SASR Selection

Story by Cpl Jason Logue
Photos by WO2 Noel Gilby and Cpl Jason Logue

A GROUP of fit, young Australian soldiers stand silhouetted by the morning sun, their chests heaving with exhaustion, struggling to concentrate on the task at hand. Their uniforms, dark with perspiration, provide a stark contrast to the heat-induced haze rising from baked red earth. From out of the glare, a calm but authoritative voice just loud enough to be heard sends a wave of apprehension down already-fatigued bodies.

"Candidate 47, I noticed that on your last set of exercises you did not complete your push-ups to the standard previously explained. To help you all understand how important it is to follow instructions exactly, you can now do another 50."

And with that the group of men drop to the pebbled ground and force their aching muscles to push out yet another set.

For some, this scene may remind you of men serving hard time in a prison. But this group of about 100 soldiers want to be here more than anything else.

They are attempting selection, more commonly known as the cadre, in an effort to join Australia’s premier fighting force.

Their eventual goal is to wear the fawn beret and flaming sword excalibur cap badge of the Special Air Service Regiment but for now they have to endure another three weeks of physical and mental hell.

"Candidate 82, I noticed that during your last exercises you opted to face uphill. To help you all understand that in the SAS the easiest way isn’t always the best way you can now face downhill and do them again ..."

At the completion of the course only 10-30 per cent of them will have lasted the distance and even then some may be deemed unsuitable. So what drives a soldier to put himself through extraordinary pain on the slim chance that he may be selected?

SASR selection course senior instructor Capt Chris Johns says most soldiers have yearned at one stage to be a member of SASR but only a minority ever take the step towards selection.

The 20-day course is designed to select officers to serve in SASR and soldiers who show potential for service in the regiment through a series of physically and mentally demanding activities.

Under constant assessment from directing staff — all senior members of the regiment — candidates are pushed to the limit and then beyond in order to weed out anyone with qualities unsuitable to SASR.

To be initially considered for the course a candidate must undertake a comprehensive psychological assessment and complete a number of physical tests under the scrutiny of a physical training instructor.

From these results applicants are paneled on the course and supplied with a detailed 13-week training and preparation guide.

Capt Johns says the guide is essential in the preparation for the course, as it soon becomes obvious who hasn’t put in the work.

"If somebody sticks to the 13-week program and he has a good, average physical ability it will provide him with enough physical endurance to complete the course," Capt Johns says.

"It is an individual thing though, so the package has been provided for those people with an average to good level of physical fitness."

Other elements of precourse study include a basic knowledge of morse code, an excellent appreciation of navigation and detailed first-aid training.

Despite this intensive period of preparation, most candidates are shocked by the intensity of the course.

Their initial march-in period is little more than a set of ground rules, which each candidate must strictly adhere to if they are to have any chance of completing the course.

The course PTIs or recreational activities instructors, as they like to call themselves, make their presence felt almost immediately with exercise demonstrations and a welcome-to-the-course workout.

By the completion of the first afternoon each candidate has an inherent understanding of just how heavy an unloaded Steyr is after repeatedly lifting it in a variety of directions.

These rifle exercises are a continual aspect of the course and unfortunately for the candidates, repetitions never fall below 50.

Physical endurance, though, is only one aspect on which the candidates are selected.

Service in SASR requires specific attributes, all of which are assessed throughout the course.

Capt Johns says two of the most important qualities the DS look for are teamwork and self-discipline.

"I would think that we put equal emphasis on those aspects," he says.

"Teamwork, particularly the very close small team in an isolated high-risk environment, is extremely important."

He makes it quite clear that there is no such thing as the perfect SASR soldier although they do have a snapshot of what he would be like.

Instead, soldiers are selected on their potential to serve in the regiment.

"We are not looking for the perfect soldier — we are looking for a soldier who has enough qualities for us to have a starting point in his training.

"He is not necessarily the best soldier in the army but he has to be right in our environment."

Parent corps is becoming less of an issue for those considering selection as the regiment has documented several successes from candidates who were not from an infantry background.

In the previous selection course two sailors were selected and other successful candidates have come from the reserve, catering and the regiment even boasts two former musicians.

The backbone of the regiment though is still structured around the Royal Australian Regiment, which is quite fitting as it was soldiers from the army’s regular infantry battalions who first formed 1SAS Coy in 1957, the precursor to today’s SASR.

The majority of candidates on selection make their attempt while still members of the various battalions of the RAR and there are usually quite a few hopefuls from each of those battalions.

The 1/98 SASR Selection Course further highlighted that any serving member of the ADF can apply as it included engineers, sigs, commandos and strangely enough a Hornet pilot from 77 Sqn RAAF.

"Certainly the infantry will provide us with the majority of our successful candidates but because we are selecting certain qualities, which in a lot of cases a person either has or hasn’t got, we can have very successful candidates from a non-infantry background," Capt Johns says.

The physical and mental shock, which faces the candidates from the moment the course starts, continues in its intensity for the duration of the selection process.

This culture shock eventually forces many soldiers to request a removal from the course.

Even during their rest-time candidates are bombarded with noise, anything from straight white-noise through to the Talking Heads in full-blast at 3am, just to remind them of where they are.

Perhaps the most disheartening version of this mental torture occurred at the end of a particularly hard PT session.

As the soldiers struggled back to their hootchie lines feeling the after-effects of running too far and too hard with webbing and rifles, James Brown screamed I Feel Good from a pair of massive speakers.

While observing the candidates, it was easy to see who could adapt to this form of deprivation as some started to sing along.

Despite all of the other qualities the regiment are looking for, candidates are required to show some singing prowess if they wish to reduce the number of spontaneous physical activities forced on them everyday.

The course awakens to the cheerful regimental quick-march, The Happy Wanderer, and retires to the mournful strains of Lily Marlene, its slow march.

In between, soldiers are called to meal parades with the national anthem and they are expected to know the words of all three and sing-a-long.

Mostly this is done while quickly clearing up their bed-space in record time and forming up while under the constant hawk-like gaze of numerous DS.

"The main reason for people not to complete the course is they withdraw by own request," Capt Johns says.

"I think a lot of them assess that they are not physically prepared enough for the course and therefore are not going to complete it. So rather than go out and face more pain for nothing they choose to pull off."

The course severely tests an individual’s resolve and Capt Johns says some soldiers find they just don’t have that reserve when it is needed most. Other candidates soon learn they attempted selection for the wrong reasons and find their pool of motivation quickly dries up. He says at the beginning of the course most DS have a gut feeling of who in their squads will have the mettle to make it through but stresses that the regiment does not select people on gut-feelings.

"We only withdraw people after concrete observations that indicate to us that this man doesn’t have what the regiment is looking for.

"The majority of people we withdraw from the course, we recommend they come back and do it again, particularly if it is their first course."

He says after this initial failure, most soldiers come back to give it another shot and they are much-better prepared following their first experience.

"The regiment, like the rest of the army, is fully accountable and if someone wants to know why they’ve been removed we have to tell him.

"At times we’ve had this feeling that a guy’s not right but unless I’ve got the documented evidence and I can put my hand on my heart and go to the OC and say he shouldn’t be a member of SASR, he can still get in."

Without a doubt the most heartbreaking way to come off the course is to complete all of the activities and then be told you are not suitable.

Capt Johns says the worst part of his job is to tell someone who has lost about 8-15 kg in the three weeks and pushed themselves to the limit that they are not suitable for service in SASR.

"These guys have raw meat for feet and severe chaffing from their pack and webbing and they stand in front of me and I have to tell them, sorry you’re not what we are looking for."

From the candidates point of view selection can only be described as three-weeks of living hell and one soldier who unfortunately didn’t make it through the early stages of the course was Cpl Jason Whyte, a section commander in Recon Pl 6RAR.

He was withdrawn from the course at the end of day three after failing to meet one of the required physical tests.

He says the course is the hardest activity of his military career to date.

"In military skills competitions the activities are only for a short time and they do as much as they can but here they get at you from minute one till the time you go," Cpl Whyte says.

"I came over here expecting to get a bit of a flogging but I didn’t think it would be as constant as it was."

He says the hardest aspect of the course for him was coping with the heat and managing the short, sharp runs.

His immediate goal on attempting the course was to pass the initial tests and then take the rest as it came.

"I would’ve liked to get to the next phase so I could see how my endurance held up but unfortunately that didn’t happen."

Another early withdrawal was Spr Adrian Smit, an engineer in 3RAR, who also described the course as the hardest thing he had ever attempted.

Despite considering himself very fit, he believes it was his physical and not his mental side that let him down.

"I knew my weakness was in my upper-body and regardless of what anyone says that’s what counts most," Spr Smit says.

"All of your exercises, or as they call them recreational activities, are based on your upper body and because of this constant arm use through push-ups or raising and lowering your rifle I found my arms would just give-in."

Spr Smit is looking at his first attempt as an excellent learning experience and hopes to try again on the next course.

He also found the heat a problem and believes most candidates from NSW or further south would have experienced similar problems.

"Two days ago we were training in 24 degrees and we stepped off the plane into ans environment which hovered at the 40 degree mark."

Neither of these soldiers found the mental games used on the course, such as playing constant music, a real problem and Spr Smit actually enjoyed being able to switch-off, clean his rifle and listen to something different.

For those who managed to get past the day-three hump the course graduated into an endurance phase comprising an individual navigation exercise in the sandy wastes of the Lancelin Training Area.

This phase lasted three days and during that time most candidates completed about 70km.

From there they moved onto a more team-oriented assessment and carried out tasks that required natural leaders to exert their authority to get exhausted minds and bodies to achieve tasks.

It is during this phase that particular attention is focused on the remaining officer candidates.

Capt Johns says officers are required to possess all of the qualities of a soldier as well as show they can handle the extra pressures of leadership.

He also says a different style of leadership is required in SASR because of the stressful environment they will be required to work in — only a natural command-style will get them through.

"He has to be able to genuinely lead by his own qualities rather than fall back on position and rank," Capt Johns says.

"We want someone with superior leadership qualities who can lead by the strength of his personality."

Soldiers who progress through the course find their attitudes change as they begin to learn things about themselves and their soldiering skills.

Most candidates, while not enjoying the training in a physical sense, leave the course with a huge sense of achievement simply to have lasted as long as they did.

Those who actually finish and are selected can count their achievement as among the greatest in their life and use it as a firm platform from which to attempt even more demanding training with the regiment.

In the wash-up of the 1/98 SASR Selection Course only three officers and 13 soldiers were selected for service in the regiment from a hopeful 97 candidates.

Most of the others will now be going through a process of self-doubt and wondering if they could have gone on but can be confident that the serving members of the regiment were impressed that they had made an attempt.

Some will already be preparing for their next go, armed with a bit of extra knowledge and an even stronger desire to get in.