 Life is about constant evolution. Always better today than we were yesterday. 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 help school us on the topic of something that we call around here so as. What is so as Andrew? Thanks Scott. So thanks for having me. It's always great to come by and discuss with you all. Again, my name is Andrew Dow. I'm a retired SEAL officer. I've been the so as which stands for SEAL officer assessment and selection. I'm the program manager for this program and I've been doing it since 2016 and it's come a long way. Yeah, tell me a little bit about when so as began and why it's required if you want to become a SEAL officer. So so as actually I think was instilled like in 2014. 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 so as and basically train for two to three weeks. And from that they would get some kind of score that would follow them with their application which would later end determine if they become selected for SEAL officer in turn go to buds. Probably around 2017 is when we really started seeing a change in the so as format and inviting every a session source cause so as well let's just talk about what so as is before I dive into the timeline where we are. So what so as the SEAL officer assessment selection is designed to assess aspiring SEAL candidate officers who want to go to buds and become SEAL officers. You get Naval Academy candidates. You get Naval ROTC candidates. You get officer commute OCS candidates. You get inner service transfers which is your Marine Corps officers, your Army officers, your Air Force officers. You get inner service Academy transfers which is your West Point, your Air Force academies, Coast Guard academies. You also get lateral transfers. Lateral transfer 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. That could be intel officer. It could be aviation officer, supply officer. It can be, we do not see a lot of pilots or back seaters who weapons officers in pilots. One or, I haven't seen many intel officers come through. It's mostly just surface warfare because some mariner, the 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 were a pilot, you'd have to have your pin before you can even apply, but that timeline is just so far that we mostly only see SWOs. So SWOs, lateral transfers, and then we'll also see OCS, also 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 reasons it's most difficult is you're 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 BUDs. So those individuals are very, it's an uphill battle to even get to SOAS and then from there to even be selected to go to BUDs. We talk a little bit about who has to go to SOAS, why it's required. Who doesn't have to go to SOAS? 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 that are SEALs already do not have to attend SOAS. Enlisted. 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 applications 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 BUDs. So everyone who goes to SOAS and makes it through SOAS will, their application and SOAS score will go to the selection panel which happens after SOAS along with any others that do not have to attend SOAS, those SEALs and will be determined who will go to BUDs from there. Right, so the only enlisted applicants for SOAS are going to be trident wearers? Yes, trident wearers, but it's also other ratings in the Navy, right? You can have your machine, its mates, your ITs, your ETs, all of them. They don't have to go to, they do have to go to SOAS but the SEALs do not. Another thing that may not be known is the SBs are special boat crewmen or SWICs. They have to go to SOAS. Actually in the last year we had, excuse me, two years ago we had two SBs that had the option to attend SOAS. We gave them the option because they already been through BCT, they already have their warfare insignia for a SWIC, but we said it was in their best interest to go so they have a score because they are running against trident wearers who already been through BUDs, right? These individuals would still have to go to BUDs. So these SWIC also attended SOAS. So enlisted, any active duty enlisted from any branch, right? So in the past we've had Marine Corps enlisted attend SOAS, we've had Coast Guard enlisted attend SOAS, but that's another avenue and there's a lot more than, oh, can I just apply? No, you gotta get your branch of service approval before you can attend. Right, because there's no inter-service transfer for enlisted into the Navy, unless it's with the follow-on going to OCS to become an officer. It's a very challenging course, so let's do an example. So you have a Marine Corps Sergeant that did his or her time and wants to become a SEAL officer. They have to, one, get their chain of command approval from their whatever community they're in in the Marine Corps, they have to get their approval. The Marine community has to be willing to give up this individual to cross over to the Navy, right? They'll attend SOAS as a Marine Corps infantryman or supply corps, whatever rate they have. They'll attend SOAS as a Marine, but when they graduate SOAS or finish SOAS and they go to the selection panel, if they are chosen, they would then have to attend OCS Navy. So they'd have to actually change services from Marine Corps to Navy and then go to OCS. Then after they complete and graduate OCS, they would attend BUDS. But there's a lot of approvals that have to be done and it has to be willing of that service, whether it's Marine Corps or Coast Guard Army, Air Force, to allow them to go and change from their community to the Navy. Yeah, I would imagine you don't see a lot of those other service veteran enlisted come through. Probably more interservice transfer at the officer level, the O1s, the O2s. Yes, yeah, so in the past I've seen two enlisted and they were from the Marine Corps. Officers, you'll get them from Army, Navy, mostly Marine Corps and Air Force is the officers we see that go from their community and try to go SEALs. Army's been a little bit, I don't think actually we've had an Army in the past. What about Coast Guard? Coast Guard, I haven't seen a Coast Guard officer. There actually was one Coast Guard enlisted that did it that came to SOAS, they weren't selected, right? So they would just go back to Coast Guard. But there hasn't been a Coast Guard enlisted officer or enlisted that's been selected to go to BUDs through SOAS, from SOAS to the selection panel to BUDs. Now I know I'm about to go down a little bit of a rabbit hole here, but the question occurred to me, what if you had an interservice transfer from, you know, an officer from, let's say, the Army? You know, an Army second lieutenant or an Army first lieutenant that comes to SOAS goes through all of SOAS and ultimately doesn't get selected by the board. Does that officer candidate then return to the Army in their former capacity, or now do they have to go into the Navy as a general line officer? What happens is, if they're not selected, they're gonna go back to their community. If they're selected, that's when the paperwork, we'll call it, gets handled and then they would go from green to blue or better term Army to Navy or Marine Corps to Navy. That happens after they're selected. So if they're not selected, they'll just go back to their unit and continue on with their career in that service they're currently in. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about when and where SOAS is conducted. Is this an annual thing? Is it a season? What is it? So SOAS happens during the summer. There's, SOAS is broken down into three blocks. Each block is two weeks long. SOAS blocks are usually in two weeks in June, two weeks in July and two weeks in August. We see candidates come from all of the US from every a session source and they come and attend SOAS in Coronado, California at NAB, Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado and they'll be doing SOAS where buds is held. Every, they'll see buds students running around. They'll be doing evolutions very similar to buds but it happens in Coronado twice, three times a year, two weeks during each month of June, July and August, they will attend. So it happens annually. Can you give me just a brief overview without getting too far into the details about the SOAS training schedule? Like what happens in that first week? What happens in the second week? Okay, SOAS is two weeks long. First week is assessment week, second week is interview week. Candidates will show up on a Saturday, get their gear issue checked in, fill out any paperwork that's needed for them to attend SOAS and then they'll go to bed, wake up and SOAS will begin. The first evolution they're gonna see is a PST. So they're really tested right out of the gate. Yeah and in the past, we never, we did the PST was always the first evolution but something that we're now going forward with and we did it last year is that PST, the physical screening test that all SEAL applicants have to take, it's pass or fail. If you fail it, you're gonna go home. That's right there. That's the first test gate. So if you pass it, you'll move on to Monday which actually starts all the evolutions of SOAS. But to give you what the physical screening test, the PST is, right? You have your 450 meter, 500 yard combat side-stroke swim. Then you'll go into a two minute max push-ups, two minutes max sit-ups and then your maximum pull-ups get a little bit of a break and then you'll do a mile and a half run. Most what we see, candidates when they submit an application, an app, some of the stronger scores are 800 or below. For a PST, 800 or below, the lower the score, the better the score. Most candidates are in the 700 to 800 range. And I would like to point out that if candidates who wanna go to SOAS wanna test themselves, they can just go on sealswik.com and use our PST calculator for officers and it will give them that composite score, that 800 or more or less that you were just talking about. So you can find out where you're at, do a self-assessment and if you're cranking over a thousand, maybe the higher the score, the worse it is for us, right? So if you're hitting 1040 on the PST calculator, your composite score, you may wanna train some more. You have some work to do. Right, and honestly, we're open to anyone attending but you're not gonna get an invitation to SOAS if your score's that high. You have to have a competitive and just like you said, the Sealswik has those optimum scores kind of like targets for candidates to work towards but it is, you're not gonna do well if you can't get under an 800. You're just physically not ready. And that- And SOAS is, I mean, the process for accession for officers is actually hyper competitive and you would probably say it's harder to get a seat here at the schoolhouse as an officer than it is going through an enlisted contract process. Without a doubt, the SEAL officer pipeline, I mean, since SOAS is in its creation, if you look at the officers who go to BUDS, there's such a, the success rate has been so much higher than prior to SOAS. The SOAS program has refined the candidates that go to SOAS and then onto BUDS and their success rate has been off the charts. And would you say that's a, because of the prevailing belief at the command that the officers serving as SEALs should always be set an example for their men? Right, I mean, if we wanna look at the roles of an officer enlisted, right? Everyone's a leader in the community. Everyone's a leader in the teams, but the officers have to be the responsible party willing to make the tough decisions and put their individuals and potentially in harm's way, right? So we're looking for those officers, those individuals that are willing to step up and be that leader for these men and women that are willing to serve their country. These SOAS really assesses and looks at every different type of quality. I mean, there's a leadership selection measurement model that we utilize where we're looking at their cognitive ability, their character, their competence in different fields like physical fitness, their water competency. These are all being tested at SOAS during that first week, the assessment week. Big things they're looking at, their team ability, attitude, communication, being able to talk to individuals who you never met before. I mean, a lot of these candidates never met each other and they're shipped to SOAS, they come to SOAS and it's, okay, here, it's time to work together. Which ones are able to do that? Which ones are able to work with people they never met before and be proactive and get things done. And that's what's pretty cool about SOAS is you have these individuals who are able to pull up next to someone and be like, hey, we need to do this and the other guy understands right away. Cognitive abilities. Let's go back to that for a second. Tell me what we're thinking in terms of cognitive abilities, what we're looking for. Yeah, cognitive ability is one of the key components we're looking at when we're assessing candidates. I think that the admiral put it, don't quote me on this, but the admiral was saying, we're looking for individuals with character, with competence and the other one is that cognitive ability. Looking at future leaders who can do that critical thinking, can think outside the box. Instead of going from point A to point B, they're able to find another route. Maybe it's an easier route or maybe it is a harder route, but there's less risk in that route. They're able to think outside the box and figure out different ways to solve an equation, lack of better terms. The critical thinking of the individual is key. And being able, because at SOAS, you're gonna be tested with all these different critical thinking evolutions, teamwork evolutions, a lot of problem solving. Everyone thinks Bloods is all, is, you know, how many push-ups can you do? How long can you stay in the cold water? Yeah, those are important key elements that we're looking for in individuals. But at SOAS, we're diving deeper into how individuals think, how individuals work as a team. Are they able to play nice with others? And are they able to motivate and get these people they never met before to do work together and do a common goal to achieve success? I mean, SEALs work typically in small units, far-fung places, and having, you know, that elements leader be able to think quickly on their feet to react to situations. And it's not necessarily always combat. I mean, it's about what happens when you run across some locals. How do you handle that situation? You know, these are the things that a SEAL officer should be expected to adapt quickly and think quickly on his feet to handle it properly, right? When we also talk about character, now that's a big thing. We don't want just any schmo putting on a trident and going out there and doing things, right? Explain to us a little bit about what kind of character that the assessment team is looking for when they get SOAS candidates here. One of the big things, the assessors, by the way, the assessors are SEAL and SWIC instructors that we utilize from BUDs and BCT that come and work with us so they can assess. They're not instructing, I mean, they instruct on evolutions that need some guidance, but they're not actually being BUDs instructors. They're assessing, so they're watching everything you do. And one of the big things they're looking at is character. And assessors looking at these individuals to see, what I follow this guy or gal into combat is this someone I can look up to and be able to put my life on the line because they told me what to do. So when we're looking at character, the assessors are looking at, does this person have integrity? Are they doing the right thing when no one's looking? Are they willing to do the right thing all the time or do they look to cut corners? They're looking at humility. Are they willing to sacrifice themselves for their boat crew or their swim buddy? When the assessors are looking at the character, they're looking at their integrity, humility, right? What are they doing when faced with adversity? And as simple as adversity is, okay, we're about to attack this evolution. It's log PT. It's gonna be a very challenging evolution. Am I going to put myself on the hard position on the log, which is the end spots on the log to help my team, my boat crew perform better? Am I gonna sacrifice myself? And basically the pain. The pain of the log is at the end. So the assessors are looking at these character traits of each individual. I mean, are they a good person, right? Are they willing to do the hard job? Because the assessors are watching you even after hours. Are you one of the individuals who are just running to the showers to go clean up and not do your after hours work? Or are you the one staying behind making sure everything gets done at the end of the day so you can go off and take your shower or get cleaned up or go have your chow for the day? So it's a really, the character is looked at and it's assessed even though it may not be documented structurally during evolutions, but it is being looked at throughout because at the end of the day these assessors could potentially be your platoon mates and they wanna be working with individuals that, hey, this guy or gal is doing the right thing all the time. Okay, so let me wrap this up a little bit. So SOAS is a necessary step for virtually all applicants who wanna become SEAL officers. Yes. Okay, just to summarize for our audience, the key topic here is what is SOAS? So give us a couple of important things that they need to know about SOAS when they're considering an application to be a SEAL officer. SOAS is a key component for our potential aspiring SEAL officers. They need to attend this, they're gonna get assessed by current SEAL operators and SEAL officers and SWIC enlisted. And this is the future of Naval Special Warfare for them to earn a right to go to BUDs. So SOAS was designed so that we're sending the best officer candidates to BUDs, so BUDs doesn't have to worry about filtering the good or the bad officers. They're already getting a good product and that's what SOAS is designed to do, to find those good individuals that Naval Special Warfare is looking for to send to BUDs with the intent of these individuals are gonna get their BUDs and they're gonna later on become the assistant officer in charge or the platoon commanders or the troop commanders or future executive officer and commanding officers. So SOAS is designed to assess a bunch of different components of individuals and create a score that our senior leadership is gonna determine who goes to BUDs. Andrew, that sounds great and thanks for joining us today. What we're gonna do is we're gonna continue this topic in some more episodes. We're gonna talk about the application process and we're gonna go check out of SOAS and see what happens and then we'll also talk about what happens after all of that is done and what the candidates can expect. But until we do, I appreciate your time today and we'll talk again soon. Thanks for having me. There's nowhere to hide in hell with jets. We've been skating through BUDs so far. I'm not too so any longer. He said you're right.