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During the past year, the Special Forces training pipeline has undergone fundamental changes in the way that it assesses, selects and trains its students.
The SF pipeline formerly consisted of the three-week Special Forces Assessment and Selection, or SFAS; and the Special Forces Qualification Course, or SFQC, which was organized into three phases: SF common skills; SF MOS training; and the comprehensive field-training exercise, Robin Sage. Prior to their selection for the SFQC, candidates were assessed during SFAS. Following the SFQC, soldiers received training in foreign languages and in the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE, Course.
SF training now begins during the candidates' first contact with the SF cadre. The cadre's assessment of students continues throughout the six phases of the new SF training pipeline: SFAS and SFQC (Phases 1-4), language school (Phase 5), and the SERE Course (Phase 6).
The Special Warfare Center and School's 1st Special Warfare Training Group, or 1st SWTG, has been reorganized to facilitate the changes in the SF pipeline. The responsibility for executing SF training was formerly the mission of the 1st SWTG's 1st Battalion. The 1st Battalion now shares that responsibility with three other battalions in the 1st SWTG.
Phase 1
As part of the training revision, SFAS is now identified as Phase 1. SFAS is only the beginning of a soldier's assessment for SF. The SFAS cadre, formerly aloof judges of candidates' performance, now teach, coach, and mentor candidates while they assess candidates' trainability and suitability for continued attendance in the SFQC. Cadre members do not discuss the selection standards with students; instead, they encourage students to do their best. The diagram above represents the changing balance between assessment and training throughout the six phases of the SF training pipeline.
Once a soldier has been assessed as trainable and suitable for continued SF training, he is scheduled for a permanent-change-ofstation assignment to Fort Bragg, as a member of the new student company in the 1st SWTG's Support Battalion.
Student Company
Activated in March 2001, Student Company (officially Company D, Support Battalion) is responsible for performing all administrative and support functions for students in the SFQC. Trainer/adviser/counselors, or TACs, from the student company mentor students so that they will have the best possible chance of succeeding...