 Life is about constant evolution, always better today than we were yesterday. Welcome to The Only Easy Day was yesterday, the official Navy Seal and Swick podcast. I'm Scott Williams, your host. And today we have with us Andrew Dow, who's a retired seal and also our officer programs expert. And we thought today we'd just take a look inside the mailbag. We get a lot of questions about officer accession programs and in particular about what we call SOAS, which is the Seal Officer Accession and Selection. And maybe, Andrew, you can just start by giving us kind of a synopsis of what SOAS is. Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having me again, guys. What SOAS is, the Seal Officer Assessment Selection was developed in 2014 and it has now become an official program for the Navy, prerequisite for BUDs, basic underwater demolition seals. And it's a two-week long course where we assess officer candidates, whether they're coming from the Naval Academy, ROTC, OCS candidates, lateral transfers, so candidates from the big Navy, active duty. And it's a two-week course of instruction during the summer where we will assess specifically four attributes that we're looking at. One being their cognitive abilities, their character, which is a real important one, their leadership and their team ability. That's what we're looking at with those four main attributes. They will go through a week of physical and mental assessment evolutions where we will be testing them through their physical capabilities as well as presenting them with some mental challenges that they'll be faced with. One being it could be some evolutions they'll see are similar to what they'll see in BUDs where it's log, PT, or boats on their heads. But they'll also be introduced to new types of evolutions that specifically assesses those four big traits. And then the second week being interview week where they will sit down with an officer and a senior enlisted seal. In the community and they will sit down and it's a business interview where they'll be asked questions and regarding the community, regarding where they stand and how they were raised, challenges they faced and to get a good idea of what the individual, who the individual is. And all of this gets thrown together and goes to the selection panel, which happens after SOAS. And just to be clear, this is not for enlisted candidates. It's for officer candidates only. And when does SOAS occur during the assessment pathway? SOAS happens during the summer and it happens, like I said, two weeks in June, two weeks in July, two weeks in August. And this happens after applications have been submitted to the Seal Officer Community Manager. And correct, like you said, it's only for Seal Officer candidates. The enlisted side is completely separate. Those applications are due in February to the Seal OCM. And from there, they find out if they receive an invitation to SOAS, they complete SOAS. Then the Seal Selection Panel, which is a panel of 0506 Seal Officers that determine who will receive orders to buds. After that, pretty much a month, two months after, depending which assessment source you'll be, you will head off to buds. Okay, so it's definitely pre-buds. Yes. And it's after the application piece. You get a notification if you're invited. You come here during the summer. And then you get notified if you're going to attend buds. And that notification usually comes when? So, Selection Panel September, most candidates, specifically OCS, will be notified late October. ROTC and Naval Academy, since they're rising seniors, they won't find out until about December timeframe because they won't actually go to buds until the summer of past graduation. But OCS candidates can leave anytime between November to April, where they would first have to attend OCS in Newport Rhode Island for 12 weeks. And then a month after that, they will report to buds. So they could get to buds as early as January, February after the Selection Panel and be at buds getting after it. So we're talking about a good year, year-and-a-half process from deadline of application to actually showing up for buds if you're selected. Easily, yeah. Most candidates, it's about a two-year cycle. OCS, it's a little sooner because they already have their degree, right, and to become a Naval officer or any officer, you have to have your at least a four-year degree to earn your commission. So they will, it's usually about two years. So much longer timeline than a guy going for an enlisted contract. Absolutely. Good. I mean, even show up a month after he gets a contract, but usually more like three to six months, but way longer for OCS. So this is why it's good to apply when you're in your junior year? Yes. So I actually, it's a great question is most candidates, I start trying to reach out to them their freshman, sophomore year in college just so they have an idea and so they have all their answers, all their questions answered well before they actually submit an application. So they can, you know, start building their resume. But usually candidates start their application, whether it's ROTC, Naval Academy in June, excuse me, their junior year. OCS candidates usually are either graduated already, but or about to graduate that May. So they'll start their application usually August for a February deadline. Okay. So we have a lot of questions that people out there have sent to us. And by the way, but before we get into those, I'll just say if you have questions about SOAS, about SEAL officer programs in general, or whether you have questions about the SEAL community, even if you want to be enlisted or the SWIC community, if you want to be an enlisted SWIC. Andrew, how can they get ahold of us? Well, for the SEAL officer side, they can just go to Google SEAL SWIC.com is a great resource to find all things SEAL officer requirements as well as the enlisted side for both SEAL and SWIC. But my contact information is there on that website. That's probably the easiest way to find out more about it. And from there, I can get you on the SEAL email distro, which is an opportunity for aspiring SEAL candidates to come together and I send announcements out regarding upcoming events specifically for SEAL officers. So it's a good resource to have. Just going to SEAL SWIC.com is where you start. Right. SEAL SWIC.com is our home website. It's where all the information is where you can find out about training, about accession, and a lot of other things about the community. And our general email there, which actually comes to me and so I can send things over to Andrew or whoever I need to to get answers if I don't know it, is info at SEAL SWIC.com. Info at SEAL SWIC.com for all your questions. So we're going to do a few today. We have so many here, we'll probably schedule you for another session and we'll answer some more. But all of these questions that we're about to cover are about SOAS. So I'm going to kind of randomly throw some of these out of here, reach into my mail bag. Okay, I totally faked that. And we're going to have some questions. So all right, how about this one? Will knowing a second language help with my SOAS package? If so, what languages should I learn? All right, so languages in general is a good quality, a good capability to have when you're looking in the SEAL community. SF requires all their operators to learn a language. The SEAL community does not, but it's always a good tool to have when it comes down to it. Specifically for the SOAS application, it's a good requirement. It's a nice to have specifically languages that SEALs are operating in. You can just check out the news where their major conflicts going on, those areas and the regions that there could potentially be presence, military presence are a good spot to start learning what language you could potentially learn. However, it is not going to get you to SOAS. It's a good thing to have. It's a nice resume booster, but it is not the thing that is a requirement. Could it separate you from the pack? It can. And from experience, guys and gals that speak a language are more in tune to learn another language. They can learn multiple languages. It's a very powerful tool within the community being able to speak multiple languages. I think having a good understanding, not just a basic understanding, but working knowledge of this language, of a specific language will definitely help you in the end. This is such a small part before going to SEALs, before going to BUDs, before going to SOAS. It's good to have, but it's not necessary. However, it doesn't hurt. Languages like the big ones most people take if they're doing any type of major, whether it's Spanish, French, German, but obviously some of the big ones are no longer in Iraq and Afghanistan, so the Arabic language and all their dialects isn't as... Not quite as immediate use as it used to be. Being able to speak any of those languages puts you above everyone else and it will definitely jump out on the application seeing that you can speak any of those dialects. Well, considering that we have SEALs and SWIC in more than 100 countries around the world, there's plenty to choose from. I guess we would strongly encourage English. I would hope so. That's an important language. Yeah. Portuguese. You got to think about where we could possibly be in the world, right? French and Spanish are widely spoken languages around the world. Dutch, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, the usual candidates. It's a good thing to have. It's not a requirement. No, it's not a requirement, but it's a nice to have and it won't hurt. But don't let that, if you have to choose between a language or having a better GPA, you want to lean towards having a better GPA. Academics is important when you're applying specifically for the SEAL officer route. Now, one question I've heard before is do I need to learn how to dive or snorkel or shoot a gun before I get two butts? Scott, it's funny you say that. A lot of multiple classmates of mine never dove, never shot a weapon in their life before coming to Buds. And they were probably some of our best shooters and best divers, because they were a blank canvas and everything the instructors taught them, they absorbed and were able to do it the exact way the instructors were telling them to do it. Vice having a person who shot their whole life or dove their whole life, all these incorrect habits that are hard to fix and hard to relearn. So you don't need to have any of that experience, right? If you have a will to serve, a will to lead, that's what the community is looking for. Good men and women who are willing to potentially make the ultimate sacrifice, everything else will be taught to you and you'll be expected to learn it and learn it fast and learn it well. Okay, let's look at another question here. We talk about elements of the package. What does a good letter of recommendation look like? What should be included in a letter of recommendation? The SEAL officer community manager, we got rid of letters of recommendation. They're now called letters of references. So it's a templated format that you can find on the SEAL officer community manager page. And it is, it's templated, so you give it to someone who you feel would write a good letter of recommendation, they will complete this letter of reference and submit it along with your application. It's general questions to talk about who you are as an individual, what some of your goals are, your strengths, your weaknesses, things that really paint a good picture about you, your character and what you represent. And that leads into who should you get for these letters of references. Are we talking about a four-star admiral or Chuck Norris or who? Hey, if you're great friends or if your father or mother are great friends with these type of individuals and they know you personally, yeah, I would get Chuck Norris in a heartbeat. But most people don't know Chuck Norris or a four-star admiral. But if you do know these types of high-caliber people, yeah, it doesn't hurt for them to write your letter of reference. But at the end of the day, the SEAL officer board wants to see the letters of references from people who know you in a personal level, right? And some people I suggest candidates get is guidance counselors, professors, coaches. Maybe you have a family friend that served in the military. And a big question I get is, do I have to get a SEAL? Like a SEAL officer, to write my letter of reference? And the answer is no. It's nice to have, but at the end of the day, it's not necessary. But if you do have someone in your family chain or in your network of people, I would highly suggest you reach out to them and see if they're willing to write a letter of reference for you. The point is that you don't have to go a military celebrity hopping. They want somebody who has true insight in the character of the person they're writing about. Don't just search for that signature, cookie cutter signature. Oh, it was a four star general who is your mother's, cousin's, sister's, best friend's, husband's friend. Just because their signature is so known, they don't know you. And that's what we're looking for, people who know you. So probably not your local senator who just met you over mail. Right. Okay, got it. What are some common mistakes seen in so as candidates throughout the first week? Our readers want to know. All right, so listeners, this is a great question. Some of the things that we see candidates showing up, they're not prepared with running. And so as buds everywhere you go, you're running, whether it's a sprint or a jog, you're going from point A to point B and you're running. We have candidates showing up who are struggling just with this. And that, something I suggest to all candidates is, you know, it's important that you're training, not just for long distance, but short distance so you should be a good sprinter and a good long distancer. You don't need to be a marathon runner to go to buds. It will help and to go to SOAS. It will be very helpful, but that's not, just being able to condition and maintain a pace is what is important to get through SOAS and buds. You know, those guys and gals who can run, you know, three hour marathons, yeah, you'll probably make it for the running portion but it's not going to get you through log PT. It's not going to get you through the ruck run specifically, which leads me to rucking. Rucking, soft sand, boots, we get these questions all the time. Should they be training like that? So I caution this because I don't want to see candidates get injured prior to coming to SOAS or buds but something you will face at SOAS is rucking. And you know, it's an unknown weight but I'll tell you it's somewhere between 35 and 45 pounds. Everywhere you go, you'll be carrying this weight and there may be evolutions at SOAS where you'll be an unknown distance for time to complete a ruck run. So your first time wearing a ruck sack with 35 to 45 pounds shouldn't be at SOAS. I would definitely prep with that but you need to make sure you're pushing yourself to probably an understandable limit so you don't hurt yourself because that's something we don't want to see guys and gals training too hard and hurting themselves and then they underperform at SOAS. So be cautious with how you train using a ruck. There's a lot of informative videos out there on how to ruck properly. People think it's just throwing a backpack and start running. No, there's actually a technique to rucking properly. And oh yeah, by the way, you're going to do it on the sand. So do your research before you jump into it. And Scott, just like you said, guys and gals are not used to wearing boots. So I'm not saying strap on your boots and go run in public because some people may find that embarrassing. But I would highly suggest the first time you wear boots isn't at SOAS. At SOAS you'll get issued a pair of boots if you need it but I suggest to everyone spend the $160, $180 and get yourself a good pair of boots that you can break in and wear to SOAS. That's authorized to do. The boot that they're utilizing at Bud's and it used to be the bait's light but they moved away from that while they're using the Nike SFB boot in color black, non-gore-tex. I get this question a lot. Why non-gore-tex? Well, you're going to be getting wet and sandy and you want your boot to be able to drain. A gore-tex boot doesn't drain well like a non-gore-tex boot. So Nike SFB generation 2 black non-gore-tex boot. You can find a range of prices. They're expensive, but once you get them broken in it's like wearing running shoes and it will definitely pay dividends in the end when you show up to SOAS prepared with a good broken-in boot so you can crush all the evolutions that require you to run on the sand. Yeah, and probably not a good idea to make your very first run on the sand the first time you're also wearing boots and the first time you're carrying a rock, right? It's funny you say that but let's picture the individual who lives in the middle of the United States where they're not going to have a beach in front. Get yourself on a trail. Do some trail running with these boots. You know, you want to find a terrain that is not black top concrete. You want to find something that gives a little bit so your muscles get used to running on an uneven, soft or a different type of surface so your body is prepared for that because that's all that's out here. I mean, we're looking out our window right now. It's all beach, soft and hard sand. Yeah, but I mean if you're in the middle of farmland hey, find a pasture and run out there because that's going to work pretty well I think. Absolutely, just getting miles with these boots on different types of terrain will definitely carry dividends when you get to SOS. Okay, so staying on the topic of physical fitness someone else asked, aside from training for a good PST score what are some good exercises or workouts you would recommend to be physically prepared for SOS? Alright, being a Navy SEAL you know, everyone thinks you know you got to be this super big and muscular individual to do things and carry all this weight and do all that. Most Navy SEALs aren't like that. They're in good shape. They have good cardio are able to maintain a certain pace for a long time, are physically strong and durable within their muscles so what I'm getting at is you don't need to be a bodybuilder or a CrossFit superstar to be able to be a good Navy SEAL operator. We want to see individuals who are let's just talk this way probably a lot of people ask me hey, what type of workout should I be doing? You should be doing high reps lighter weight. You don't need to be doing single rep max bench press squats you need to be doing high reps lower weight probably not even over your body weight that's what you want to be doing but know that you're being trained you're preparing yourself for the worst case scenario where you would have to potentially drag your teammate at a harm's way and your teammate can weigh anywhere from 150 pounds to 250 pounds you need to be able to move that weight but in preparation to do that you need to be able to continue and go at a certain pace with the certain type of strength which leads to high reps lower weight if you need to move something heavy real quick you'll be able to do that I've seen guys training before team guys and it's nothing like the training I've seen when we tell guys to get ready for a good PST so knowing that these candidates their first step is blowing away a PST not looking like Captain America for a mission overseas that's a whole different level of fitness they can do that when they get this far but in the beginning when they just need to impress a SOAS board with good PST scores what are they looking at for exercise? some people prepare themselves and prepare for a PST for SOAS that's the wrong way to prepare you prepare for the PST to take the PST to submit with your application once you submit your application you need to start training as if you're an endurance athlete like I said high reps low weight not a marathon runner but being able to run four miles in 28 to 30 minutes maintaining a pace being able to do 100 straight perfect push ups that gives you muscle flexibility all my repetitions are in good form I have a good condition of my body because a lot of the evolutions you do at SOAS and at BUDS are high reps repetitive movements let's look at log PT a lot of shoulder strength a lot of leg strength so working your lower body is very important because like I said running is everywhere you go you're running you're going to be doing log PT you're going to be doing races so making sure you have a strong lower body and strong shoulders is very important prior to coming to SOAS and the big thing is making sure your body you know you're healthy you don't want to over train and hurt yourself because you're not stretching enough what I'm telling individuals is stretch prior to stretch after you do your workouts just so your muscles have a time to cool down and you're not getting hurt so big things are your training for a marathon without being a marathon runner high reps lower weight and you should be focusing on leg strength and shoulder strength because that's 90% of the type of workouts you're going to be seeing at SOAS and for the PST they can use physical training guide once they knock out that great PST then they can focus on the SOAS training which is a bit of a different kind of training so how would you rank the or weight the requirements the PST the letters of reference university etc of a SOAS package for an invitation what's most important so the first thing the board excuse me the down select panel the first thing they're going to look at is your PST score over the years we've had much more competitive scores now they're starting to get a little bit lower but we're still seeing a very competitive score somewhere between the 700 and 800s so what does that look like we're looking at a 9 minute 500 yard swim a 90 plus push ups 90 plus sit ups 15 plus pull ups and I'll just interject here that if you go on seelswick.com we have a PST calculator and the PST calculator will give you that composite score and tell you where you are and there is one specifically for officers it's a different set of standards it's higher standards so use that PST calculator for officers plug in your scores and you'll find out where you are and how much you need to improve right and you know the thing we're seeing most is guys and gals their run times aren't good but also pull ups when you do your PST for your application and you submit it the first thing you're going to do if you get invited to SOAS is a PST so you better ensure that your PST is accurate to what you submitted right because quality assurance quality assurance isn't always up to you know up to standard when you get to SOAS because at SOAS you're going to have one to one ratio with assessor to candidate so they're going to be watching every push up, every pull up, every sit up and it's really important that you're doing good form and practicing this good form prior to coming to SOAS because they're going to discount the reps that don't meet form right and potentially you could get dropped from SOAS if you get if you get checked by you know you can get dropped from SOAS if you're doing improper form if you get hit several times on doing something incorrectly you could potentially get dropped and get sent home and we've seen that in the last SOAS candidates don't deselect yourself by having crappy form on your curl ups or your push ups and even with the pull ups so there's so back to the question you're saying so PST is very important, that's the first thing they're going to look at GPA that's very important to have a strong GPA but the board understands that a mechanical engineer GPA and an economics GPA if they're the same you know, mechanical engineers usually have a harder workload I was an econ major and I had buddies who were mechanical engineers we had the same GPA but much harder workload than me granted you know, I shied away from my focus on academics sometimes because I was focused on athletics but just know that if you have a 3.0 mechanical engineer GPA that's okay, you don't need to have a 4.0 if you have a 2.0 economics GPA you don't have a little concern unless you're a division 1 superstar athlete and it fell along the wayside of not studying all the time because you had to focus on your team and your team came first the board will understand that so there's a lot of things that play into your GPA but having a strong GPA 3.0, good to go and the degree kind of matters so degree kind of matters specific degree the community is looking for they're looking they're specifically looking for you picked a degree you stayed with it and you succeeded and earned that degree so that's something that they're looking at but specific degrees isn't a primary thing they're looking for when they're looking at an application so, PST, strong GPA and probably another one is having a you know having a background in something you know having a background in something whether it's in sports in extracurricular activities doing something outside of just academics and what I like to call that is building your brand so along with your in your SOA's application you're going to submit a resume and this is basically a brag sheet about you the candidate the more things you do outside of school or outside of work that gets added to your resume that makes you look a more enticing candidate for SOA's so doing other things that interest you is important to do and it helps build your brand as a candidate so if you're random example if you're at Notre Dame and you're an NRRTC candidate and all you're doing is NRRTC you're wrong you're doing something outside of NRRTC whether it's playing a sport doing some sort of club I'm not saying go walk on Notre Dame football right if you played football in high school but hey if you played football in high school maybe there's a club sport maybe there's something else the whole point is to have that team environment that you're always the teams is the teams the SEAL teams you're working along men and women it's important to maintain that prior to SOA's so at college do things that involve teamwork I've heard the commenter often talk about team ability being a crucial attribute in SEALs and in SWIC and it starts in high school it starts in college and continues on if you choose to go SEALs it continues on in the teams hence teams makes sense for a package okay so we got time for one more today and we're going to have to have you back because we got a lot more questions but last one for today what is the best way for OCS candidates to compete with Naval Academy and ROTC candidates given the lack of military experience and background that they may have alright so OCS candidates it's sometimes difficult for those applicants because some of them don't have any military experience at all whether they're a parent mom or dad served or their grandparents served some of them don't have that luxury where Naval Academy, ROTC they're thrown into military lifestyle right away once you get to school, hey you're part of the military learning how to march, learning how to salute learning how to make your bed correctly and wear the uniform properly OCS candidates don't have that luxury they don't get that luxury until they actually go to Officer Cannon School in Newport Rhode Island so some things they can do one, first off OCS candidates you need to reach out to me you can get my point of contact at the Sealswick website or it's andrew.dow.ctr at socom.mil that's a good way to reach me but you find that my email on the Sealswick website Sealswick.com you need to reach out to me is for a couple things one, I have a Seal Officer email distribution list this is a list I've been collecting since I started doing this and it's all current candidates or current applicants who are interested in going the Seal Officer route I send out announcements about different opportunities for OCS ROTC candidates some of these announcements will post will notify you of upcoming webinars that I host I host about 6 a year and these webinars go through the SOAS application it goes through NSW 101 we talk about I get guest speakers on some senior officers, junior officers senior enlisted junior enlisted to come on and talk about officer enlisted relationships and they're tough some of the challenges they faced as Seal Operators but it gives OCS candidates an opportunity to learn about the community ahead of time and it also tries to balance the playing field with their Naval Academy and ROTC teammates teammates, perfect because specifically Naval Academy they have Seals on the yard and the yard is the campus they have an officer and an enlisted and sometimes even another officer on the Academy grounds that they can reach out to as a resource OCS and ROTC do not so that's why we started these webinars for them to have a touch point and a place they can go to one, talk to a Navy Seal me or talk to some of my special guests that I have come on but it also gives them an opportunity within each other and create their own social network like the Naval Academy has it gives them an opportunity to say, hey John or Mary, are you from Colorado? oh, me too so it gives them a good common area where they can meet and potentially build friendships and training buddies to get prepared for OCS and to ask their questions and bounce it off when they want each other so this distro we also host NROTC OCS exposure weekends here in Coronado those are by invitation only you register and then I notify you if you get invited and it's basically modeled after the Naval Academy Seal screener and what we do is run you through some challenging evolutions for about 24 to 26 hours of hard evolutions that you may or may not see it so as but it gives you an opportunity to see hey one, is this for me? two, what do I need to work on? and it prepares you for OCS so don't work, let me say this though don't worry about the military part you're not the whole OCS staff understands that you have no military background or knowledge of the military so you're not going to be graded on poor military bearing or poor the way you wear your uniform and properly they understand that you're going to learn that after so as because OCS candidates don't go to OCS until after they've been selected and been told that they're going to Buds that's when they'll go to OCS so they go to OCS after so as while the Naval Academy ROTC have been through before Buds and another thing that they can work on is most of our OCS candidates have their degree already so they have graduated in the corporate America or working in the public sector stay active continue to do things that you would do that surround yourself with challenges whether it's go to your local gym and join the club swimming team continue to stay active and do sports or do types of activities outside of your work so you can stay active and stay engaged because you need to have that competitive edge when you're at so as and you need to maintain that prior too so you don't get lazy after you graduate yeah thanks for that I want to put in a quick plug for Andrew folks the only way you're going to find out all this stuff other than just hearing what we have to offer quickly here on the podcast is to go to saleswik.com check out the officer accession page you're going to see Andrew's name and email on there contact him so he can tell you about these things that are going on that are meant to help you so you can get on that that email list and we can let you know what's going on and you can explore the community from there I appreciate you coming in today we're going to do this again because we have plenty more questions but I'd like to thank you folks that was Andrew Dow our seal program program's expert I'm Scott Williams and this was the only easy day was yesterday