The few months before I ORD'd, the SOF sent me letters to sign
up for the selection course. They did that with all the Pes A/B
NSFs specs before they ORD'd. No big secret or anything, they just
asked you to sign up for the 1 week selection.
A friend of mine did, and he was already pretty fit, i.e. could
run 2.4KM in under 8 minutes. Small built guy, not muscular or
anything. So he went for the preliminary selection for 1 week and
then got invited to go for the 2nd 1 month selection phase. He made
it all the way through, then got the offer to join. He asked them
to pay for his degree at NTU, but SAF would not since he was a
spec, so he ended up not joining. But after the 1 month selection
phase, he came back even fitter, which I didn't think was
possible.
Also, during one of my courses, I had an SOF guy in the same
course. We got to be in the same exercise a few times throughout
the course, and got to know him a little better. He seemed pretty
normal, also not muscular or anything, liked to play PC games and
Sega Saturn at that time.He was also like the rest of us, and would
tuang when he had the chance. When I did our 50km exercise with him
and another guy in our team, he actually got his brother to pick us
up and drop us jst before the finish point where we slept for about
2 hours!
He told us about how after you get selected, you attend their
trainee platoon for 1 year, which is where you learn all their
skills. He also told us some weird stories, like how the camp
commander at Hinden Camp would get SOF guys to round up all the
stray dogs in camp and kill them with rubber bullets from their
MP5s. When I was at HInden Camp, I saw the SOF building also, close
to the HOC grounds. They had a Major who would walk his pet bull
terrier at 2am in the morning. Kinda weird.
He was a 2SG at that time, and was making good money from the
SOF and CDO allowances. I saw him about a year after the course
ended during an exercise in Lorong Gambas. He was a LRRP umpire,
and by that time was 1SG.
In general, from what I've heard, our SOF guys can stand up
against the best of the other SOF groups around the world, like
SAS, GIGN, GSG-9, US Delta, etc. I got to see their training
program, and they regularly cross train with these groups anyway.
Their exercises have pretty cool names, like "Dark Angel", not like
"Golden Sand" or something that we usually see.
