Recruits can enlist straight into Special Forces. These recruits go through basic training and then immediately enter the Special Forces training pipeline. If they fail or are simply aren’t selected during the Special Forces assessment, they are re-assigned to infantry.

Training to become a special forces officer is long, tough, and intense and so drop out rates are high. Special forces officers must perform physically and mentally in dangerous and highly stressful situations. In the United States, personnel wishing to become special forces officers must be no more than 25 years old.

You’ll complete that training in six stages over 63 weeks. The first trial is a two-week Special Operations Preparation Course, or SOPC. This course prepares possible candidates for the actual Special Forces Assessment and Selection – the first official phase of Green Beret training.

VILSECK, Germany — Soldiers who join Special Forces can get an extra $1,000 a month, while current SF troops are eligible for up to $150,000 in re-enlistment bonuses as the Army moves to add 2,300 Green Berets over four years.

‘ ” There is also a range of bonuses available across USASOC. Special Forces soldiers can make between $4,400 and $72,000 to re-enlist, depending on rank, length of contract and special skills. Some helicopter maintenance and crew members in the 160th SOAR can make between $2,600 and $36,800.

Training for special operations is more demanding than its requirements. While Army Green Beret training is extraordinarily demanding, the overall consensus is that Navy SEAL training is the most challenging of any elite ops group in the U.S. Armed Forces.

United States Army Special Forces

Understanding the Basic Qualifications. Be the right age and gender. To qualify for the Green Berets, you must be a man. You also must be between the ages of 20 and 30 years old.

There isn’t any big secret about passing selection, in fact to those of us who worked out there the saying used to be, “the answer is so simple that it is hard.” It is all about you the individual. Selection is 70 percent mental and 30 percent physical. You don’t have to look like an NFL linebacker to pass the course.

No, the Army Special Forces (Green Berets) are not Tier 1 unit. In fact, special mission units are Tier 1 units and are commanded and controlled by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).

In July, the soldier, whose identity has been kept secret, graduated from the grueling, 53-week Special Forces Qualification Course (Q Course) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, becoming the first woman to earn the Special Forces tab and coveted Green Beret.

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