Advice for someone wanting to join Special Ops.

[mira2607]

Hello,



I'm in high school and am interested in joining the military to become a part of Special Ops. I’m sure you may hear this from many of your listeners, but my aspirations since I was 5 years old was to become a Navy SEAL. At the time, I was unaware women weren't aloud to be in elite forces, specifically units such as the Navy SEALs, so it was extremely disappointing to find I would not be able to join when I was younger. Now legal to female entry, and as naive as I may sound, I still have this passion, but understand it is an extremely difficult task to undertake. Of course my goal may not be achievable for me, or many women in their lifetime, but I want to be of service to others and my country at the highest level, to endure the suffering, and push myself beyond all limits. Saying that, even if I never get into Special Ops, what other avenues do you recommend I take? All I want to know is how I can be of most service to my country, as a women, in military combat.



I was hoping I could have a female perspective on this topic, but if not...what characteristics should you have in order to see yourself as truly qualified for Special Ops? What core motivations should you have as a soldier?



On a side note, a reason I found out about this podcast originally was because your(Jocko Willink’s) daughter plays wrestling, and coincidentally found her through my own wrestling team’s social media. I thought maybe I could gain some good advice coming from somewhat of the same background, wishing to pursue a task as daunting as mine might be.



Please do not reply with a comment relating to the "inferiority" of my sex, for I have heard them all. I just want to be the right soldier, for the right job, period.



Thank you.

[mynewunit]

I can give you a lot of references. 
Kristen Beck - Twitter
She entered the Teams as a male and changed after. She is very honest and available on twitter. She has also been fairly public and you can find podcasts and news articles about her.

While you would be the first Navy Seal, there have been lots of women who have worked with the SEALs. From CIA intelligence, to support staff and joint operations liaison, but that gets to a larger question, what do you want to do?
If you want to get into combat, Army and Marines are probably the straighter route. They both have their own special ops units.

I would just keep working toward the higher level of your current task. If you are the best at your current task, you will get the next step when you ask. Lets call it the "Good Deal" Dave Berke method. People like to make decisions when they don't feel like a decision.

As for some meat and potatoes steps you can take, Get good at swimming, running, weight lifting, push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, obstacle courses, shooting, sky diving, heat exposure, cold exposure, etc.

The path to special operator has a problem you will have to get around. Israel did a bunch of testing with women in combat. Their findings is that women made the men less effective because the men made poor decisions pertaining to the female soldiers. Time and exposure of women and men in combat together will reduce this. The other option is to create an all female Spec Op group. There has been a lot of talk around this. I hear about recruiting of triathletes. Nothing public or official.
You build that team, get them into the same branch of service, offer it up to leadership, and then outlast their vetting, testing and training. That is the path.