The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
Naval Special Warfare Podcast
We bring you the experts, the insiders, the real SEAL and SWCC operators that live the dream. You’ll learn the insider tips of special warfare training, fitness, motivation, mental toughness, and the application process. The Only Day Was Yesterday is the official U.S. government Navy SEAL and SWCC podcast. The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday is not only the name of our Official Navy SEAL and SWCC podcast, it’s a meme that means everything at Naval Special Warfare.
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22 Medal of Honor Recipient Britt Slabinski on Leadership Under Pressure
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
02/22/19 • 37 min
00:22
On May 24, 2018 Navy SEAL Command Master Chief Britt Slabinski was invited to the White House and presented with the Medal of Honor. He was awarded the nation’s highest military honor for his actions in 2002 when he led his team on a daring rescue mission to save their teammate who was wounded behind enemy lines. In this episode, Command Master Chief Slabinski talks about the importance of team mentality when facing adversity and what service means to him.
00:56
DF: Thank you for sharing some of your time with us for one. That’s, that means a lot I think to have your perspective voice in on the podcast, so thank you for sharing some of your time with us to start with.
01:05
BS: Certainly, happy to be here.
01:06
DF: For people that might not know you, if you could just briefly introduce yourself and tell us your history with the Navy. I know it’s not brief but...
01:12
BS: Certainly, so I am Britt Slabinski. I am a retired Command Master Chief, served 26 years mostly all of that in the SEAL teams and mostly all East Coast teams. Went through with BUDS class 164, graduated with that in January 1990, and then served with SEAL Team Four for a few years and then served to, with Naval Special Warfare Development Group and served at group two as a Command Master Chief and then retired from Naval Special Warfare Command. In March of 2002, deployed to Afghanistan January 2002, but in March of that year, conducted an operation called Operation Anaconda, where I led a seven-man reconnaissance team onto a snow covered 11,000-foot mountain peak to conduct over-watch operations, reconnaissance operations. During that operation, one of my teammates, upon landing our helicopter landing on top of the mountain, we received heavy RPG, rocket propelled grenade fire, machine gun fire. Damaged the helicopter badly, and one of my teammates was ejected from the aircraft. Teammate’s name was Neil Roberts. So, my helicopter crash-landed in a valley, and I made the decision to launch an immediate rescue mission with my remaining team members back up to the mountain, up against superior numbers, heavily armed enemy force. And for those actions during that day, I was awarded the Medal of Honor.
02:52
DF: And I understand that just happened recently as far as receiving the award. Is that correct?
02:57
BS: I did. It happened May 24th at a ceremony, at the White House presented, presented to me not too long ago. (DF: Oh wow, so just, yeah not too long ago at all.) Yeah, not too long ago at all.
03:03
DF: That must have been pretty, that must have been a pretty amazing experience.
03:06
BS: It was. It’s still very surreal, and I don’t think surreal is the right word for it (DF: Yeah, right?), but it is still very, very surreal, amazing experience indeed, but...
03:17
DF: Yeah, yeah, tough to wrap your mind around I’m sure. So, let’s rewind back to joining the Navy. What or who inspired you to do that?
03:24
BS: So, I think like most youth, graduating from high school, I’m trying to figure out want do I want to do with my life, and from an early age on, I was involved in Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts was the kind of foundation of my life, and I became an Eagle Scout, and from what I learned in scouting, that really became the foundation of my life, Boy Scout oath, Boy Scout law, those things are what I made decisions from. They were vitally important to me growing up and still are to this day. My father was also a UDT guy, so he was in Naval Special Warfare really back in the early days. He went through one of the beginning classes of it, class 13 back in the (DF: Wow, that’s interesting) early 1950s (DF: Wow). So, when I was around 13, 14 years old, my dad took me to a SEAL reunion where he introduced me to some of his teammates. And from that moment on, I thought, “Wow, he’s introduced me to this other family that he had,” and I thought, “This looks like something very interesting that I want to do.” Very difficult job, difficult selection process for the job, but very crucial, important work on behalf of the nation. So, retiring from high school, I made the decision that I wanted to do something that was more important for me to do. I wanted to contribute. I wanted to serve my nation, and for me, that was joining the Navy and then applying to go to the SEAL program.
04:46
DF: Did you know what you wanted to do with the SEALs whenever you first joined? I know, at that point, there might not have been nearly as much media coverage about what the teams even did, but did you have an idea of kind of what you wanted to do with the Teams?
04:58
BS: I certainly did, because my dad introduced me to it. I’m from North Hampton, Massachusetts, so western Massachusetts, so as you can imagine there wasn’t a big presence (DF: ...
#9 Injury Prevention
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
07/09/18 • 45 min
00:00:02:05
The only easy day was yesterday. (Intro)
In training, when you push yourself to the limits there is always a risk of injury. In the special operations field this is even further magnified. Today we speak about the fundamentals of fitness and injury prevention with expert Don Kessler, a man from the highest levels of competition. He is on the ground every day helping Special Warfare trainees perform their best and has some solid advice. Let’s get started.
00:00:43
DF: Thanks for taking the time to sit down with us and speak about what you do for NSW. First, let’s talk a little bit about you for a minute, 40 plus years of physical fitness background with athletes varying from high school students to Olympians. What do you think uniquely qualifies you for your specialized position that you have at NSW?
00:01:10
DK: Well, I started out as a hospital corpsman after getting my master’s degree in physical education, and this was during the Vietnam time, and I eventually got stationed at the US Naval Academy and working as a hospital corpsman there. I moved into athletic training as my profession, but I had years of experience in the military going into that, and I loved it so much that I decided I was getting out of the military to continue on in athletic training. So, I went through, again, working in high schools, colleges. I worked at the Olympics, I worked with US Soccer, so there were many different variations I went to, and when the time came to retire from college athletics, I didn’t feel like I should stop. And so, I contacted some people in the NSW community that I knew and said, “I think I could be some help or benefit to them,” and they said, “We agree.” They thought that my experiences would be able to help teach some of these people some of the things that we do in athletics but also that we should treat the NSW people as Division 1 or professional athletes.
00:02:17
DF: How does the training that you do now specialize from the typical sports medicine that you’ve seen earlier in your career?
00:02:25
DK: My job in the medical side of BUDS training is that I’m to do the functional rehabilitation. So, we have three physical therapists that work with us that will work with the initial part of an injury, and I’m to functionally get them back into full action. They call it the BRIGS program, taking you from the very simple things of coming out of an injury or post-op and getting you back to able to do the obstacle course. So, that’s what my job is, it’s unique among any of the programs that we have in that I have to know what are the things that they ask of the students, both SEAL and SWCC, to make it through the training. And so, my functional rehabilitation is built towards what do you need to do to pass, or what do you need to do to pass through Hell Week or the tour.
00:03:21
DF: So, it is very similar to a lot of other athletic training, you just, a different kind of endgame, so to speak, in terms of what their capabilities need to be?
00:03:30
DK: It’s, like with any sport, and as I used to tell the students that I would have as athletic training students, that you have to look at the team you’re working with and know what is required of them in each thing and even watch people coach them and decide if I’m going to rehab them, what am I doing specifically for that sport. If it’s a thrower, if it’s a swimmer, if it’s a runner, I need to know specific things I need to do to get them back to full rehabilitation. And so, what I did was spend about two months just watching what they did in training and say, “All right, when I go to do my rehab, these are the things that I’m going to need to incorporate in the functional training to get them back to full 100%.
00:04:19
DF: Is there differences because of the loading that these guys are under a lot of times with heavy packs? It seems like to me that that’s one of the differences between training for a marathon or another body weight endurance sport versus the types of things that these operators do. They carry a lot of gear. Would you say that that’s accurate?
00:04:39
DK: In the, in the early phases of training, the heavy gear is just moved from one place to another. It’s not something that they’re really training with. They will eventually step it up and move it up, and they get later phases, but most of the problems we run into are things that involve endurance, whether it’s a run, whether it’s a swim, whether it’s an obstacle course, and we have to get them ready to be able to handle those and repeat those over and over and over again.
00:05:09
DF: Do you see that the injuries that you typically see are, like you just mentioned, are a result fro...
#7 NSW: A Female Perspective
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
06/26/18 • 47 min
00:00:02
The only easy day was yesterday. (Intro)
00:00:22
(Angie Giovannini Intro) In two thousand fifteen, the Department of Defense announced that they were opening front-line combat roles to women for the first time in American history. In two thousand sixteen, they were given the opportunity to apply to the Navy SEALs and SWCC. But female sailors have deployed with SEAL teams and other special operations units for years in important, front-line roles.
In this episode, I speak with two such women who have deployed multiple times with America’s elite special operations units, and still serve with them today.
First you’ll hear from Jannelle, who is serving on active duty with the training staff at BUD/S.
00:01:00
AG: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. I know you have a pretty unique perspective, and so let’s start out with you just telling us a little bit about what you do, how you got to where you are, a little background.
00:01:11
J: Sure. I’ve worked with NSW in the past. My last command was here in Coronado, so that’s a SWCC command, and I was approached from my Command Master Chief about the women in Special [Operations] Forces and if I wanted to support that initiative and come to the Center and kind of be in the role where you establish the transition from just a male pipeline to open it to females. So, obviously, I was totally, totally onboard with going over to the Center just cause I love the community and wanted to stay within it, and, yeah, support the whole full integration of women.
00:01:49
AG: And what attracted you to this community? What was it about it?
00:01:52
J: When I first joined the Navy, I just really wanted to do anything that was active and physically demanding. I played sports in college and pretty much my whole life, CrossFit, things like that, so I was drawn to the physicality and also, to be quite honest, I didn’t want to be on a ship.
00:02:10
AG: And when you are on deployment or in operation, in operational zones, what would you say life is like? What’s your everyday life that you can talk about?
00:02:20
J: It’s been mostly with SEAL teams deployment and then also EOD, and it’s, so a normal day really is a normal night. Most everything is done at night on deployment, and it’s, I think I have a unique deployment experience just because deploying with a SEAL team is just such a close-knit group. You become like almost a family, especially because it’s such a small, small group. But, yeah, the days are, days are long. You know, I spend a lot of time in the tactical operations center just cause I do Intelligence and really just supporting the troop as much as I can for their operations.
00:02:58
AG: Can you explain a little bit what “Intelligence” means?
00:03:01
J: Sure, so Intelligence in the Navy is just basically analyzing threats and, in a tactical sense, targeting essentially the enemy forces.
00:03:12
AG: You mentioned how important it is the camaraderie that happens when you’re on these missions. Can you talk about the importance of teamwork, especially from the perspective of someone that is being attached to different teams at different times? How does that work, the dynamic?
00:03:26
J: Yeah, I think teamwork is the reason this community is so successful. I think from a very beginning, you, you start doing everything together, you know, and you embrace, like I didn’t go through BUDS, obviously, but you do go through workups on deployment, and it kind of sucks. So, what I like to say is you embrace the suck together, and you, you certainly build a trust and camaraderie with one another, so, where you gain credibility, and people learn to trust you, you know, and see if you’re good at your job. I think that if you don’t have that, you know, you’re not going to be very successful in this type of community because everything is build off personal relationships and teamwork.
00:04:06
AG: How do you feel, what’s your method for establishing trust since it’s so important?
00:04:10
J: I think, for me, I just go in super humble in every, every experience and every opportunity. You know, if I don’t know something, I’ll be the first to say I don’t know it, but I’m super eager to learn, and this community I think is, if you do have like the urge to do something and want to learn something, then you’ll be super successful. You just have to have the motivation. I think that that’s what makes it stand out from other commands in the Navy. You’re super happy to come to work and be a part of the team. I think you just feel you’re contributing to something a lot bigger than yourself.
00:04:42
AG: Amazing. How do you prepare for that mentally and physically?
00:04:48
J: For deployments?...
6 How to Become a Navy SEAL
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
05/30/18 • 36 min
00:00:15:27
DF: Welcome to “The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday,” the official Navy SEAL podcast.
Whether you dreamed about becoming a Navy SEAL as a kid, or just found out that being a SWCC is something you want to learn more about, you probably have a lot of questions. I’m Daniel Fletcher, and today I’m speaking with three experts on the SEAL and SWCC recruiting process. We’ll hear personal experiences from an active duty SEAL and a SWCC operator, whose names have been changed for security.
00:00:39:26
DF: So, from the top here, let’s just have you guys introduce yourselves. I’ll start with you and then go across, and you guys can just give us a brief summary of what you guys do here.
00:00:08:48:25
S: Okay, awesome. My name is Sean. I’m a United States Navy SEAL, here stationed at the SEALs SWCC Scout Team with these other two gentlemen beside me, and just basically part of our job is to do outreach and reach out to the youth, high school kids, the college kids to give them ideas of what it takes to be a Navy Seal or a SWCC.
00:01:06:06
BM: My name is Chief Brian Murray. I coordinate the outreach efforts, plan the trips, help put the budgets together and act as kind of the liaison between the operators and the recruiting districts.
00:01:19:26
F: Hi, my name is Frank. I’m a SWCC operator, special warfare combatant craft crewman. I’ve been doing that for about ten years, and my role here at the SEAL SWCC Scout Team is essentially the same as Sean’s. We go out, we talk to high schools and colleges, narrow down to athletes and try to give a real-world perspective on what it takes to be a SEAL or a SWCC.
00:01:41:24
DF: Nice, well thank you guys for taking the time to talk with us again. Let’s go through this process from the beginning from your perspective, kind of first just steps for somebody that might be interested in it, in a career in naval special warfare. Yeah, if you could go ahead and just give a little brief...
00:01:56:15
BM: Okay, so for anybody that’s interested in this program, the first step that they need to take is to go down to the local recruiting station. What’s going to take place at that meeting first is they’re going to get mentally, morally and physically qualified. What that means is they’re going to take an ASVAB test or a practice ASVAB test to make sure they meet the minimum requirements academically. They’re also going to screen them, check and see if they’ve ever been in any kind of trouble. If so, what waivers are available for them, and then they’ll also set up a physical a MEPS to make sure that they don’t have any physical problems, surgeries, things that they need waivers for. So, they’ll, once they get prequalified, we’ll schedule a MEPS day, and MEPS will bring them in, check their heart, check their vision, their hearing. Once we determine that they are qualified for this program, they’ll start working out with local Navy recruiting district scouts similar to what these guys do but a little different. They’re just responsible for the local area, guys and girls, and they’ll take them out, they’ll do physical screening tests, different things on a local level and get them ready for the process until they are selected.
00:03:04:06
DF: Maybe we can go a little bit deeper into that from your perspective. These are, these are any Navy recruiting centers, or is it a specific Navy SEAL or Special Operations kind of track that these people have to go take?
00:03:16:04
BM: Well, first they’re going to need to go visit a traditional Navy recruiting station. The reason that is is because to join the Navy as a Special Warfare Operator, you first have to join the Navy. So, you have to get qualified to do those things. Now, they can go get prequalified without joining the Navy and still go work out with the Special Warfare Operators scouts. They’re there to get them physically ready, but they can’t actually take the step of joining until they’ve visited a real recruiting station, and those typically, if you go onto Navy.com or our website, SEALSWCC.com, they’ll have links to those recruiting stations, and they’ll be able to find, put in their zip code and figure out whatever is closest.
00:03:57:05
DF: Okay, can you tell us a little bit about the ASVAB test for people that might not be familiar with it?
00:04:01:21
BM: Okay, so the ASVAB test, it’s an aptitude test that’s broken down. I believe it’s eight different categories. It’ll be everything from mathematics, arithmetic, reasoning, spelling, word comprehension, mechanics. There’s a couple that I’m leaving out, but you probably get the gist of what it is. So, we’ll test them in several different categories. Each job field will require a score made up of a couple of those categories, maybe...
#5 Earning a SEAL Contract
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
05/04/18 • 18 min
00:00:02:05
The only easy day was yesterday. (Intro)
00:00:21
DF Intro: In the Naval Special Warfare selection process only the best and most qualified are offered an opportunity to compete for a SEAL or SWCC contract. Selection hinges on the performance and metrics of applicants, which are tracked and analyzed extensively. I’m Daniel Fletcher and today I speak with the Master Chief responsible for who makes the cut. You’ll want to pay very close attention to what he has to say.
00:00:45
DF: Well, thank you Master Chief for taking the time to talk with us today. Your perspective and what you do in the organization is really critical, even though it may not be out in the forefront most people seeing what you do. Obviously, it’s a very important part of the process people moving through NSW program. If you could take a couple minutes and explain your path to where you came with NSW organization real quick.
00:01:09
WC: Yeah, yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me, so just my background. I’ve been with the SEAL teams for 191⁄2 years, west coast primarily, SEAL Team 1, SEAL Team 3 and SEAL Team 5 with instructor tours kind of in between there. I also taught all the leadership development courses for the SEALs on the west coast and east coast prior to doing the position that I’m currently doing.
00:01:33
DF: So, the audience that’s going to be listening, people that want to become Navy SEALs and SWCC operators, usually I’ll ask if you could talk to the people going through the selection process or even before the selection process begins, kind of from an outside perspective, is there any big overarching things you feel that would be really worthwhile to implement or at least be made aware of if you were a recruit in that process from your perspective? Is there anything that you see is missing? Obviously, they’re going to be aware of the PST scores that they want to try to hit, but outside of that, are there kind of any intangibles that you feel should be communicated to the people that are going into this process that maybe they might not be aware of?
00:02:13
WC: Yeah, that’s a great question. There’s probably a lot that could be said on that. I think one thing I’ll kind of start off with for the audience is my position is, is the SEAL program manager, which program manager probably doesn’t mean anything to anybody, but more or less what I do at the recruiting command is I am selecting the best and most qualified applicants that I receive for the SEAL and SWCC community. So, the process itself can be convoluted because each, each individual as you make the determination to go and speak to a recruiter might kind of get a different story, but to break it down more or less, once you decide that SEAL and SWCC is something that you’re interested in doing or just doing any other job within the Navy, you go to a recruiter, and that recruiter will ask you a series of questions to get a little bit of background about you, kind of start the initial processing piece. From there, they’ll schedule you to go to, to MEPS and take your ASVAB exam. Your ASVAB exam, if you’re unaware of that is just a, an exam that allows the Navy to see where your strengths are. And then MEPS is the location where they actually do a physical on you so the Navy has an idea of what your physical and medical capabilities are, any issues that might arise. It’s kind of full disclosure for the Navy. At that point, the applicant can go and talk to a Warrior Challenge mentor or coordinator, and that Warrior Challenge mentor or coordinator will help the applicant prepare for the PST, will teach the strokes and the run clinics that the applicant needs, come up with workout programs, diet programs for the applicant so that they can best perform the PST, and they will also be the ones that administer the PST. So, roundabout I’ve answered your question, but an applicant ultimately should be looking to be in contact with that mentor or coordinator. There are scouts out there, which are recruiters, that are labeled scout because they’re more involved with the Warrior Challenge program. So, I know everybody here probably knows what Warrior Challenge is, but I’ll just kind of define it. Warrior Challenge is SEAL/SWCC. It’s also Navy Diver, EOD and Air Rescue communities. That’s an umbrella term that recruiting puts on, on that. So, the scouts will be more involved with Warrior Challenge, and they can also be a good point of contact for you guys as applicants. But ultimately, you want to get that relationship with a mentor and coordinator. They will be the ones that, that help you get your application to me.
00:04:58
DF: What ways can you think of that an applicant can help enhance their capability or, likelihood of selection? Is there anything that you...
Episode 43: PODCAST: Episode 43 | What is 'SOAS'? | SEALSWCC.COM
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
02/28/23 • 23 min
Introduction: Life is about constant evolution. Always better today than we were yesterday.
Scott: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday.
I’m your host Scott Williams and today I have with me Andrew Dow who is going to school us on the topic of, what we call around here, SOAS. What is SOAS, Andrew?
Andrew: Thanks Scott. So, thanks for having me. It is always great to come by and discuss with you all. Again, my name is Andrew Dow. I am a retired SEAL Officer. I have been the SOAS, which stands for SEAL Officer Assessment and Selection, I am the program manager for this program, and I've been doing it since 2016 and it's come a long way.
Scott: Yeah, tell me a little bit about when SOAS began and why it's required if you want to become a SEAL Officer?
Andrew: So SOAS was instilled I think in 2014 and in 2014 is when it started building itself into what it is today. So, 2014 to 2016 was candidates from the Naval Academy, Officer Candidate School, ROTC would get an invitation to come to SOAS and basically train for 2 to 3 weeks and from that they would get some kind of score that would follow them with their application which would later determine if they become selected for SEAL Officer and in turn go to BUD/S
Probably around 2017 is when we really started seeing a change in the SOAS format and inviting every accession source cause SOAS.... Well let’s just talk about SOAS first before I dive into the timeline where we are.
Scott: So, what is SOAS?
Andrew: The SEAL Officer Assessment Selection is designed to assess aspiring SEAL candidate officers who want to go to BUD/S and become SEAL Officers you get Naval Academy candidates. You get Naval Academy candidates. You get ROTC candidates. You get Officer Community OCS candidates. You get inter-service transfers which is your Marine Corps officers, your Army officers, to Air Force officers. You get inter-service academy transfers which is your WestPoints, your Air Force academies, Coast Guard academies. You also get lateral transfer, lateral transfers being an individual that's already active duty and is in the surface Navy. They could be... we mostly see lateral transfers being surface warfare officers that do their time in the fleet and decide hey I want to submit an application to become a SEAL officer.
Scott: That could be an Intel Officer. That could be Aviation Officer, Supply Officer.
Andrew: It can be. We do not see a lot of pilots or back seaters or Weapon Officers or Pilots. I haven't seen many Intel Officers come through. It’s mostly just surface warfare. Because Submariner Sub Officers, they have so much schooling they have to go through... unless they undesignated ... they won't apply. Because in order to apply for a lateral transfer you have to have your warfare insignia right, your Surface Warfare pin. If you are a pilot, you have to have your pin for you can even apply but that timeline is just so far that we only ever see SWOS. SWOS, lateral transfers and they we will also see OCS (Officer Candidate School), active-duty enlisted sailors who want to become SEAL Officers. That’s a very, and I tell a lot of candidates this, that is a very difficult course to go. And it’s one of the ... the reason it’s most difficult is your competing against active-duty SEAL enlisted who want to become officers. These individuals don't have to go to SOAS, they don't have to go to BUD/S. So those individuals, it’s an uphill battle to even go to SOAS and then from there to even be selected to go to BUD/S.
Scott: Talk a little bit about who has to go to SOAS, why its required. Who doesn’t have to go to SOAS?
Andrew: So, guys and gals who don’t have to go to SOAS are those who are already trident wearers, those who are active duty or reserve who are SEALs already, don’t have to attend SOAS.
Scott: Enlisted?
Andrew: Enlisted, yes.
SOAS is strictly for candidates who want to become SEAL Officers. The enlisted SEALs that apply to become SEAL officers, they submit an application like everyone else to the SEAL Officer Community Manager and then their application will go right to the selection panel in September. That is run by the Admiral, two-star Admiral, who will determine who gets the selection to BUD/S. So, everyone who goes to SOAS, who makes it through SOAS, their application and SOAS score will go to the selection panel which happens after SOAS, as well as any others that don’t have to attend SOAS -- those SEALs, and it will be determined who will go to BUD/S from there.
Scott: The only enlisted applicants for SOAS are going to be trident wearers?
Andrew: Yes, trident wearers. But it’s also other ratings in the Navy right. You can have your machinist’s mates, your ITs, your ETs, all of them. They do have to go to SOAS, but the SEALs do not. Another thing that may not be known is the SBs or Special (Warfare) Boat (Operator) crewman, or SWCCs, have to go to ...
Episode 46: PODCAST: Episode 46 | Post SOAS | SEALSWCC.COM
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
04/04/23 • 22 min
Time to await fate. The trial of SOAS is over and now the SEAL candidates are chosen. Learn what goes into the process of selecting the winners.
Scott (Host)
Welcome to another edition of ‘The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday’. I'm your host, Scott Williams, and today we're going to be talking SOAS. We have our SOAS representative, retired SEAL Lieutenant, Andrew Dow. And Andrew we've covered this now, three times. And we've talked about how to get ready for SOAS, what to expect, how to train for SOAS, all that good stuff, and then actually seeing a SOAS live in the flesh and watching as the evolutions go down. Today, we're going to talk about the aftermath. What happens when candidates have actually attended SOAS, gone through the two weeks, and gone home, and now they're waiting? So, tell me first, what happens after those evolutions are done, from the staff perspective.
Andrew (Guest)
Okay. All right. So, we did talk about, you know, the whole pre-op, pre-application, we talked about assessment week, interview week, but what happens afterward is there's a SEAL panel, a SEAL Selection panel, and every applicant that attends SOAS finishes SOAS with a SOAS scorecard. Basically, it explains, and it tracks everything they've done during the SOAS both interview weekend and assessment week. So, it's their scorecard that shows how well they did on certain evolutions, instructor inputs, and peer inputs, all gets compiled, and the scorecard gets forwarded to the SEAL Selection panel. The panel happens at the end of the third block in September. There's a week-long process where several O-5s and O-6s and now this year alone, the two-star Admiral of WARCOM will be the panel president. They come together and they sit down and go through each application, their pre-application, they go through each scorecard, and they determine which applicant will receive orders to BUD/S and will receive a bill to become an 1130. Excuse me, 1180.
Scott (Host)
You mentioned that the flag is sitting in this time. I think it's the first time that's happened.
Andrew (Guest)
That's correct. Yeah. In the past, it used to be the commodore of Naval Special Warfare Center. But this year, we're moving with having the two-star sit as the panel president.
Scott (Host)
Yeah, I imagined as one of those potential selectees that I'd be at home sitting thinking, who is evaluating me right now?
Andrew (Guest)
Well as in SOAS the evaluators and the assessors are NSW instructors and regular operators that will write down everything about you everything you do, but on the actual panel, you're having senior leadership, O-5 Commanders of SEAL teams, Commanders of Basic Training Command, the Commander of Advanced Training Command, you'll have the Commodore who's an O-6, which is a Captain in the Navy, sitting at the panel who used to be the panel president but now the Naval Special Warfare Command Admiral, two star, will be leading that panel.
Scott (Host)
So, what are the big things they're looking for in that panel?
Andrew (Guest)
Right. So, it hasn't changed much in the past, except that now that Naval Special Warfare is focused more on maritime and going towards that route of operations overseas. They're looking for, either way, they're looking for the whole-person approach. They want to see candidates that have great character, great teamwork, professionalism, and leadership, and are able to work in different situations that they can adapt to. So, what's tested at SOAS and that's what's presented at the board. They're looking at their cognitive abilities, their behavioral aptitudes, they're looking at their physical performance, which is very important, their comfortability in the water, as well as they'll be tested on their leadership abilities. They'll be put in tough situations. So, the results of those situations will be presented to the board as well. So, the big three are character, cognitive ability, and physicality.
Scott (Host)
And, you know, we've heard of the gray man concept where, you know, you kind of sneak through BUD/S with not being the guy who's at the bottom and not the guy who's drawing attention as a star performer, but kind of blending in with the pack. How does the panel look at the gray man?
Andrew (Guest)
Every community has a gray man, right? But in the officer community, you can't be a gray man. They're selecting the ones that stand out, they're not selecting the ones that do poorly and it's becoming more and more the norm to not select gray men. So, if you're the type of person who's very quiet and timid, and hey, I just, I'm just doing this to get by, you shouldn't even come and apply because you're not going to get selected the bottom line, they want to see the outgoing people, the people who aren't afraid to take risks, you know, coordinated risks and calculated risks. Excuse me. The gray man, as you're talking about Scott, as officers, tha...
Episode 31: PODCAST: Episode: 31 | Fitness Series - Push-ups, Sit-ups and Pull-ups | SEALSWCC.COM
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
11/24/20 • 13 min
Episode 33: PODCAST: Episode 33 | Fitness Series - Rest, Recovery and Sleep | SEALSWCC.COM
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
12/15/20 • 28 min
26 NSW: A Psychological Approach
The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast
07/01/19 • 32 min
00:16
Intro: Anyone whose pushed their personal limits knows it’s the mind that must be trained to overcome barriers and that peak performance requires more than physical capability. I’m Daniel Fletcher. In the next couple of episodes, we take a look into Naval Special Warfare’s Mind Body Medicine Program. Today we speak with an NSW psychologist to discuss optimizing the mental health component of training, rebounding from stress – and reaching peak performance under pressure. Let’s get started.
00:56
DF: If you could start off with talking about your role here in this environment and some of your core responsibilities
01:01
CP: Absolutely so we have. There's three psychologists that we have here at Naval Special Warfare Center, and we provide support to both Basic Training Command, so all of the SEAL and SWCC students, as well as Advanced Training Commands, so the subordinate commands to Naval Special Warfare Center. So some of things that we do here are we provide clinical services when it comes down to psychotherapy. When it comes down to instructors or our students and then other roles and responsibilities that we have fall in the domain of non-clinical services. So we do assessment selection, so personnel selection of all of the candidates that are coming into the pipeline and as well as the instructors so they're participating in higher trainings. We have to screen instructors to make sure that they're doing things, we have the right people for the right job. When it comes to both the students as well as the staff. So that's what we mostly do, we also provide some support for some other training evolutions. Like so for example with ---SERE [Survival, Escape, Resistance, Evasion] -- we provide some support and then there are other domains of what we do here regarding mental performance optimization and executive coaching.
02:04
DF: Oh, interesting. It seems like you have a big broad and expansive responsibility here. What would you say are some of your favorite areas to work in, some areas that really --- resonate with you?
02:14
CP: Yeah. Well for the purposes also of this particular podcast you know, one of the things that tends to get a lot of traction that we're trying to be able to build this equity has to do with how to be able to look at this next generation of operators, the students that are in training and how to make sure that we're able to equip them with skills that aren't just necessarily in the physical domain but how much of the training is really built upon the mental game. And there's a lot of applications when it comes down to, when they finish the pipeline and they come into the teams, be it the special boat teams or when it comes down to the SEAL teams. What we can do, right, establishing this foundation of how to optimize mental performance and that's where I think mind body medicine comes into play.
02:57
DF: How is that transformed in your experience in the time that you've been here?
03:02
CP: You know it's something that for example you know we have trainees that come in and the big four is something that all of the students that are going to be exposed to in both respective pipelines, when it comes down to SEAL and SWCC candidates. So at Great Lakes, students will be exposed to these big four when it comes down to looking at sports psychology. So one of our predecessors and other psychologists that used to be assigned here at the Center looked at some of the best existing practices and they saw, you know what we could incorporate some of these things because we want to equip students with the skills to be successful without kind of showing like, here are the keys to the kingdom. But how can we set them up for success? So we have those big four and I can go into a little bit more about it, is that...?
03:49
DF: Yeah. If you want to go on a high level that would be good. I think it's important for people to understand if they haven't listened to all of the podcasts because we've touched on them before. You could go over them as an overview and then kind of dig in how it's applicable here.
04:00
CP: Absolutely. So the big four that if you haven't heard before as far as our listeners we look at visualization being a really important one and that's definitely appropriated from the literature regarding mindfulness in mind body medicine. Arousal control when it comes down to breathing. Also one of those things that has a direct correlation when it comes down to mind body medicine. Things such as looking at goal setting or positive self-talk, that there's some things that have been kind of appropriated from some of the therapy skills that we have...
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The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast currently has 55 episodes available.
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The podcast is about Team, Podcasts and Education.
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The average episode length on The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast is 28 minutes.
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Episodes of The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast are typically released every 14 days, 19 hours.
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The first episode of The Official Navy SEAL and SWCC Podcast was released on Apr 25, 2018.
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