“May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.”


"This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people . . . better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave." ~ Captain Malcom Reynolds

Monday, August 4, 2008

Fish in different water

This interesting bit of news has a bit of bitching & moaning going on in the Special Warfare community - The U.S. Coast Guard has apparently reached an agreement to allow Coasties to attend BUD/S training, become qualified as SEALs and be assigned to the Teams for a period of 5-7 years before returning to the knee-deep Navy...

More qualified people than me have argued the merits of this back and forth - but I tend to find myself on the side of the fence saying #1 - at 5-7 years the guy is just at the point of being a really good operator, and you're going to pull him out of the environment and expect him to adjust to fleet life again? Ain't gonna happen - the guys who make it that far & that long have the frogman mindset burned into them & aren't going to want to play other games; and #2 - what freaking need does the CG have for special warfare operators?

If they want to improve their shipboarding, CQB and similar skills, hire some retired Teamguys & build a training cadre - doing it this way is akin to buying the $50,000 SUV because you like the cupholders in the backseat; you're wasting a lot of time & effort for a couple of skillsets.

My personal feeling is that this stems from the mystique around special operations & that now the USCG wants to be able to claim the same; and the fact that special warfare has always been a little more generous with the checkbook for toys & training & they want part of that too.

I'll be interested to see how this one actually turns out.
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2 comments:

Tam said...

re: Your closing observation.

Sooner or later, they're just going to include everyone in SOCOM, then we can have the largest standing force of specops troopies in the world.

I mean, you realize that it's only because the USCG is in DHS that they haven't already been tasked to stand up a unit of... I don't know... tactical whaleboat drivers to donate to the MacDill empire.

August 11, 2008 at 5:02 AM
Captain Tightpants said...

Very true - part of what happened with USMC a few years ago under similar circumstances.

The problem is when you make everyone "special" then no one really is... you dumb down the whole mix. IMHO at least.

But what do I know - I was against the Army giving everyone berets, and look how that has improved things....

August 11, 2008 at 4:19 PM

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