(distorted music) - Roger, 4807, approaching runway seven, bravo. - The Air Force has announced a creation of a new information operations technical training school. - The first command, simply must arm our airmen to outthink, outperform, out-partner, out-innovate any potential adversary. - Air Force base and military training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. - The fist command, "The Air Force Starts Here." (upbeat tech music) - Hey, hey everybody. Welcome into the pod, which by the way, is episode 26, if you're keeping track, like we are. Thanks for the subscribe. Stream or download however you might be listening in. Which, hopefully now that we're out there on Spotify, Google Play and Apple Podcast, is even more of you. I'm Dan Hawkins from the AETC Public Affairs office and your host for this professional development podcast, dedicated to bringing you total force, big AM and inside tips tricks and lessons learned from the recruiting training and education world. Now, on the pod today, we're gonna jump knee-deep into the Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Program. Referred to, on the inside, as swoe. This initiative really ties directly to air eduction and training commands, priority of enhancing lethality and readiness, while at the same time, speaks to advancing force development, strengthening our airmen and units. So, lots to unpack here and for those that may not know the entire Air Force Special Warfare spectrum, it's a pretty impressive entity and for those not familiar with it, they might be a bit surprised to know the full scope of the mission in Special Warfare and not only how it impacts just the Air Force, but also the joint Special Operations community as well. Everyday, Special Warfare Airmen deploy around the world to project American military power through global access, rescuing friendly forces through Personnel Recovery Operations and really destroying the enemy through precision strike capability. And so, to give you the bottom line, upfront, about the Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Program, the accessioning into the Air Force and initial training pipelines for Special Warfare Airmen is drastically changing with this new program. And it will be the single path of entry for Airmen to pursue careers in Combat Control, Pararescue, Tactical Air Control Party or Special Reconnaissance. So, this is going to also enhance the Air Force's ability to assign Airmen to a Air Force specialty code, in an equitable manner across the Special Warfare community at any one given time, as well as give new recruits the time and the opportunity to find the path of their greatest warrior calling. To go in depth on swoe we brought in a couple of heavy hitters Lieutenant Colonel Joe Lopez, Chief of the Special Warfare Division here at AETC, as well as Lieutenant Colonel Heath Kerns, who is the commander of the 330th recruiting squadron that stood up under the Air Force recruiting service not too long ago and that unit specializes in Special Warfare and Combat Support Recruiting. Colonel Lopez and Colonel Kerns are gonna talk about the why, behind the swoe programs implementation, including the Air Forces manly needs and the fact that new recruits are gonna be put into a position to make more informed decisions prior to vectoring to a certain Special Warfare specialty. They're also gonna talk to a key component of the swoe, which is the base lining of enlistment standards across those career fields we talked about, Combat Control, Tactical Air Control Party, Pararescue and Special Reconnaissance or if you will, the old weather career field in Special Warfare. And just to give a glimpse into what Special Warfare flights at BMT are like, they talk about that, just for a little bit and both Colonel Lopez and colonel Kerns give a really great breakdown on how new recruits are actually vectored into their Special Warfare specialty at the in of the Special Warfare preparatory course at JBSA Lachlan, which is administered, of course, by the Special Warfare training wing. So just having these two special operators sit down and hear the passion they have for the Special Warfare community was awesome and they really give great insight into the compete for everything mentality and how the swoe program will help build cohesion and trust among candidates, especially knowing that at the end of the day, selection to a Special Warfare specialty will be driven heavily by a candidate's performance throughout this accessioning and training pipeline. So let's go! Episode 26 of the "Air Force Starts Here" goes free fall, right now. (electronic whooshing) Colonel Lopez tell us a little bit about yourself. - Hi, yep, my name is Joe Lopez I'm COMSEC Rescue officer and the Chief of Special Warfare Division hear at AETC Air Education Training Command. I've been in the Air Force and the army, actually I was an army guy prior to coming in the Air Force. I've been in service for just over 25 years and here at the Special Warfare Division, we oversee the strategy and policy, a Special Warfare training and the recruiting across the command. - And Colonel Kerns, what about you? How long have you been in the Air Force? - I say have been institutionalized in the military for about 19 years, but only 15 of those count. The first four, I went to the Air Force Academy and then I had been in Air Force Special Operations ever since. And I'm a Special Tactics officer and I am the commander of the 330th Recruiting Squadron and we focus on bringing in Special Warfare and Combat Support Airmen into the Air Force. - So, we're gonna dive a little bit into the Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Program today, but I kinda wanted to start the conversation, kinda diving into that Special Warfare community as a whole, as for the Air Force and how relates to the joint mission. I think there may be a lot of folks out there who don't understand exactly what Air Force Special Warfare does. So in layman's terms, can you guys just talk about the community and what it provides to the Air Force and DOD missions? - Absolutely. So, Air Force Special Warfare is the ground combat force that specializes in air-to-ground integration and so the way that we do that, is we accomplish the mission through Global Access, Precision Strike and Personnel Recovery. And so, the Global Access, that's our ability to get anywhere in the world to project American military power or political will. The Precision Strike mission is our ability to take out our enemies anywhere in the world and that could be with small arms, kicking in a door with our joint brethren or it could be controlling large bombs off of our aircraft. And then the last is the Personnel Recovery and that's our ability to go anywhere in the world and bring back our allies or American forces. So that could be a lost hiker on the mountain in Alaska or it could be a pilot that was shot down, deep behind enemy lines and we could fight in with our team to bring them home and return them with honor. - And so, recently and it's not necessarily real recent now, it's been a little bit of time, but you know, there was a name transition right? So, there was this period of time where you were that battlefield Airmen community and now it's transition to Special Warfare. Can you kind of talk to maybe the why behind that change and what that really means, moving forward and the career fields that are actually in Special Warfare? - Sure, so Battlefield Airman transition to Special Warfare I would say, we've been using that nomenclature for about a year and a half, two years. Special Warfare is more of kin to the Ground Combat Operators that we are in today's Air Force. Special Warfare encompasses multiple Air Force specialty codes, AFSCs, of enlisted and officer. That's Combat Controllers. That's Pararescuemen. That's TAC-P , Tactical Air Control Party and Special Reconnaissance. And then the officers of those... Of those different communities as well. All of those comprise the Special Warfare ground combat skills inside the Air Force. - So, this Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Program is really a huge change or evolution in how the Special Warfare recruiting and training has been done in the past and you know, any time you have such a big change right, the first question that people are going to ask is, Why? Why do we need to make a change? Seems like what we're doing is working, so kind of, what is the the big picture of the Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Program? And the why behind, why we need to make these kinds of changes. - So, one of the big challenges that we faced in recruiting for Air Force Special Warfare, it comes from one of the, I think one of the best traits of our warriors is the quiet professionalism. So what that meant, you know, before this was officially my job, I had to go and tell people who we are and what we did. I would never tell anyone who I was or what I did. So the end result is that no one knows, again who you are and what you do. There's lots of books out there by other branches of the Special Operations Forces. Our guys and girls tend to not want to do that, we just want to focus on our mission and get after it. So we recognized just that there's, sometimes it's just not even in the conversation. People did not recognize that the Air Force had these forces and that's also just because we seamlessly integrate with our other forces. So the the major missions that have, you know, broke International news, often you don't realize that there was a Special Warfare Airman at the very center of that. Fulfilling very key, very important missions that ties all the ground... the ground combat with everything. All the resources in the air and does that, you know, so well and so you know just seamlessly that, often we just, you know, don't even wanna be a part of conversation. And so, you know, when that comes across to communicating who we are, there's just a lot of people that didn't even realize is it was an option. So part of what we were doing is just focusing on getting the word out there and recognizing with that imperfect knowledge of who we are and what we do. That candidates would come to us, maybe only having just one little snippet of information about what we do. And so sometimes those, you know, those young Airmen hopefuls would say, hey, I saw this really cool YouTube video. I want to do this. And so part of our process has been, educating people on the full spectrum of what we do and all the options that are out there for them. And so, we set out about trying to baseline some of those requirements, so that at every different job didn't have its own criteria that was different and good for one, but not the other, when really the warriors largely the same and the more we could focus on bringing them into that one door, the better that we could flow them through to help them find their combat calling. - I kind of jump on that as well. So, I think it's a great moment in time that we're at here. Heath and his team has done a phenomenal job. Up until this point, it's trying to recruit to multiple disciplines. You can call them tribes of different AFSCs. So, rather trying to recruit to multiple disciplines that have very similar aspects and capabilities, and quite honestly, you're recruiting to a very similar type person. Now you're recruiting to one umbrella term, the Special Warfare and then we'll further talk about, I'm sure in this venue, how we start to spread those candidates into those AFSCs that we'd talked about. - So, we also just recognized that... part of the initiative to work on are Special Warfare recruiting, we've brought a lot of the the Special Warfare personnel into the recruiting mission in the passover, they're pretty well separated. Recruiters did their job and operators you know, did their job and you know, they didn't really meet together. And so, we just recognize, hey, we're not able to bring enough of the right quantity of folks into these career fields, so we need figure out a way to better work together. So opening those opportunities to bring in more of that exposure to communicate. To hope, tell our stories has been really important to what we're work on. And so we just recognize that like, in the past the baseline, you know, intelligence tasks and the personality profiles, that those were the best attempt that we had to try and figure out, okay, are you the type of person that's gonna succeed in this grueling training? And so, we recognize that a lot of that, there are some of the hidden qualities that are difficult to quantify. So, we bring... people in now and give them, you know, hey, just those initial baselines. Hey, you have a chance, you have a shot. And then we start them in are recruiting process that actually brings in retired Special Warfare operators that act as coaches and mentors. And so, along with the recruiting process, our developers is what we call them, help train them up, help prepare them to face the crucible that they're going to go through. And so, as that, we're recognizing that's a long process to help them find what they're calling is going to be. We didn't wanna pigeonhole them too early. They say, okay, you look like, you know, PJ to me. So then, think only that direction. Instead, we just say, hey, you wanna do something tough and amazing in the Air Force? Come talk to us and we'll help you figure that out of over time, as we look at a whole scale of things beyond just what that standardized test is. And so, this is the Special Warfare Operator Enlistment process is allowing us to... for that to be a conversation and that to be a process, that doesn't just end the day that you get on the bus to go off to basic training. It actually continues through, where we have training and we have Special Warfare personnel all along the process, that can help lead you to that calling, so that we can see how you work, when in crucible-like challenges that you're gonna experience as you go through this a pipeline. - If I could touch on that, real quick. That was one thing I was gonna mention. I think that the chain of custody, if you will, from pre-accessions, so you've got this developer that's working with this individual. Getting them mentally, physically prepared, then they ship to basic training. Basic training is then dedicated to only Special Warfare folks in the same flight. Which is kind of nice 'cause now it's like a cohort, it's all one team, which is really something that we pride ourselves and it's very important, in deep, being an asset of small teams. And so, then you graduate from your BMT and then you go to your Special Warfare prep and then it evolves into a course of initial entry, be at the assessment selection or another like course specific for TAC-P and then that evolution just continues. So, the whole process to the day that you, where you earn your beret and you're given that actual AFSC and now you go into the ranks of being an operator. It's more of a coach and mentor process throughout the entire thing, but you're gonna earn along that way as well. - Yeah, and I think internally, right, that conversation be, I think there's some valuable points here, too. Like, I think the Air Force's requirements from the Special Warfare community may be under the old system, weren't necessarily always being met in the most efficient ways. Can you kinda talk to that and part of that thought process in developing this swoe program? - So, I would say when we had individual quotas for each job, that would limit us somewhat to what our recruits could communicate. And like I said before, with that imperfect knowledge. Some jobs just are easier to communicate to mom, you know, or you know, there's a lot of folks that, I mean, for the Pararecues, that's one of our most popular because that's a very easy, there's a medical test, emergency medical technician. That's a job that's well known out in the civilian populace. Saving lives isn't an easy things to understand, but recognizing that there's a lot that goes into the Pararescue mission, much more, you know, beyond that. So, just helping instead of, you know, requiring us to only find the, you know. So, on any given shipment, on any given time that they will go off to basic training, we have a certain number of thoughts. And so, if we only break them up based on what their initial interest on that job is, that we may not always be getting the most qualified individuals. So what we are able to do by opening up the pool instead of having, you know, four, you know, binned in each category, we can give the Air Force the best, highest qualified, most physically prepared, most mentally ready large, you know, cohort, that then they can divvy out as they know go through the process of understanding more of what they're really interested in and what they're going through. - And so, to that at tail end of what Heath was referring to, as they're assigned to that specific AFSC. That's where we get into the vectoring model, that would, you know, as part of this swoe. And it's based off of individual's performance and individual's preference and then absolutely, need of the Air Force. So those factors all culminate where and how that vector will go to one of those AFSCs. - So, what does that recruitment process, Heath, look like? I've seen the words, you know, scout, recruit, develop. So can you kinda layman's terms? What does that look like if a 17, 18 year old young man or woman rolls into the recruiting office and is interested in a career in Special Warfare? How do they get that process started? - So... the 330th, which is our recruiting squad and it focuses just in on the Special Warfare and Combat Support, is a smaller squadron and we have the luxury in the challenge of focusing only on those jobs. So we can be special, you know, specialize in that, focus on that. We're able to provide our recruiters that are coming from all walks of life in the Air Force, give them that in depth immersion experience. So when they're communicating with the recruits that are coming in, they can speaks from some experience. Say, hey I've been through portions of this process. I understand, you know, what that first step is going to look like for you and help allow them, you know, to communicate what those are going to go into. So, it starts with our specialized recruiters, that have immersed themselves and focused exclusively on these missions, so they can be experts to help that candidate figure their way through, you know, what their calling is going to be. And then it also, you know, so that's the recruit side of it. The develop aspect is recognizing that, simply verifying that they're minimally qualified and then shoot them off, you know, to that next available basic training day. Like you said, I was kind of just the school hard knocks, where in the past we were really good at finding the toughest, you know, one out of a 100, but if you needed 50, then that model doesn't work. So we're always very good at finding and creating and help forging the toughest men and women required, but we needed to find out better way to catch people on the cusp. To help them through that process. So that isn't just, hey, are you minimally qualified? Are you interested in this? Good luck, see you later. It's, all right, this is what you think you're interested in, now let me tell you more about it. Let me bring in a war hero, let me to give you a phone number of one of my brothers who just came back from a deployment that can tell you exactly what it looks like in combat on their fourth or fifth deployment. Opens up panels like this, where you know, people can talk about what they're getting into and help solidify that passion. We just, we call it, you know, arming the why. Helping them understand the reason that they're doing what they do and helping them forge that over time because they're going to face you know one to two years of grueling training, where if you was just minimally interested, that's not gonna survive the fire. And so, finding that, helping them find that why and strengthen it, so that when they are in that worse day, you know, months into this process, they could look back to in say, no this is worth it, you know. I have committed to this, my family's behind it, I understand what I'm getting into. My coach, you know, is behind me. He's helped me, he knew, he told me this day was coming and now let's grin, you know, and bear it and fight through it. - I think it's important to note also. It's a competitive model from the from the day one. And I would say that we, to some extent, pride ourselves on that to some extent because that instills... it instills the best of others and so if you want to ship, there's certain criteria you have to meet. And it really gets to the point of a very inward drive that you have to, you no matter how much support mechanism we have behind you, it really ultimate falls onto that individual. And so, recruiting this kind of, you know, person that one says he's interested in joining the DOD and then says he wants to be in the Air Force. And he want to join the Air Force and be a ground combatant, you're looking for a very unique person. And so, then you fought, we find that raw material and then we kind of shape it a little bit because they've already got that raw material in them. It's deeply nested in them and then we help them, you know, expose it when those trying times come and I think that the program is set up really well for young folks that are out there, that are interested in Special Warfare. - Yes, I mean, specifically, if someone says, hey this sounds awesome, I want to do that, there's several different avenues then. I'm sure on where this gets posted, we can include the links as well, but airforce.com and then, you know, Special Warfare will get you down that path you can say, hey, I'm interested in it. Also, you can go to your local recruiting office. Walk in the Air Force and say, hey, I'm interesting in Special Warfare and then that larger recruiting force can help you, get you initially processed and point you in the right direction to one of our, you know, 100 or so career recruiters that are spread out across the United States. - And, I wanna talk about basic military training next because regardless of your career field in the Air Force, everybody has to do that if you're enlisted, you've gotta go to basic military training. But, before you get there, from a Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Program perspective, there may be some who go, what about, is there a standard? Is there some kind of, like, do I have to be able to run a mile in two minutes to do this? Like, what is that standard look like and/or how can I get more information about that? What does that look like? - Yeah. So, that is one of the things part of swoe that we have done and we kind of alluded to it a little bit. But we wanted to baseline all the entry standards and that's everything from medical to security clearances to the physical test that they have to take. And those developers that we have talked about will administer that to them, prior to shipping. And so, the the attempt is to have this standard template, so that any of the AFSCs are available to them, so that there's no differences, you know, should they be vector to one or the other. So, if you're asking like, specifics on numbers on calisthenics and run and swim, is that what we're really asking? - No, I was just trying to get a sense of what a candidate may need to work on or be prepared for when they come into that development phase of being recruited, obviously there's going - Sure. to be a need to be physically fit for example. - With his developer and then refining some of those skills. And then, when he goes to BMT, they'll be evaluated on that again. And then, they'll be evaluated again, once they're into that prep course, that we had talked about. - So really, a constant evaluation process kept kind of that competition part that you talked about. You gotta earn it. - Yes, sir. And that's one of the, I think the... exciting aspects of the of the swoe process, is that... every phase of this process there are observations, there's tests, there's things that you work through, but in some the past models there were some hard lines when it came to things like physical fitness. So, it's beyond the basic military training portion, but in the past used to be, you know, there was a hard line, you had to do, you know, X amount of pushups and if you were one short, you're done. You could have been the most amazing incredible human being on the world, your team love you, you're colonel love you, everybody, but if you were one short, you hard fail, you nearly went back. So, while we have to meet standards, absolutely no question about it, they cannot be just that one standard. Like, it's the whole person concept that is being looked at from day one. That's where your developer and your recruiter are working with you to help you figure that out and we're using physical fitness, we're using those challenges to help kinda bring out the character attributes that we're looking for. And because that's the greatest determinate. Not just could you do 50 pushups when you ship, but were you physically (mumbles) the standard and you're a great teammate and you're a leader and you're passionate, you know. And those things are beyond just that one standard kind of, qualification and more into that whole thing. So that's the exciting part about this new process is that, all of that is taken into account and is being worked and recorded and added to your overall just, kinda, profile, so every part of this phase matters. Your performance and military training, you know, how well you do all the things are asked of you guys as that basic young Airman. They're looking at all of that because attention to detail matters at every step in this process. - When you're left loading that thought process of being a good teammate and doing the things that you need to do to be competitive earlier in their process, even before they put on the uniform, so it's kind of interesting aspect of it as well. But transitioning to the BMT process, you mention it before Colonel Lopez, but they go to BMT and they're in a group together, building that team unity cohesion. What is BMT for our Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Program candidates look like now or will it look like? - So, it's the same as getting through all the same basic training, as in the other basic. The difference is they're in a flight with all of their other cohorts that are also going to the Special Warfare training. Then they also have cadre, you know, the military professionals instructors that will come over from the Special Warfare training side, will link in with the the basic cadets as they're going through and will provide them some of that professional realm. Just kind of continued, they also get some additional physical fitness exercises throughout. It's actually pretty crazy, but basic trainee has a packed schedule, so there's lots of work to, you know, cut them free, so that they can go and get additional physical fitness, so that they don't, you know, ramp up, get really strong before they ship. Then go to basic training, where their, you know, very regimented. Lots of stress, but not always where the physical, you know, to the level that they need to be doing their repetitions that are keeping them strong before then and they enter back into the Special Warfare courses. - Because that was a thing. You know, before we had this developer entity in place, that said individual could go to BMT and then you know, to some extent, they would, kind of atrophy a little bit in their physical readiness to enter that pipeline. So this just kind of assures that chain that I talked about from the developer prior to shipping the BMT and then now exiting BMT to really kind of keep that line level, as they're entering that prep program. - And so, they graduate BMT and they show up at the Special Warfare training wing, which just stood up a year and a half or a little bit longer than that ago. So, that really starts that Special Warfare Focus training all the time, so can you kinda talk through what the process looks from day one's role into Special Warfare training wing and what the pipeline looks like, as it vectors out? - Yes, sir. So, once they make that transition and they now are going into these Special Warfare preparatory course. And that in essence is where they take, they build off of that raw material and start to bring them to an occasion. 'Cause as this entire process continues on through its evolution, the situation increases if you will, in the way of standards, length of time of runs and swims and calisthenics, the mental fatigue. So, they're starting to now an holistic kind of approach to that individual. Ready them for the rigors of the pipeline because we're once again, this is just starting the pipeline and these pipelines can last up to two years in length. So, in the prep course, they're working on their conditioning, they're going through different evaluations. We have... psychology, you know, aspect to it. There's multiple attributes that we're looking for in those individuals and all that is kind of, just a work in progress as they're going through that prep course. Which is readying them for that first vector that I talked about. And that first vector will let them go to a TAC-P track or let them go to the other track, which comprises of combat controllers known as CCT. Pararescue can be known as PJs or Special Reconnaissance known as SR. - The awesome part about this process, and it was actually one of the early changes was this, you know, preparatory course, that they, again kinda came from that that mindset of, we want to give the trainees every opportunity to succeed. So that everyone can be on an equal, you know, playing field, regardless of what background they came in whether they had access to pools, where we can give them those skills. We can help train those early on, so that that's not an immediate eliminator. You know, hey, you born in a city without pools. You'll never be a pararescuemen. That's not the case anymore that it's, you know, we will help you through the development process and then during the preparatory process, that'll help teach people how to swim, help work them through that, get them more comfortable in those really stressful aquatic scenarios. But the prep course itself is, I mean, there are Olympic level coaches. They're professional athletes, retired professional athletes. There are many NFL, NHL, MLB have all come out to see some these facilities. Even to... recognize that we have done everything in our power to give them every opportunity to make them as, you know, strong, fast, smart, resilient as possible. And it's pretty impressive facilities to get them start off on that right step, so they, you know, can then endure the two years of the challenges ahead. - Yeah, so, I'll just jump on that real quick. So, dedicated staff, state of the art facilities, all to help them achieve their goals. Well, once again, it's on that individual to meet the mark of those goals that are set before them. And we talk a lot about the evaluation and I think maybe there could be, perhaps a misperception that it's all physical, but it's not, you're looking for other things from a Special Warfare Airman when it comes to, like you talked about, teamwork. Even so much, I saw it in part of the paper was BMT academics even, so talk about us, what makes a successful Special Warfare Airman, their makeup. - I think, even now, probably both double tap on this one, but you know, it's kind of like, if I give you the example like the past test right, the physical and stamina test right. Anybody, I shouldn't say anybody, but if you have a great night sleep and you have a really good dinner the night before and you wake up and go and knock out that past test, you know, man you can knock it out of the park. But now, the grueling days that go on through this pipeline and the things that you may, you know, come in contact with whether, you know, shin splints or stress factors or you get injured somehow or you get sick and you still have to continue to persevere through the next day's evolution and then the next day's evolution. Sometimes, you could almost be overwhelmed by, oh my gosh, it's daunting task. I have months ahead of me. And if you look really far out like, oh my God, I have two years ahead of me. So... it's that... enate, deep... ability to be able to... focus on the problem set that you're undergoing right at that moment in time. Compartmentalize what you just executed and move on to the next target and then be able it chunk it out in such a way and oh by the way, it's not just about you. 'Cause you still need to be looking out for your teammates that you're going through this arduous moment in time. And so, I've seen it many a times where folks have a lapse in judgment, I would say perhaps, and they say, oh, I can't do this, it's not for me and you're there to to help your teammate and actually push yourself through that moment in time. So, those things don't really have a lot to do with the physical prowess as it is the mental capacity and see through the challenging moment in time. - And that was one of the challenges of the past model, you know, before really recruiting in a Special Warfare community have come together. Like what we're doing now was, you know, the recruiting side went off the best information that they had which is like, all right, you need really tough people, right? Really physically fit people. Okay, let's find the fastest, strongest, toughest out there. And so, those people they would say, okay, I found the best physical specimen out there, you know, good luck. And then that guy would quit day two. And then they're like, what are you doing while you're squandering these resources? I found the toughest guy in the world, you just threw him out, you know, what's your problem? And recognizing that some of those folks that have such high... capacity capability that when they meet that first failure, that that was a devastating moment for them. Where this the first time they had just been knocked down and don't know how to get up again because it's been such hit to the ego. And so actually, we even have charts that show it. It's not just the most physically capable folks. Some of those, even like the high outlier's really really strong don't make it. And that's not because they're not physically capable, it's because they didn't know how to get back up. They hadn't been knocked down the right way that can keep 'em up, so we're looking for kind of the underdogs. Some of the folks, you know, have had that life of hard knocks and just keep fight, keep getting up and looking through it. And we even had a, you know, we had collected data on 1000 candidates going through. We had, you know, thousands of points of information from their resting heart rates to their EKG's to all kinds of crazy stuff. We put it in a big computer, artificial intelligence computer and one of the factors it spit out was basically their ability to recover. Even down to the molecular level, you know, how their cells are able to regenerate in fight through that and the crazy part is that something that changes over time. Like, you teach your body how to get back up. But then it comes back to the brain, back to the heart, you know, that says, no I'm not quitting, everything's broken, everything hurts. I'm exhausted, I know, but I am too dumb to quit right now. I'm gonna take that next step and maybe I'll quit tomorrow, but I'm not gonna let that guy beat me. So, that, I mean you know, it's that great. - It's been a joke before you know like, man, I quit every day inside my head, but I'm not doing it out loud and I'm gonna keep pushing through. So... I think that that's really where you start to see... the team cohesion and the dynamics and the close brotherhood if you will, because in the end you can look to your left and right and know that everyone, every single person has gone through the same difficult times and has been able persevere and it just breeds this relationship and this trust that, so when you're out in the battlefield, right. Or your in the middle of the ocean or on some precarious cliff, you know, in the mountains, then you feel comfortable with the folks to your left and right. - So, at the end of the day, you have this whole process, what at the end helps... that final vector into a specific AFSC, starting from this original big pool of talent, okay. And now you're gonna be a Pararescuemen or you're gonna be a Combat Controller. What goes into that final vector of, this is your career? - I think it's the total aggregate of all those observations, all those evaluations. And then it's gonna come together with all of them and so it's, you know, we've used every tool available to understand who you are and how you perform. We've given that trainee every opportunity to know exactly what career field he's getting into, what the people are like, what type of kind of warrior ethos breeds out of, you know, one kind of tribe versus the other. And the United Air Force will be able to see exactly what that person is and then they work out in the wash. We envision it's going to be, once you come to the end of that and then, you know, you are selected. Would have that opportunity that says, okay, you know, here's all the job lists and then the most competitive, that top graduate gets that option to look at it and then work it all out. So, I think one of the missed numbers, you know, that you have is as folks go, well I had it. Why did you do away with a guaranteed contract? Like, I used to like, I wanna be a PJ and only a PJ, like, that's it. Well, there was never a guarantee. There was a guarantee that you could try and that guarantee is still there. This is how you try, like you get that contract that gets you through the first door and then you fight just how you fought to get to the first door, you'll fight for every door after that. As we help, you know, figure out the process. So, it was never guaranteed. You always had to earn it. You always had to work through it, we just now have a lot more doubt that goes into it. A lot further than just that initial, hey, I'll walk into the recruiting office and I wanna sign on the dotted line. - I think it's important to note, too. Their preference is part of that overall evaluation. - Absolutely. - Absolutely is. Kind of to what Heath's point was just a second ago is, they always have a say in it. It's how it flushes out in their performance against their peers because that's really where the prioritization will come. So, it's based off of that performance. It's based off of that preference and then obviously, there is a higher calling to the Air Force to distribute those AFSC's out, equitably, as for, you know, the requirements of our service. - So, as we get ready to wrap this thing up, what is this timeline look in terms of the rollout for the swoe program? In terms of, kind of that first real push to start pushing out these classes, to go to BMT together and make this program really start rolling? - So, for the recruiting squadron and I'll let Heath actually expand upon it, but this is already something in the making. This is already being pushed to new recruits as a thing and the first shipment of... recruits will be next month. Actually, April, I apologize. Will be in April and so that will be the first time that we're sending 100% swoe... into BMT, come under this new model of coming under one open AFSC, if you will and then being vectored a little later in the process. - So we did multiple test runs over the past year. Just to verified the work, I mean, because these are pretty big changes across-the-board, so making sure all the paperwork lined up right and all the different folks that, at every step of this process, had a vote, had a say, had you know, input they could put into this. And also we've tested it and run it on our applicants as well. So, you know, communicating with them, if you couldn't get your first choice, you know, how do you feel about that. What are your interests in each of these career fields and things like that. And so, this has been a meter process that we've done for a good while now, but pretty much since our squadron started about two years, well, the efforts started about two years ago. We've been working towards these ends, just with base lining all the standard requirements and everything else. So this is the next really big step in it, but we've been moving out on this for a while. - So, exciting times in the Special Warfare. Training, recruiting, pipeline. It's gonna be great to see it roll out and I certainly appreciate you guys taking time out and joining us today. - Thank you. - Thank you very much. (electronic whooshing) - So, just a ton to unpack here, with the big changes coming soon to the Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Process. Which has had a few trail runs already, as they get geared up for this big shipment coming out to BMT in April. Special thanks to Colonel Kerns and Colonel Lopez for taking time out of their schedules to talk to us today about the program. And as a reminder, if you're interested in a career in the Air force Special Warfare community, then you'll want to talk with a recruiter. Check out your local recruiter's office. They can get you pointed in the right direction to a Special Warfare recruiter or go online to www.airforce.com/findarecruiter. As a reminder, you can also follow Air Education and Training Command as well as the AETC Command Team on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can check out the latest on our website at www.aetc.af.mil. For our entire AETC Public Affairs Team, I'm Dan Hawkins. So long! I'll talk to you next time on "The Air Force Starts Here." (upbeat tech music)