United States Army Special Forces selection and training


The Special Forces Qualification Course or, informally, the Q Course is the initial formal training program for entry into the United States Army Special Forces. Phase I of the Q Course is Special Forces Assessment and Selection. A candidate who is selected at the conclusion of SFAS will enable a candidate to continue to the next of the four phases. If a candidate successfully completes all phases they will graduate as a Special Forces qualified soldier and then, generally, be assigned to a 12-men Operational Detachment "A", commonly known as an "A team." The length of the Q Course changes depending on the applicant's primary job field within Special Forces and their assigned foreign language capability but will usually last between 56 and 95 weeks.

Special Forces Qualification Course

Special Forces Preparation Course

This 6 week performance-oriented course includes physical conditioning, map reading and land navigation instruction; land-navigation practical exercises, and common-task training. The goal is to prepare and condition 18X and REP-63 soldiers to attend Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course and the follow-on Special Forces Qualification Course.

Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS)

A version of SFAS was introduced as a selection mechanism in the mid-1980s by the Commanding General of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at the time, Brigadier General James Guest.
Soldiers have two ways to volunteer to attend SFAS:
  • As an existing soldier in the US Army with the enlisted rank of E-3 or higher, and for officers the rank of O-2 promotable to O-3, or existing O-3s.
  • Initial Accession or IA, where an individual who has no prior military service or who separated from military service first attends Infantry One Station Unit Training, Airborne School, and a preparation course to prepare for SFAS. This program is commonly referred to as the "X-Ray Program", derived from "18X". The candidates in this program are known as "X-Rays". Active duty and National Guard components offer Special Forces Initial Accession programs. The active duty program is referred to as the "18X Program" because of the Initial Entry Code on the assignment orders.

    Training at SFAS

The first phase of the Special Forces Qualification Course is Special Forces Assessment and Selection, consisting of twenty-four days of training at Camp Mackall.
SFAS includes numerous long-distance land navigation courses. All land navigation courses are conducted day and night under heavy loads of equipment, in varied weather conditions, and in rough hilly terrain. Land navigation work is done individually with no assistance from instructors or fellow students, and is accomplished within a time limit. Each land navigation course has its maximum time limit reduced as course moves along, and are upwards of each. Instructors evaluate candidates by using obstacle course runs, team events including moving heavy loads such as telephone poles and old jeep trucks through sand as a 12-man team, the Army Physical Fitness Test, a swim assessment, and numerous psychological exams such as IQ tests and the Defense Language Aptitude Battery test. The final event is a road march of up to known as "the Trek" or Long Range Individual Movement.
Selection outcomes:
  • Quitters are Voluntarily Withdrawn by the course cadre, and are generally designated NTR or Not-to-Return. This generally ends any opportunity to become a Special Forces soldier. Active Duty military candidates will be returned to their previous units, and IA 18X candidates will be re-trained into a new MOS based upon the needs of the Army.
  • Medically dropped are often permitted to "re-cycle", and attempt the course as soon as they are able.
  • Candidates completing the course but who are "Boarded" and not selected are generally given the opportunity to attend selection again in twelve or twenty-four months.
After selection at SFAS, all Active Duty enlisted and IA 18X candidates will be briefed on:
Candidates complete a "wish list". Enlisted candidates rank the available MOS in order of preference. Officer candidates will attend the 18A course. Both enlisted and officer candidates list in order of preference the SF Groups in which they prefer to serve and the languages in which they prefer to be trained.
Language selection is dependent on the Defense Language Aptitude Battery test scores of the candidate, as well as the SF Group to which they are assigned. Different SF Groups focus on different areas of responsibility, which require different languages. A board assigns each enlisted and officer candidate their MOS, Group placement, and language. The MOS, Group, and language a selected candidate is assigned is not guaranteed and is contingent upon the needs of the Special Forces community. Generally, 80% of selected candidates are awarded their primary choices.
Successful Active Duty candidates usually return to their previous units to await a slot in the Special Forces Qualification Course. Because an Initial Accession 18X candidate lacks a previous unit, they will normally enter the Q Course immediately.
All SF trainees must complete the United States Army Airborne School before beginning Phase 2 of the Q-Course.

Course Orientation and History: Phase I (7 weeks)

Course Description: Phase 1 of the SFQC is the SF Orientation Course, a seven-week introduction to SF. Dubbed the Orientation and History module, the course falls under the auspices of the 4th Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group. The course is separated into six modules:

Module A – Introduction to Unconventional Warfare

This module exposes the students to the overall learning objectives and outcomes of the SFQC, trains them in tactical guerrilla warfare, and provides them the operational and strategic context under which they will train for the remainder of the SFQC. Under the supervision of the cadre in Robin Sage and mentorship of the "G" chiefs, the students are expected to complete this phase with a firm understanding of what will be expected of them throughout the remainder of the SFQC and the importance of unconventional warfare in the Special Forces mission.

Module B – Introduction to Special Forces

This module is intended to provide the soldiers an understanding of Special Forces, their history, organization, attributes, and core tasks relating to their mission. Lessons include SFOD-A and SFOD-B numbering convention, command and control architecture, joint special-operations area, duties and responsibilities of each MOS, SF planning and organization, core mission and tasks, SOF physical fitness and nutrition. The training prepares potential Special Forces soldiers for what is expected of them and the standards they must acquire to graduate the SFQC and be members of the Army Special Forces.

Module C – Airborne Operations and Refresher

This module allows soldiers to maintain their jump proficiency and prepare for the training they will encounter throughout the SFQC.

Module D – Special Forces Planning

This module provides the soldiers an understanding of the Special Forces Mission Planning process. The soldiers are given classes on the Military Decision Making Process followed by a practical exercise that reinforces the training.

Module E – Operational Culture and Regional Analysis

This instructional module gives students a foundation of the battlespace including: operational culture and a systems' analysis of an area. The lessons include a view of that soldier's cultural lenses, leading to an understanding of the perspective of others as well as the use of PMESII-PT system of regional analysis to deduce the capabilities, people and environment of a given area. The Pineland Area Study will be used as the basis for analysis allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the training environment. The acronym PMESII-PT refers to a form of environmental analysis to examine the aspects of political, military, economic, social, information, infrastructure, physical environment, and time aspects of the military theater.

Language and Culture: Phase II (18–25 weeks)

Phase 2 of the SFQC focuses on language and culture. During Phase 2, soldiers receive basic special-operations language training in the language assigned to them at the completion of Special Forces Assessment and Selection. Languages are divided into four categories based on their degree of difficulty for native speakers of English. Soldiers assigned a Category I or II language will be enrolled in an eighteen-week language program, while soldiers assigned a Category III or IV language attend twenty-four weeks of language training.
Students receive instruction in three basic language skills: speaking, participatory listening, and reading. An overview of physical and social systems, economics, politics and security, infrastructure, technology, culture, and regional studies forms the cultural component. Language instruction focuses on functional application geared toward mission-related tasks, enhanced rapport building techniques, cultural mitigation strategies, interpreting, and control of interpreter methods. Also during Phase 2, a progressive physical training program prepares for Phase 3.
To complete Phase 2, soldiers achieve a minimum of 1/1 Listening and Speaking as measured by the two-skill Oral Proficiency Interview.

Small Unit Tactics & SERE: Phase III (13 weeks)

Small Unit Tactics is the third phase in the qualification course. The 13-week program provides soldiers in the SFQC the apprentice-level tactical combat skills required to successfully operate on an SFOD-A.
Students master these tactical skills: advanced marksmanship; small-unit tactics; SF common tasks; urban operations; mission analysis; advanced special operations level 1; sensitive-site exploitation; military-decision-making process.
At the end of Phase 3, soldiers enroll in SERE Level C for training in support of the Code of Conduct. Training includes survival field craft skills, techniques of evasion, resistance to exploitation, and resolution skills in all types of environments. Students participate in a survival and evasion field-training exercise and in a resistance-training laboratory. The course spans three weeks with three phases of instruction. The first phase lasts approximately ten days of academic instruction on the Code of Conduct and SERE techniques incorporating classroom training and hands-on field craft.
The second phase is a five-day field training exercise for students to practice their survival and evasion skills by procuring food and water, constructing evasion fires and shelters, and evading tracker dogs and aggressor forces over long distances. The final phase takes place in the resistance-training laboratory -- students are tested on their individual and collective abilities to resist interrogation and exploitation, and properly apply the six articles of the Code of Conduct in a realistic captivity scenario.