Remember with Delta officially they don't even exist. There is no unit designator, they normally use a SF tab like the one you posted but it isn't the Delta unit designator. There are a few books by Delta operators but for the most part they keep pretty quiet just like the British SAS. I work with a guy that was a Navy SBD operator which basically drive the small boats to deliver the SEALs and the ongoing joke at this time is when you get your budweiser badge you also get your name added to a publishers' directory for when you want to write your book. The SEALs have a real problem with that right now but it seems to have died down some recently. When I was in you had to be at least an E 5 to apply to Delta, again I've read articles that they recruit from other services but I have nothing to confirm that.
Yeah, it seems like retired SEALs put out more books than anyone else, though I've seen and read books from pretty much every other unit as well. But it definitely does seem like the SEAL books outnumber the others by quite a bit.
I've heard that Delta recruits from every branch as well, but the main bulk of guys who go are SF, Rangers, and Airborne soldiers.
Anyone here that's in the Army and been to Fort Bragg, have you ever seen the Delta compound?
Never served with either, so I have no dog in this fight. But I'd say Pararescue are every bit as elite as SEAL's. PJ training takes almost two years to complete, and the attrition rate is north of 80%. PJ's have to achieve very high levels of fitness and master a broad skill set. Their training pipeline includes Army Airborne School, Air Force Combat Diver Course, Air Force Basic Survival School and Army Free Fall School. Their specialist Paramedic/EMT training alone takes well over a year. In addition to their core skill set, PJ's are intensively trained in various weapons.
The biggest difference is the whole medical portion of it. PJs have to learn to become paramedics in basically 1/6th the time it takes civilians to become paramedics, and there's the combat emphasis on top of it. So that's why their attrition rate is so high. I remember reading that during the medical phase, not only do they have to read, comprehend, and retain over 100 pages of info PER DAY, but they have to do this on top of incorporating the combat stuff into it, and then bring it all together in an incredibly short amount of time. Those who fail any tests more than twice are dropped. Academically, that's about as brutal as I could ever imagine. Especially to be badass enough to make it through all the other training and then come up short because you couldn't get through the medical portion. That'd be absolutely devastating.
Well, for one, the class is way smaller. Instructor to student ratio is much different from BUDs. That translates into a lot more instructors giving you shit and watching your every move compared to BUDs. Army divers spend 10 weeks in Basic Combat Training before taking the Combat Diver Qualification Course for seven weeks. No, no weekends off, unless they have changed things.
I don't know if you have ever gone through 2 months of excruciating military training with no weekends off. It plays with your mind. It is a psychological game. I could put up with just about anything for 5 days of the week knowing I would have the weekend to recover. Sleep and eat. Things don't work like that in elite Army schools. I think the U.S. Navy has a different mentality when it comes to that. I'm not just saying this because I was a soldier in the Army. I have a lot of respect for Navy SEALs but the weekends off during training really makes the whole thing much, much easier.
Basic Combat Training? Isn't that boot camp?
BUD/s starts out pretty big but by the time they get to dive phase the class is less than half the size of what it was on day 1. Plus, they begin Dive Phase immediately after the brutality of Phase 1, so they go into it extremely beat down. Don't the Army Combat Diver guys start fresh? Meaning it's a bunch of Rangers and Green Berets who want that diver designation so they show up fresh from their unit? That makes a big difference as well.
Sounds like the reverse of how BUD/s does it. Dive Phase first then Land Warfare/Combat phase next. Then they go even further in SQT which, I believe, the only days they get off are the days spent traveling from one aspect of training to another (such as going from cold weather training in Alaska to jump training in the lower 48). Otherwise they're always on. Training ramps up as this is where they earn their tridents.
As for weekends in phase 1 and 2, I think whatever they do get off, you're reading way too much into it. The ocean plays a great equalizer and a most other units don't have to deal with the ocean to the same degree as BUD/s students or SEALs. Dive Phase is roughly 2 months in the cold, murky Pacific, but in BUD/s overall, you're in the ocean day in and day out for all 6 months. Wet and sandy almost every single day, all day. The toll that takes is unimaginable. That's excruciating.
No, that's the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) patch, but yes, any Delta guys will wear that patch as a unit patch. But you also have way more soldiers who are not Delta wearing that patch. Delta is really the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment.
Yeah, supposedly PSYOPS guys use that patch as well. But any pic of any unit operator I've ever seen has had this patch on their uniform (mainly guys who've either died after retirement or been KIA). So it definitely seems like it's the patch they prefer to wear, even though it's not specifically theirs.
Have you, or anyone that's been in the Army, ever came across a guy wearing this patch on his uniform?