past where it's like, Hey, you've got to do 10 pull ups. They do nine, but they're fantastic candidate and we're not heartless. Like we back on the team and we're like, is there any way we can get this, this person to the pipeline? And , uh, you know, because they're, they're a great leader . They bring something to the team, they add something. Um , the same person in the chow hall , uh , they treat everyone the same whether they're in these , uh , this community or not. And I'm just always pushing forward, always making everybody else better, always trying to be better. Um, and , and when, when it sucks, just, just sucking it up and put a smile on their face, encouraging their teammates and said, let's, let's go do it. Who cares? You know, to reach that point where they say, it doesn't matter. It's just pain. And what's the worst that can happen is that we get stronger. We all make it, you know, that kind of attitude. Um, so I think this is a, this step in the right direction cause as a setting attitude and character attributes. Um, it goes a long way in my book.
AARONYeah, absolutely. Brian, what , what did , what did you look for as an indoc and an A & S instructor and as a guy that helped write that curriculum? Like what, what did you look for when you designed the course? What were you thinking? These are the events because I want to see this.
BRIANAll right. So most importantly , um, I just want to put it out there. Like you said, we're all, like Trent was saying, we all want you to guys to succeed. We want to put forth our best effort and we like most of the guys that I had as a staff, we would stay at my 12 hour days, all the time, show up early, stay late at the pool with the guys and teach them as much as possible. So because we are so invested in the people that are coming through , um, one of the things that we really want to see is guys that are coachable, trainable, however you want to put it. Um, if you come in and you're some kind of, you know, Olympic swimmer or whatever, or even if you really suck, if we sit there and we spend time on you, I'm trying to teach you how to do the stroke. Um , the A&S or selection way. We don't want to sit waste our time. Cause a lot of times I'd see guys like I'd spend however much time with them teaching them how to do their mask correctly, teaching them how to like get their snorkel in their mouth, seal it, look straight up . Where did my shoes go? Yeah. So I would, you know, go through all these steps with them. I'm like, all right , let's practice it. And then you know, immediately as soon as they started ascending, they push off the bottom. Didn't look up. They're like, is that okay ? They're like Hooyah Sgt I feel fine. I was like, are you kidding me? I just freaking, you know, spent 30 minutes going over this stuff with you. You were doing it when I was coaching you, but now you just completely blacked out and didn't remember anything that we did. Or the swimming technique. Same thing. So coachability is one of the things and those guys that if I ever spent you know, time on you and tried to help you, if I didn't see you trying to implement it, then I, I stopped really trying to help you as much because there are, you know, 80 other guys or whatever on team that I can be spending time on that I actually going to put forth the effort to make what I, what needs to happen happen. So that that is a huge thing. And then the other thing that I like to see is teamwork in the , in the guys and being, you know, on all the teams, you always take care of the team, team gear first and then take care of whatever your personal stuff is. And those guys that I used to see helping each other out or looking around when things got tough and making sure their team was okay when things got tough rather than worrying about themselves. Are they really the guys that I, I saw succeed a lot more and their peer reviews reflected their team ethic . So those are a couple of things that I really look for and I set up events that were specifically like that or during a drop or during whatever type of event. We always look for those things. And uh, you know, stoicism also is one of those, one of the things that I like , some guys like some instructors like a little bit of a , you know, humor and I'm cool with it every once in a while, but when you get thrashed down squeal like a little girl don't squeal or make any annoying noises because that set me off more than anything else. And I just feel like, all right , you guys are going to freaking sit here for another hour until you guys learn how to like keep what using that attention seeking behavior. Yeah. One of our friends used to say, you want my attention? You got my attention. But yeah, those are some of the things that I look for.
AARONUm , for me, you know, as an instructor on the other side. Right. So I've done the, you know, I helped out with I think when pararescue was doing its own selection as opposed to the combined CCT selection, a CCT and PJ selection. Now that they're doing done a Herbie . Um, that was one of the things that I, you know, I focused on and it's more of a preparation question than anything else, but uh, it bears repeating like people always asked when I was at the apprentice course, what can I study, what should I be studying before I go to the course? And my answer was a little nonstandard and it was always, I would prefer that you come in, our job as instructors is to teach you and get you through the event. Part of that is I want to see you take in new information and just like you said earlier, Brian , I want to see you taking new information and then I want to see that you can apply it. You're not always going to be able to study for every combat situation. You're not going to be able to study for every real world situation. You're not going to be able to look ahead and be like, okay , I'm going to , I'm going to practice this. Some things of course, but that's part of the evaluation process is we want to get people that can take in new information and then immediately apply it. So more of a preparation question than anything else. But that's always what, you know, what I look for is as an instructor and young teammates or our young team members really are kind of the same , uh , same sort of thing. Um, you know, Jared, what , what was your experience with getting guys out of the pipeline and, and you know, what did you look for as a team Sergeant for those young guys?
PEACHESMan I looked for the dudes that were hungry, right? That they would get the team and they just, they couldn't get enough. They were just give me more, give me more. And if I didn't, if I didn't task them appropriately or I didn't give them enough work, they would finish it. And then like, Hey, what , what do we need? And they're either helping other dudes or they are , you know, driving a radio, learning how to program it. Just they're hungry and I can't give them enough at some point. So those are the guys that I'm looking for and, and that's, that has been my experience. Even even now. Yeah. We occasionally get one or two, right? Just like every single career field. Yeah . A couple are going to slip through the cracks. Got it. Understand that. Um, but the majority are fantastic and, and I think that goes across the entire SOF community because there's other career fields that are dealing with the exact same thing that you know, that the instructors that some of the basic courses are just getting spear shucked at him saying, Hey, you're making this easy or you're , you're , you know, lowering the standards when it's not the case. It's just we're training smarter. And the guys that were getting on team are wicked smarter and the people that were looking for, because you know, our recruiting is successful even though we still need to get our name out there even more. But we're getting the problem solvers, the critical thinkers. And that's what we're looking for. And with those 360 feedbacks and those peer reviews, like we're, we're able to identify those guys there .
Yeah, yeah, I would agree. And you know, we're, we're doing things the right way as far as that's concerned. And it's just, again, we're going to refine our process and keep going. My favorite thing to talk about, however, is stuff that we are not looking for. So things that make instructors mad. Every instructor, every team Sergeant has their own isms. This hits close to home with everybody that's been through any of the selections that I've been a part of. They know that I have my personal pet peeves. So we're going to , we're gonna stay away from isms, but we're gonna, we're gonna kinda talk about, you know, the things that we're not looking for. The biggest one for me that I had to put out there and talk about first is that spotlight ranger. So what is a spotlight ranger? It's that guy that just puts out, like, he'll be running a nine minute mile, right timed event, nine minute mile the whole time he's running with his team. He's just, he gets within 200 meters of that instructor and all of a sudden he's captain America, run in a seven minute mile, chest out, proud, singing the loudest. I just absolutely, it drives me absolutely insane. The spotlight ranger doing things for recognition only when you're only when you're there. Um , you know, worst, worst possible. Trent, what are some of your isms? What the , what don't you like to see out of candidates?
TRENTFirst thing I would say is , um , and candidates that know me will, will remember this is I hate when they cheer mediocrity, right? So I'm sure I'm sure for all the students in a way, but when you have that candidate that consistently just is not making it and all the, all the rest of his teammates and I get it, they're all, all bros, they went through BMT and everything else that , and this person is coming in the last one every event, and everybody's clapping and cheering for this dude. I lose my mind. My mind at this point, you understand that you're encouraging what we're not looking for. You know what I mean? Um, yeah. Other than that, it's just I can't stand people that show up, especially these days that don't know anything about the career fields. Like I get not knowing a lot, but if I do a quick Google search in front of the students, and I've put on a couple of keywords, like if I'm putting combat control and I'll ask them , who's your favorite combat controller? And they're like, I dunno, I made this huge life decision, didn't go onto the internet, which holds all of the world's information and do you know right in front of them. And I'll be like, well this is like a, it looks like dirt. Here's a combat controller. He's the first Google hit and they can't name a single person. So I'm a huge proponent of, of people doing research before they get there, whether it be physical or just knowing anything about what they signed up for is those are my two.
AARONYeah. And it's just part of that emotional maturity and solving . I mean it goes, you know, those are, it doesn't seem like a big thing, but it's a big thing. Like, just like you said, you decided to devote your life to this and you didn't do a whole lot of research. What about you? Their peach , which you got
PEACHESWell, first off, I've got to say, Trent, you've got to let me know if anybody shows up and says, Hey, Peaches is my favorite combat controller. I got a levy that is some point right there. So right back at your spotlight ranger. Anyway , um, I say, so for me on the team, it's when there's work that has to be done and everybody else is working and you gotta dude that is like, Hey man, I gotta go over and I got to do this thing or, or, and I'm not talking about like the whole, Hey, let's multitask, let's attack certain things and get guys spread out. I'm talking about dude, it's like, Hey man, I got, I just, that's, that's not me. You know, I'm not doing it. Or, you know, they just find a way to scurry on out , uh , under the radar. So that, that is a pet peeve of mine. That bugs the hell out of me. And, and at that point, once I, once I recognize it, you're marked now you may get, you may get a second shot, you know, and I don't mean like, Hey if you got some personal issues like family issues, man , Hey, got it. Cause for, and this is for me, this is not for everybody, but it is most of the SOF community, family dude, you got to take care of your family and guess what the bros on the team are also your family. So we care dudes . Right? But when I'm talking about and the three of you guys know as well as I do, there's a couple of dudes that'll just like skate, skate out whenever they can put him at work. So that , that's it for me.
AARONPretty sure I'll uh, I got one, I got a lot of isms as I already told you. So I'll just put this one in there. It used to frustrate me to no end when people would try to give me the answer that they thought I wanted as opposed to just answering the question. So it's like I would look at guys and I'd be like, Hey, what time is it right now? And they'd be like, all right , well listen. Growing up as an underprivileged kid in the middle of Illinois, I never knew what I wanted to do with my life. And then one day after it was lunchtime and I decided to be a PJ . I'm like, man, I just answered, answer the question. Just tell me what I want to hear. Quit. Quit doing this. Uh, I'm gonna , I'm going to bring it over to the old Silva back gorilla here because I'm sure there are a lot of people in the career field or right now that have some , uh, some strong feelings about you as a, as a cadre of what did you, what did you hate to see out of candidates ?
BRIANUh , so I got , uh, a couple pet peeves and a lot of these guys that are watching understatement of the podcast. Yeah. So a lot of these guys that are watching are gonna . This is going to hit like a little bit of a trigger for some of them. So, like I mentioned, we'll put it out there. Yeah, trigger warning. And have you guys met or victimized by Brian ? You remember this and my instructor voice. But anyway , um, the biggest one I already mentioned, you know, guys squealing and making noises. So I would yell a lot like stop making noises, just put in the freaking work and get the job done. That was a huge pet peeve of mine. And then also whenever guys, you know, we're doing, especially Memorial pushups and towards the end, you know, we always do our , our last three teamwork, fallen comrades and Pararescue, or Jared and you know , Trent and you guys maybe do sr, I don't know how they do it anymore, but anyways, those last three, especially with the fallen comrades, you know, they'll just spout out whatever, get the name wrong, get the rank wrong, get everything. And then they do some half- assed pushups and you know, expect us to just move on. So I would literally make , um, and I think all the instructors are on the same page, but let's make them do those three or the entire set over again until they did those last three correctly and somehow magically, even though they thought they were smoked , um, on the first set, they would finish the last set better than they did the first set. Because, you know, it's that trigger trigger warning. They're like, Oh crap, this is the only way that I'm going to get out of this is to actually do it correctly when they thought they could, like I said, half assed it and not do it correctly the first time . It turns out we just had to do it correctly. Yeah . It's like if you guys would have done it in the first place, we wouldn't be here for another freaking 30 minutes. All right . And then the last one that I'm just going to bring up here, I'll bring up some later on, is whenever, you know, especially when it's black Thursday, we tell the dudes to get their, get their abs or uniforms on, and I show up into the pool as the deck instructor and these guys are like slumped over looking down at the water. There's, they're just scared and just, you can feel the tension in the room. Their legs are shaking, looking around at each other. Like, is he staring at me? Oh no. I always tell them, yeah, chest out, head up . Be confident in what's going to happen because no matter what, you're going to have to freaking do it, right. I mean, you don't have any other options, just go down there, frigging knock it out. So, you know, projecting some of that confidence goes a long way. And I just hated seeing guys that are trying show up for special operations and not showing any confidence whatsoever. It's like week eight. You've been doing this for the last couple of weeks and you act like you're about to get,
AARONit's a little , uh , I like to call. You can't get out of it, so you might as well get into it. Man. You might as well have some fun with it and might as well look like you're motivated to be there cause the scunion is coming. So , um, you know, and for whatever, whatever kind of experience you might have, we all have pipelines , stories, right? So , um, you know, I definitely want to talk about some of our personal experiences. I'm going to , I'm going to start off with failure cause I like to be a transparent person. So fun story about me. I've been on four indoc teams in my life. I went through 2 almost completely , uh , back in 2002. So in January, 2002, winter teams are always harder. If you guys graduated a summer team, you're less of a man. I don't know what to tell you, but it's just the way it is.
Um, but I'll tell you the difference , uh, the difference between being an emotionally immature. So I was 22 I'd been to college for a little bit. I had other jobs, but as a 22 year old versus a 25 year old, I'm a 25 year old that had a child, a 25 year old that had a relationship, 25 year old. That grew up considerably. The differences and the lessons that I learned there were just night and day and it wasn't just the fact that I was a little bit older and I'd seen more of the world it was, it was different because I was the NCOIC on my team. I had a parade, we started with 130 candidates. We only graduated 20. Only nine of those actually went on and put on Berets , um, through a bunch of different circumstances and and, and whatever. But the parade of people in my room every night, that was just like, I want to quit. Like I had no time to myself. Well , looking back on it, that really took me out of the mindset and really helped me focus on other people. Those attributes that we just talked about. Looking for that scenario. I couldn't think about that. I was looking around constantly all day, whose gear isn't right? Who needs help, who's ruck isn't packed, who isn't ready to make this movement? Are we going to make our timeline? I didn't even realize until really years later I was like, Holy crap, I didn't think about myself one time of that just because of the situation, the situation and kind of changed . So those lessons learned, like if I could impart any lesson on being successful at A&S is allow yourself to distance yourself. It's totally okay to live meal to meal, event to event, but if you put other people first, you're not thinking about yourself. You're not getting into that pain cave on your own and feeling terrible about where you are as a human or thinking further down the road. Like if you're on a run and you're thinking about how you haven't passed buddy breathing in three days and you have an eval , you're not going to be successful with that run. You know? Not to get too touchy feely, but you really do need to be present in the moment in order to be given it Your 100%. So, you know, my indoc stories are , are many mainly because I had to go through it so many times. Um, I'd like to think I got better in the pipeline, but unfortunately the data doesn't support that so well I guess well I just have to deal with it, you know, where I am on the back end. But , um, you know, I definitely want to , I definitely want to hear it from you guys too. So what were some, some lessons and Trent we'll start with you, you know, through your selection that , um, you know, we , we have those reach-back moments. We have those things that we learned. What did you learn , um, you know, number one funny story or , or not about selection, but more importantly, what lessons did you learn from that and how could you impart that on somebody that's about to take that journey?
TRENTSo, becoming a SOWT in 2006 we didn't really have a selection, so my stories are pretty garbage. Uh, but it does lead into , um , why I am so passionate about training and doing it correctly and what it means for the career field. Uh, the , the , the difference, the big difference is , and I used to tell my students this is, I had to do a thing on my own. Um, get ready to become a SOWT. You had to , it's a long story, but you had to be a weather guy first. And then crossover. And the, the big problem we had is without that selection event , um , standardized is the career field was not what it could have been. Um, so , uh, I will say like it was kinda messed up road and I'm not trying to make it sound worse than it was or whatever, but I went to AST after my first deployment and um, so the lessons I take from, from my way into the community is that the pipeline is an incredibly good thing. I'll tell students today , um, I hate you guys cause you have the opportunity to go through the pipeline to be selected to training before your first deployment. I had, I got to Fort Bragg , I had a shooting school and six weeks up at Fort Campbell. And then I deployed , uh, to, to replace , uh, uh, SOWT that had been shot to pretty terribly . And that's a whole nother story for a whole nother day. And then I came back and went to the end of the , the combat control pipeline. Um, so it was, it was a disaster, but everything turned out okay. But if guys wonder like why, why I care so much about the selection process and pipeline in general and the way we perform training and where we've gotten my career field to today. U h, that's why. And so I'm not going to in front e ven a nd tell you, I did all selection courses, I went through everything and u m, y ou k now, the same as you guys. U h, cause it's j ust not true. But that's why I care so much.
AARONYeah. And that makes, that makes total sense, man. And I think those lessons are still there. And what's important is that you're, you're preventing that for future generations by getting those guys through. So Peaches over to you and what you got?
PEACHESWell, I mean, I know I've said this before, Hey, I was young and everything like that and I already told this story. But if I had to bring it down, the one thing I would say , um, some of my mistakes were made mistakes. And then what I would do is for successes not compare. Don't worry about what everybody else is doing. And you kind of touched on that a little bit, Aaron , when you talked about being the NCOIC or the , the noncommissioned officer in charge and an indoc team. Right? But I mean, I compare it all the time. I was a young dude, that's all I knew how to do is compare. And I got these, you know, these studs with these Adonis bodies and like how these guys are come through and crush it. And here I am, all five foot four, right? I mean , I'm standing on the standing right now. So it makes it look like I'm tall, I'm sorry, that is on purpose. This is intentional, right? So , um, but these guys are just these massive dudes and, and you know, and they're generally good guys, right? And so immediately we would weed out the, the dudes that they just were not good, good guys. They weren't a good fit. Right? So that was easy. And then I started to see some of these guys either fail, right? Because I , they go to muscle failure or they just get crushed in the pool or then, which even then I was like, Hey man, I'm , if, if they can't physically pass it, how am I going to pass it? And then I would be these guys that are obviously more mature older than me, especially with some cross trainees come in and then they'd start to quit. And I'm like, God man, how, how am I gonna pass or what chances do I have and making it if these guys are already quitting and Man just, I gotta get out or not now, but I needed to get out of that comparing, I just needed to be my own person. Like you said, be present in the moment and stop worrying about what other people are going through because I don't know what they're going through. I know what you're going through in the moment when I'm getting breaths taken during buddy breathing or I'm doing 10 ups in the pool or I'm doing underwaters or Hey, my short little legs can't ruck fast enough for it as everybody else, which is still the case today. Sure . Whatever.
AARONRight. I don't know . Before I toss it over to Brian and we'll put a funny thing out that I just thought about, but you talk about like watching other people quit and stuff. Does anybody else have the same thing as me? But every time you saw somebody quit, it just gave you a little bit of power. It was like you were the Highlander. Like there was only gonna be one and you got to take that person's strength when they, when they left the event. I know that's not a good teammate thing to say, but uh, you know, some days it would kind of get me through the day to know that I was at . Ah , okay . Brian, what about you?
BRIANI don't know about the Highlander thing, you know, but I'm with Peach on, you know, just feeling like I'm not a tall dude either. I'm like five, seven or whatever, and I was 150 pounds, so I wasn't a huge guy or anything like that, but there were a couple of guys that I could think of right now just off the top of my head that were just like, just massive and like, you know, I thought they're the manliest amend. They just had that chiseled jaw and they're just, you know, what you think of when you think about a special operations person. I was like, dang, I don't know if I'm going to be able to like, do this thing. And then you see the grads and they're all jacked and they're just like, it's kind of intimidating, but yeah, I'm totally with you on that thing. Um, as far as, you know, personal lessons , uh, I had, you know, a little bit of a unique experience when I was going through indoc. Uh, mostly because, I mean, the , the most lasting lesson that I had was , uh, my team commander dying during indoc. It's not a common occurrence that that happens, but , um, you know, it was like seventh week it was black Thursday and everything we were doing our first time, we did a giant stride and with a 50 meter underwater, they threw a bunch of stuff in the pool to, you know, that we had to swim around. Um, anyway, we did this 50 meter and Major Brian, Adrian , uh, who was my team commander, he ended up passing out like he had done multiple times before. And , uh, you know, he just wasn't able to be resuscitated at that point. Um , what I carried away from that was, you know, basically if he was willing to give his life for that and he was, you know, believed in this cause so much. And as soon as the person that I looked up to, he looked after the entire team and everything. Um, you know, if he was willing to give all this up to do this career path and how could I possibly ever quit at any of these things that I'm doing? Like, you know, that was a huge thing. So I guess like, you know, opposite ends of ends of the spectrum, you see somebody who's like not really trying and , um, you know, makes it through or whatever. You know, I used to do that to guys that were like, I thought were in less good shape than I was, and I was like, yeah , I don't know if they're still, they're still here, then I definitely can be here. But opposite end is major Adrian, where he's put out 100% on every single thing. It's like, dang, this guy. I needed to like, you know, catch up to him because he was just a beast of a, of a dude. So , um, you know, comparing yourself to others , um, helps a little bit but you know, using that and it really helped me leap forward and know that I can crush anything as long as I, you know, reach back and use that tool set that that was given to me during a selection or indoc. And you know, I'm appreciative to Major Adrian all the time when, when I think back on those stories, so that was a little bit unique. We have those role models, right? Like people, you know, no matter what the questions are about
AARONhow can I be successful, what are the instructors looking for, what should I not do in front of the instructors or whatever funny stories we may have. Like, I mean that's a great place to kind of wrap it up is you want to be that Major Brian Adrian type. You want to be that guy or that gal that's putting out at 110% all the time. Just giving it your all and trying to try to literally do the best that you possibly can because , because the job is worth it. And not to get too dramatic at the end of this, but you know, we just laid Tech Sergeant Peter Kraines to rest . Like that guy gave 110%. He was the type of human that would make you feel worse about yourself cause he was such a good dude. And you know, he unfortunately died on a training accident just recently, but , um, 200 Berets showed up to that guy's Memorial and he was, he was one of those major, Major Brian Adrian types to text . And Peter cranes was the man and he put out 110% at everything. So I think if, if people listening to the podcast are people that are getting ready to go to whatever selection that you're getting ready to go to, I think it's important to have those people in your mind and have something to shoot for , um, and really know about it. So, yeah, that was awesome. Appreciate that answer.
BRIANDid it mean to dampen the mood? I didn't want to bring everyone down. All right. But that's not a common occurrence. Also, people don't always dye it in . Don't be scared. If we need to align them then I could always do like a little bit dance or something like that on the side .
I would appreciate that. However, let's talk about, let's talk about our partnerships as a , as we did the last one, we partnered with Alphabrew coffee , uh, to get you guys the best possible product that we can. So Alphabrew coffee. It's a military LEO owned and operated business producing some of the best single blend coffees they've got. No. Uh , they've got no, no blends are all single origin coffees . So the barrel aged bourbon is amazing. The Truest Tanz is my favorite. CBD coffee, although I haven't tried it myself cause you can't ingest CBD. The um, the benefits of CBD if you are allowed to take it are out there. That helps us sleep. It helps with anxiety. A couple that with a nootropics that we put an Alphabrew or that , uh , you know, the guys over at Alphabrew put in their coffee. And not only do you have the best tasting coffee out there, and I'd say, cause I, I, I drank it. It's amazing. Um , but the clarity, the mental focus, crash, very clean energy. You're not jittery at all. A couple of that with delicious , uh, you know, Tanzania and single source coffee is outstanding. Um , and more importantly, they're aligned to what we're doing here. They support what we're doing. We're so we support what they're doing. So go check them out. They're on Alphabrew , uh , alphabrewcoffee.com. Uh , if you put the ONESREADY code in at the time of your checkout, you'll get 10% off. And that's forever. So when you try it and you found out that you love it and you go, you continue to go back, you're always gonna be able to do that. So Alphabrew coffee , uh , one's ready. I'm gonna pass over to you, Jared , cause we got another, another partner that I work with. And , uh , you're all, you're all hopped up. Tell me why.
And you guys didn't see me drinking it this entire time. That's fine. But uh, these guys, Strike Force energy, they are a, they were founded by some seals so um, they are an energy drink and they actually come in these little sachets here. So liquid, you just mix it with some water or whatever beverage of your choice and it'll , it gets you hopped up and going, whether it's for a pre workout or whether it's just your, you got your afternoon post-lunch crash. So check it out. If you go over to strikeforceenergy.com and enter the promo code ONESREADY, you guys will get 15% off. Enjoy it. And I recommend the lemon right now. That's what I'm on .
AARONI'm going to , you're the one, huh? Well that's it for , uh , that's it for number two. We talked about A&S guys, go follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Just look up ones ready to go to www.onesready.com Drop your email on there. You're going to be the first to know about all types of stuff. Maybe a , maybe we've got some shirts coming out. Who knows? Maybe we got some stickers on deck . Who knows. Um, but go drop your email, follow us on Instagram @onesready and get ready to take that next journey. I'm going to turn it over to the boss because the boss always speaks last. What do you got Brian ?
BRIANI appreciate it Aaron. And again, thank you all for listening to this podcast. Our goal is to provide you with the best content possible. Again today. I think what you should really take away from this, and there was a common theme amongst all of us when we were talking. The first thing is , uh , be coachable, be trainable. Um, that is a huge thing that we want to impart on you guys. We're not looking for because the indoc shift over to A&Sve, we're not looking for guys that can only perform like we were talking about before. We want a guy that we could trust, a teammate, a person that we want to have our backs. And whenever we deploy our families know , you know, our wives and kids know that, Hey, it's okay because you know, Aaron , Trent and Jared are going to be with him on this deployment. So I know that they're going to do everything in their power to make sure that my husband comes home. So we think of it on that level , um, in the future because you know, we all have families and we want to take care of, we're all a part of a family as well. So we take care of each other and we want guys that are of high character that are going to go through selection. That's why we talked about the shift change into selection , um, being able to perform the task of course, but also being a person of high character in addition to that. And, and with that , um, you know, being a good teammate whenever you go out there, we talked about some of our pet peeves and things that we don't like to see as instructors cause we all have instructor experience, even a , you know, peach, even though it's not in selection. He's been an instructor before and every instructor has their pet peeves that they want guys to impart on because not because like it's only annoying, but it's annoying because we want guys that are going to represent our career fields appropriately. Whenever we go and deploy with the seals or go and deploy with whoever, partner nations, we want our standards to reflect in a good way on, you know, the product that we're putting out. So we want to make sure that that's there. Um, so I think those are important and again , um , just learn, spread the word about this podcast and teach each other, link up. Um, you can go onto the ones ready page , um, onto the Instagram. Link up with someone, somehow motivate each other, test yourself before you head out to selection. If you're in the career field, then please spread the word about us. We're trying to help the dudes out and we're just trying to make the future generation better than we ever were. That's all of our goals, our hearts . Totally in this. Thank you guys very much for listening. Appreciate it. Hopefully I'll see you on the next episode and check out that , uh , Alphabrew and Strike Force Energy. Use those promo codes and get ready for that next video. All right. Thanks again, guys. A pardon? Shots? Nah . Nope . All right , catch you guys next time.