Comment by danielvf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danielvf | Hacker News Reader

When we were teens, my brother and I "invited" a very quiet, ex-Delta Force gentleman over to our woods to play paintball against us. We weren't entirely smart, but figured he'd join the other loud mouth, overconfident, just out of airborne school soldiers we'd had over, and he would end up with a big splat of yellow paint in the middle of his facemask a few times. We were bit cocky.

"Sure", he said.

"One two conditions." Pause. "There's no time limit, and no boundaries." Pause for a beat. "I'm going to run off and lie dog for three days. Then I'll get up. Hunt you down. Kill you."

In that moment I achieved enlightenment. Maybe the reason that some people or groups could do far more than others was not some special gifted super-power, but the willingness to put in unthinkable amounts off work for the slightest edge in advantage. Stack this up across all possible advantages, and the results would look impossible.

If you want to read about the Delta Force, I highly recommend the slim book "Leadership and Training for the Fight" by Paul Rowe[0]. It's not technically a history of anything, but it lets you live inside the head of someone with a very different way of viewing the world - almost an alien mindset, and see how they solve problems and function.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Training-Fight-Operations-...

Back in the day when I was in the (Dutch) Navy, at one point we had a special forces team on board. They quite literally spent 8 hours per day in the gym, 8 hours per day doing gunnery and/or tactical exercises and divided the remaining 8 hours between sleeping, eating and showering. Every day was the same, except that possibly the individual exercises differed. All of the soldiers on that team were focused on their job to a completely unhealthy degree, except of course that in their line of work not being focused like that can be way more unhealthy (ie, it directly leads to getting shot).

It is a fascinating lifestyle and I'm glad that some people are willing to do it, but I'm also glad that my own life is not like that. Apparently the suicide rate of retired special forces soldiers is several times higher than the baseline because if you leave (and sooner or later everyone gets too old and slow to keep up the lifestyle), almost everything you lived for is now gone.

Reminds me of the Teller (from Penn & Teller) quote: "Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect."

> might reasonably expect

That part made me laugh too hard.

I am stealing that quote now, though. It's so true - think of the effortlessness with which a musician does what they do. It's more or less magic. Same thing with most things.

Also like the story:

> A fellow got backstage after the violin maestro's performance. "That was amazing", he gushed! I would give half my life to be able to play as well as you do! The violinist looked at him and nodded. "Yes, that is about what it took!"

In the military I met one Delta guy who was back in regiment. I had the opportunity to observe 3 or 4 for a few weeks. As a civilian I did training with ex-delta. My company XO who later went to ARSOF ran missions with them (or rather they were a component of his missions).

Anyone with personal experience will tell you they are not cowboys as they are often depicted. They are incredibly focused, quiet, hard working, and almost autistically detail oriented with their craft.

The level of “professionalism” required to operate at that level is simply impossible for most people to sustain.

Don’t let the cargo shorts and flip flops fool you.

This is a pretty damned key point about Delta guys (and yes, gals.)

The amount of focus, attention to details, mental acuity, instant decisiveness you require would and does wash most people out.

It’s not like the Navy Seals movie with Charlie Sheen folks.

SEALs do have a different culture from Delta, some of that stems from Navy culture I’m told. Some argue SEALs are too cavalier. I only went on one mission with SEALs and they were professional. Others who’ve been around them more seem to be more opinionated one way or the other. I have no desire to wade into that argument.

You brought up Sheen, people often confuse the various organizations that make up JSOC.

I think for SEALs, their conduct varies heavily between Teams and even platoons.

An important point you make, though: you represent your group (in this case, SEALs) in many peoples eyes.

Interesting perspective / story; from a work-life perspective, it does seem that those that win, take a lot more low risk, low probability, high pay-off shots. It's all about how you can setup the odds to be in your favor if you are willing to work that extra x%.

Here it's the same thing - spending extra effort waiting for the right moment to happen. He would not be just waiting for 3 days to just wait. He is waiting to get that lucky chance when the odds are in his favor.

Interesting short story.

contrary to popular opinion and Hollywood most of these elite special forces teams don't succeed because they are aim-bot super soldiers. It mostly comes down to intel, preparation, and better gear

They are better soldiers because of preparation, aka training.

But it still takes someone with certain mental capabilities to do it well, aka the super soldier.

I can offer a bit of insight on this, having seen a fair amount of training of a free different groups (helped run a heavily used MOUT town, basically a fake town where they could run around shooting without hurting anyone).

You'd actually be surprised about how good their accuracy is, and even more so their reaction time. Their weapons are almost always pointed in the right direction, and they just move faster than the normal Marines and Army infantry.

Their gear is better, but not all that much better than an average recon team. Their Intel is better, in that they are fully briefed on it, rather than the chopped down versions the regulars get.

The biggest difference is their training and lifestyle. They don't have to deal with the bullshit that regulars do, don't have to play stupid games. Their job is to be good at their job, so that is all they do. And because of all that training time, because they can focus without being pulled into a working party or parade duty.

While many units generally consist of smaller teams, the teams can often be changed and switched around as people get specialized or re-assigned at different points, this generally doesn't happen for the very elite units.

Small teams are kept together at all times since very early in the training. Doing the same exercises many many times with the same exact people leads to mastery that makes them just seem faster and more fluid.

The lifestyle point is also true, its easier to keep your edge when there aren't constant mindless tasks to be done (gate duty) for many hours a day.

- I'm saying this from experience with armed forces, but can't claim its true for all elite units everywhere.

Reminds me of Carlos Hathcock, generally considered to be the first example of a "modern" sniper. He would spends days crawling through fields in Vietnam deep in enemy territory just for a chance at one single shot on a high value target.

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