Think you can hack it with the Green Berets? Well, you might wanna brush up on your languages — and you'd better be sure you can grow a damn good beard.
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00:00Think you can hack it with the Green Berets?
00:02Well, you might want to brush up on your languages, and you'd better be sure you can grow a damn
00:07good beard.
00:08Let's just take this from the top to see if you qualify.
00:11To begin with, to join up, you must be between 17 and 35 years old, fall into the acceptable
00:16height and weight range that's tied to your age, and achieve a passing score on the Armed
00:20Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.
00:23And that's only the beginning.
00:24We don't strive for the minimum, we strive for the maximum.
00:27You can't be considered for selection as a Green Beret if you don't qualify for entrance
00:30to the Airborne School, because there's a chance you'll be jumping out of planes in
00:34combat zones.
00:35You'll also need to qualify for Secret Security Clearance, which means that if you've gotten
00:39anything shady in your past, your dream of joining the Special Forces is already over.
00:45If you look good on paper and excel in the initial two-week course, then you might stand
00:49a fighting chance, which ironically starts with some chance fighting.
00:53After 61 weeks of training, yep, more than a year, you end with a staged invasion of
00:58a fake country in the woods of North Carolina.
01:01Parlez-vous français?
01:03Non?
01:04Well, you can forget being a Green Beret.
01:07But it's not just specific to French.
01:09Special Forces might be forced to learn such difficult-for-English-speakers tongues like
01:13Tagalog or Thai to specific regional dialects like Levantine — that's the Arabic spoken
01:18in the Middle East for the most part — or Egyptian Arabic.
01:21To prove that you'll be able to take on such a challenge, you must pass the Defense Language
01:25Aptitude Battery.
01:27This is a special test, taken in a fake language, which determines an applicant's potential
01:31ability as a linguist.
01:33Oh, and if you think you can coast through all that because you're already bilingual?
01:36Well, guess again.
01:38In that case, you'll find yourself learning a third language so you can be sent to a wider
01:42variety of countries.
01:44If you've made it into the Green Berets, you've proved that you're the best of the best.
01:47But part of being the best of the best is not going around talking about it.
01:51If you're the bragging type, you're probably not going to be a good fit.
01:55And don't even think about writing a book about it.
01:57In 2010, when the CBS news show 60 Minutes embedded with the Green Berets in Afghanistan,
02:02a soldier named Martin told the program,
02:04"...we're definitely not Rambo, you know.
02:06He was a Green Beret.
02:08That's not us at all."
02:09Don't push it.
02:10Don't push it, I'll give you a war you won't believe."
02:14The group's nickname is the Quiet Professionals, which neatly sums up what's expected of them.
02:19It's impossible to know how you would handle the pressure of a combat situation, especially
02:22if things start going wrong.
02:24But Green Berets know what they won't do — surrender.
02:27While the United States Military Code of Conduct generally mentions that soldiers shouldn't
02:31surrender, there is a bit of wiggle room in the wording.
02:34It reads,
02:35"...I will never surrender of my own free will.
02:37If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have
02:41the means to resist."
02:42For special forces, their creed is simply,
02:44"...I will never surrender, though I am the last."
02:47No wiggle room at all there.
02:49Historically, Green Berets have taken this promise seriously.
02:52In Vietnam, retired Army Colonel Paris Davis was wounded during a firefight and ordered
02:57to get to safety.
02:58But he refused, and ended up saving the lives of four fellow soldiers.
03:02Davis later wrote,
03:03"...the enemy forces outnumbered us, but we never went into combat for any other reason
03:06than to win."
03:07"...I was thinking about what we needed to do."
03:10The Green Berets work closely with locals on the ground, which means that, on top of
03:14knowing the language, they also need to understand the customs and beliefs of the people whose
03:18turf they're on.
03:19And this often means looking the part, too.
03:22When you're a Green Beret in a combat zone, any grooming rules go out the window.
03:26The most important thing is that a Green Beret can blend in, and if that means breaking regular
03:30Army uniform codes, so be it.
03:33Teams that are allowed relaxed grooming standards are known as long-hair teams.
03:37This applies especially to the majority of the 21st century American conflicts, where
03:41beards are more the norm among locals.
03:45The Green Berets were founded to tackle combat situations that present complex ethical and
03:48tactical choices, but that doesn't mean they get to throw out the whole rulebook.
03:53Special forces are still expected to follow the rules of engagement, and if there's even
03:56a question of whether they did so, they can find themselves back in the United States
04:00facing questions, or even criminal charges.
04:03Take the infamous Green Beret affair, for example.
04:06While working with the CIA during the Vietnam War, eight Green Berets were involved in hunting
04:10down and killing a suspected double agent.
04:13Since the killing was extrajudicial, the eight men were due to be court-martialed, although
04:17the charges were dropped after the CIA flatly refused to let any of their employees testify
04:21in court.
04:22The whole situation was a disaster for the unit, and further divided Americans who disagreed
04:27on the war in Vietnam.
04:29More recently, during a 2006 operation in Afghanistan, Green Beret Captain Dave Staffel
04:34ordered Master Sergeant Troy Anderson to shoot an unarmed man in civilian clothing who was
04:38standing about 100 yards away.
04:40It would later turn out the man was on an official list of enemy combatants, and therefore
04:44the killing was considered acceptable under military rules.
04:47Nevertheless, the two Green Berets were still investigated twice and almost court-martialed
04:52before they were found innocent of wrongdoing.