SOAS: QUESTIONS ANSWERED

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Intro

Life is about constant evolution. Always better today than we were yesterday.

Scott Williams

Welcome back to another edition of 'The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday'. I'm Scott Williams and with me again is Andrew Dow, SOAS coordinator for Naval Special Warfare Center. Andrew, welcome back.

Andrew Dow

Hey, Scott, thanks for having me. It's always great to come in here and just do some talking about SOAS and about the community and see how we're doing. And then get the answers to the questions that a lot of people have out there, answered for them.

Scott Williams

Yeah, on that note, we do have a whole electronic mailbag full of emails from folks who have questions about SOAS, and we'll remind you, SOAS is...

Andrew Dow

So SOAS, SEAL Officer Assessment and Selection, is held once a year, three blocks of training during the summer, and applications are due in February. And can I just put one thing out, Scott, you know, it's something that's interesting. And a lot of questions I get is, you know, a lot of reference back to these podcasts. And thank you for allowing us to do this. But something I want to add to all the listeners out there is, if you do have specific questions, please, please reach out to me, I'll leave my email on the website of SEALSWCC.COM. So, you can reach out but if you have questions that you want answered on a podcast, please send them directly to me. And I'll hopefully get invited, again, by you, Scott, and have a conversation and answer some of those questions.

Scott Williams

Well, it would be our honor. Yeah, we actually get quite a few questions about SOAS and, you know, basically, SOAS is how we pick our Navy SEAL officers now. And it's a pretty formal process, it happens before candidates are actually allowed to come to BUD/S and go through the pipeline. It's a pre-selection process, it's pretty rigorous. And we've refined it over the years here at Naval Special Warfare Center, and you've been here since the ground floor. And a lot of these questions, you know, of course, we get same ones, you know, quite frequently, but we also get a lot of interesting questions. And, if I might, I'll just start out with one of those. And I thought it was particularly interesting, because we always talk about the physical aspects of SOAS, but this listener actually wanted to know more about the interview process and the writing assessments. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Andrew Dow

Sure. So, a quick intro to that is before you even get to interviews at SOAS you have to complete assessment week, right, the five days assessment week. Upon completion of that, then you will move into interviews and other exposure type activities that SOAS staff provides for the candidate to kind of get a better idea of what the community is doing in a junior officer role and capabilities. But during assessment week, that's when you'll do writing assignments. I think right now we have slotted, I believe, two different writing assignments. And don't everyone freak out those questions that it's not like really challenging essay questions, but it is important topics that relate to world issues. We would like to have writing assignments that lead towards debates and how your will give you a side that you have to be either for or against and debate that topic. Writing assignments include, hey, what's your opinion on the current footprint of some of those larger nations that we are kind of bumping heads with those types of political and world issues that we're dealing with, we want to get your opinion on those and that's some of the writing assignments you'll see. As for the interview process, and as far as the time frame for interviews is, usually, you'll conduct two interviews during the second week of your SOAS block that you attend. One will be a psychological interview with Naval Special Warfare Center’s psychologists, and then following that you will complete a community interview which is held by a SEAL officer and a senior enlisted. So, a senior enlisted is someone who has an E-7 or above – that can be a chief, a senior chief, a master chief, a warrant officer – that will sit down and kind of give you a job interview for about 90 minutes and they're going to ask you real questions. They want to hear the truth. They don't want to hear just the fluffed-up cookie cutter answers. They want to hear really what your thoughts are on the questions they ask. And you know, they can see right through you, if you're trying to give the answer that they want to hear, you need to get the answer that you believe in. And that's, that's something we truly look at.

Scott Williams

A little originality, a little creativity, something to show how your mind works, that it's spry and not rigid, right? You know, because SEAL officer is someone who is a SEAL, but someone who is also an officer. And that officer part requires them to be eloquent in how they convey their thoughts. You're going to be briefing an admiral someday or briefing, you know, this, that or the other person. You got to be able to do written communication reasonably well. Absolutely be able to speak.

Andrew Dow

Those are all great points. Absolutely. And it is so important, just like you said, you're an officer first, you know, and your job is a SEAL. So, it is so important to ensure that you are, you know, being true to yourself and being an acceptable role model and representative of the United States Navy.

Scott Williams

Okay, that is a nice look at the head piece of all this – how you think and how you respond. But a more general question we got was, hey, you know, what are the training evolution's like at SOAS and specifically what are some of the more notable events, and what is the day to day look like?

Andrew Dow

Okay, so candidates check in, the SOAS blocks start on a Saturday, but the actual physical evolution's won't be until Sunday. So, the first evolution that any candidate will complete is the SEAL PST which is consists of 500-yard swim, push-ups, sit ups, in two minutes, max pull ups and then a mile and a half run. The run is in shorts and sneakers, so people aren't confused, you do not have to run the run in boots and camouflage utilities. But that's the first evolution you need to do. And if you fail, you get sent home because you're expected to perform and meet our expectations on day one. Right. So, it is important that aspiring SEAL candidates know that. You know, you submit a PST in order to get down-selected to be invited to SOAS, that PST needs to be passing but not just passing. I mean, on the SEALSWCC.COM website, we have optimum scores for the PST for SEAL officers that can be referenced and looked at but you know, you should be striving to do the best you can and to either match that or beat that at SOAS proper. So, it's Sunday, that's the big, that's the big nail-biting evolution. Monday is when things physically kick off. I won't go into the micro of evolution's, but I'll give the generalities of it: you will see logs, just like in BUD/S you will see boats, just like in BUD/S, whether it's on your head running around or in the surf paddling out and doing some surf passage. Some things candidates will see that they may not show as much in BUD/S is rucking, the candidate will be expected to run with a 45-pound rucksack. Basically, it's just a sandbag inside of a backpack. And they'll be expected to run an unknown distance for an unknown amount of time at max effort and that their time will be calculated into their overall slowest score.

Scott Williams

That's in boots.

Andrew Dow

That is in boots and then NWU Type III, which are the green Navy pattern camouflage. I'm used to saying BDUs, as a lot of us older fellows are but it's NWUs. So, the ruck run’s a big one. But not just physical evolution's; there's going to be some mentally challenging evolution's for these candidates to attack. Some being, there could be memory tests, there could be communications over radios, you know, we'll give them a scripted communications dialog that we will be reading one and they'll be reading the other while they're doing a physical evolution. And they need to be able to answer the questions we're sending to them clearly and concisely in a proper radio etiquette form. Right? So, for example, like they could be running, you know, a four-mile run, but they have a radio in their hand and we're going to ask them a really challenging math question. Or maybe we'll ask them, hey, who is the Secretary of Defense? Or just random questions, or maybe we'll give them a scenario and pretend that they're a ground force commander within the SEAL teams and put them in an example where they have to problem-solve and hey, what's your best? How would you approach this while they're doing the physical evolution's, so we're going to challenge the candidates when they're at SOAS especially during the evolution phases.

Scott Williams

And these really have practical applications. I've heard of being on a dead run and under fire and still having to call in air to ground support or whatever.

Andrew Dow

We try to incorporate real life situations that these potential SEAL officers may see, I mean, the world's changing – the enemies, it's different than what it was 10 years ago, but you need to be prepared for the basics and be able to do what we're trained to do, whether it's, you know, on land, air, sea, whatever it may be, we need to be able to perform and perform well and successfully when were put under stress. So we're testing that, I mean, other evolution's that they'll see is there'll be some water evolution's. There's can be some evolution's with utilizing the obstacle course, the O-course. But they won't formally do the O-course as they do in BUD/S, but they will be challenged with some kind of evolution regarding the O-course. But a lot of the physical evolution's happen where BUD/S is, right next door on the same beach on the same area that all the BUD/S students are going through. So, everything that they do during SOAS will give them a kind of idea what to expect when they if they get invited and selected to BUD/S.

Scott Williams

Yeah, it's quite a preview. And we have the all-new facilities now. Basic Training Command as a brand-new building, got a brand-new pool out there. But the sand is the sand, and the O-course is still the O-course. Yes. Well, let's, let's take a look at another question that we have from one of our listeners, one of our many listeners, my producer here tells me. What are the top three traits that make a great team leader? Which of course is something they're going to be looking for during SOAS.

Andrew Dow

So, let's first define team leader, right, that may be a new term for candidates coming into the military. Team leader, think of it as like the team captain, or the president of a club, or the person who's in charge, the officer in charge, the OIC. The team leader can also be enlisted personnel, the senior man or woman that's in charge of a specific task. But what traits are we looking for team leaders. I think the most common and most obvious one is you need to set the example, lead from the front be that person that others are going to look to for guidance and for influence and for motivation to be able to complete the task at hand. We also have some things as a team leader, when you'll be incorporated this as soon as you get to SOAS is everyone will be separated through height line specifically just like in BUD/S and there'll be designated boat crew leaders. That is a leadership position that we're going to be assessing specifically so that we can get a good read on their leadership qualities and capabilities. And we will rotate every candidate through this position, so they all get an opportunity to shine or sink. Honestly, that's the whole point of this is to get data on the candidate so we can make an educated and an exact determination on who would be selected to go to BUD/S.

Scott Williams

And you're still doing peer evals?

Andrew Dow

Yes, yep.

Scott Williams

Yeah, so talk to us a little bit about that.

Andrew Dow

Peer evals. So, we have peer evals and assessor evals. What an assessor is, when you come to SOAS there's going to be instructors, right there are going to be the ones leading the evolution's, making sure everything's run safely, and according to how we planned everything. But on top of that there will be SEAL and SWCC as well as combat personnel that are supporting Naval Special Warfare to serve as assessors. What their role is, is to one and to make sure everyone knows this nothing outranks safety. So, they're always watching to ensure that everything is being run safely. If they see something, they say something, but their primary role is to ensure that data is being collected on the traits we're looking for in SOAS. Those traits being team ability, right, working as a team, physicality, how physically strong and how well you are performing under stress, your cognitive ability, how well you think on your feet with mental challenges and types of classroom work or those as we discussed earlier the writing assignments or the debates that we talked about. So cognitive ability and probably want to probably want to the most important ones is character, right who you are as an individual, who you are as a person and how you relate with others. So those four things are the things we are looking at and that's what the role of the assessor is, is to each evolution will be looking at 1, 2, 3, or even all four of those traits and they will be documenting how each candidate hits those traits. So, for example, you and I are under a boat crew, Scott, and I'm the boat crew leader. So right now I'm being assessed for my character and my team ability and physicality since we're under a boat so those three traits would be being assessed the assessors watching the boat crew leader, but also watching every boat crew to see how they're performing are they following the directions of the boat crew leader - is the boat crew leader giving clear and concise guidance on what they need to do? Is he or her pushing his or her boat crew to the through the evolution and trying to do the best they can? These are all being documented on a score. And these scores get added to their overall data card. And that data card collects all the scores throughout the SOAS evolution's, and those points then get added up. And then you get a total score at the end of SOAS.

Scott Williams

And the peer eval, that comes as part of it.

Andrew Dow

And to circle back, what the peer eval is, the assessors have their evaluation, where they look at each individual candidate and assess whether this candidate is doing great - if he or she is slacking, or if they're just being a gray man. And I'm sure some of the listeners heard that term. But that is a big term in NSW, gray man being someone who's hey, just they're not really putting out the effort or making themselves heard. But they're just getting through. So, you don't want to be a gray man, not in our community. But the peer evals each individual candidate will rank their peers. So, I believe we do five throughout the week. And you know, I understand some of the beginning ones will be challenging because most of these candidates don't know each other. Unless you're a Naval Academy guy, or gal ROTC may know each other, but they're from all over. So, it gives an opportunity for each candidate to grade and give a score to each other candidate on a score of I believe it's zero to five, five being hey, this person is someone I would love to serve with they in my eyes represent what a good SEAL officer should be, in their opinion. Or one to where hey, this person is very risky and is unsafe on certain evolution's. So, they are rating each other throughout the week. So, in the beginning, like I said, they may not know each other, but towards the end of the week, those peer evaluations are very important because now they're getting to know each other what's happening behind the scenes and what the assessors and instructors don't see, the peer's evaluation will show what's actually happening.

Scott Williams

Okay, and so the peer evals those are weighted into the overall composite score? Like how much of a percentage would the opinions of my fellow SOAS participants have on my outcome?

Andrew Dow

I'm not really free to speak on the scoring of SOAS specifics. That is a close hold secret, we don't really want to share with the audience. But what I can tell you is the peer evaluations do carry some bearing and weight. It may not be the end all be all thing that the selection panel looks at when we're looking at candidates, but it does. It does raise interesting talking points for the interview process. So, for example, if when we have their scorecard at the end of the week, and there's a lot of red, red, meaning bad, those red points are going to be addressed during the interview, to see if they're truly what their peers think they are. We want to get an understanding, and this helps us really understand the whole person and ensure that we're selecting the correct candidates to go on to BUD/S.

Scott Williams

So, I don't have to worry if I'm, if I'm participating in SOAS I don't have to worry too much about winning the popularity contest. But I do have to take a reasonable person approach to this and not be, you know, a jerk to all my classmates and not expect some kind of blow back from that.

Andrew Dow

Yeah, those are great points. You know, you several years ago, we had a candidate who we determined was brown nosing. And the instructor saw that right away, and it was very clear that they were saying what the instructors wanted them to say in front of the instructors, but when it came to when the instructors or assessors weren't around, they completely did a 180. We weren't born yesterday. We're going to see these types of candidates and we're going to understand that, hey, this person's just playing the game. Understanding though there are parts where you have to play the game, right. But at the end, we want to ensure that what we'd like to see is, you know, candidates are good people, they care about what they're doing and care about the person they're doing it with, right, and that they are doing the best that they can even when no one's looking.

Scott Williams

Genuine authenticity, I think, would go a long way.

Andrew Dow

Perfect, perfectly stated. Well, it's true. I mean I'm not just on here to say that, hey, we're looking for X, Y, and Z. But we want good people in this community, this community is a great community, and we want, we only want the best for it. So that's why we're looking for the best candidates that can come here and continue the tradition of Naval Special Warfare.

Scott Williams

Well, I don't think you can say there is a penultimate example of someone that is, you know, the icon of NSW per se, right? Because you want a lot of diversity of backgrounds and experiences on the teams because that makes you stronger, right?

Andrew Dow

Without a doubt, diversity, different life experiences, all these things add up to make a better operator in the end and being a better officer to lead men and women in combat.

Scott Williams

And a better team I would imagine.

Andrew Dow

Oh, without a doubt.

Scott Williams

So, let's say I'm the lucky person and I get notification that I am invited to SOAS, and I've got four to six weeks before that happens. What do you recommend I should do and those last few weeks before going to SOAS. This is a question specific question for one of our listeners. You know, how do you spend those last, let's say four to six weeks before SOAS preparing?

Andrew Dow

So, before I hit on that one of the big things is candidates showing up and showing up with injuries you know that they sustained because they train too hard. I'm not a physical expert, I'm not a coach. I don't have a plan for you but it goes without saying you should be peaking at SOAS, you should be peaking at BUD/S so when you show up you should be in the top all cylinders firing top performance capabilities that you have and show that off at SOAS and if you go to BUD/S same thing. So, within those last six weeks prior to you should be meeting your personal records in long distance running in your swim times, in your rucking, you should be hitting your personal goals and feel like you can do this nonstop, you know without hurting yourself. Because it's happened so many times since I've been here where candidates six weeks show up to SOAS and they said oh, I was training extra and they show up so as injured and then they're a great candidate on paper, but they show up and it's just they're not. They're not cutting it because they hurt themselves. They over trained.

Scott Williams

I mean, should they be taking the cold showers and you know …

Andrew Dow

That's not necessary. That fable where hey, I need to take a cold shower every night to be prepared for the cold oceans of the Pacific. Let me tell you, it's gonna be cold no matter what. The Pacific is beautiful, but it is cold. Yeah, that is just something you got to deal with. And that's one of the mental challenges. But the bottom line is six weeks out you should have a good training regimen, you should be meeting your goals of your personal records, what you want to do and what how your scores you want to meet. But the important thing is to stay healthy, continue to maintain good nutrition, good health, stretching, and not getting injured prior to going to SOAS. It's just so important. And it really, you know, breaks our heart from an instructor or assessor or from my point of view, to see a candidate that you know, all they wanted to do was be a SEAL officer and then to show up and get hurt, and then have to wait a whole another year to apply and attend. It's very, it's very challenging. But that's why I say six weeks out, two weeks out, start to taper down. Start to rest, recover. That's something you should be all planning to do anyway, after every evolution that you do at home, whether it's working out at the gym, going for a long run or swim. Make sure you're having a rest and recovery period after the fact. So that you are healed to continue training whenever that may be.

Scott Williams

Yeah, and get some sleep I mean last thing you want to do is deselect yourself because you got injured over training for BUD/S. Got that. Should they be, you know, studying their NSW lore and you know, trivia and all that? Are they going to be asked those kinds of questions?

Andrew Dow

Absolutely. I mean, you're, you're coming into a community, you should know something about it, right? Ya know, the date it was created, which teams are where? I know, right? The evens on the east, odds on the west. Just knowing just simple facts about is important. I suggest everyone read the SEAL Ethos, right? That's a lot of truth, a lot of experience. Senior leaders came together and put that ethos together. And it's a great piece of work and something that, you know, I still follow, and it is it's something that SEALs follow and live by, and it is important that candidates know what they're signing up for or what they want to become. So, it's important to know the background of where they're going.

Scott Williams

Right. You don't go to Burger King and ask for a Big Mac. Treat it like an actual job interview and be ready and know what you're getting into. Sounds good. Well, thank you, again, for answering some of these questions. We get we get tons of them on SOAS.

Andrew Dow

And just again, everyone listening just if you have questions, shoot me an email so I can address you know, I can come back on a podcast and talk to Scott here and get those questions answered for you.

Scott Williams

All right, Andrew, thank you very much. And thank you, everyone, for joining us for another episode of 'The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday'. I'm Scott Williams. We'll see you next time.