Special Forces Qualification Course

The Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) or, informally, the Q Course is the initial formal training program for entry into the United States Army Special Forces. Phase I of the Q Course is Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS). Getting "Selected" at SFAS will enable a candidate to continue to the next of the four phases. If a candidate successfully completes all phases he will graduate as a Special Forces qualified soldier and then, generally, be assigned to a 12-man Operational Detachment "A" (ODA), commonly known as an "A team." The length of the Q Course changes depending on the applicant's primary job field within Special Forces and their assigned foreign language capability but will usually last between 56 and 95 weeks.

Scope: This 19-day performance-oriented course includes physical conditioning, map reading and land navigation instruction; land-navigation practical exercises and common-task training. Course Description: To prepare and condition 18X and REP-63 (National Guard) soldiers to attend Special Forces Assessment and Selection course and the follow-on Special Forces Qualification Course.

A version of SFAS was first introduced as a selection mechanism in the mid-1980s by the Commanding General of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at the time, Brigadier General James Guest.

There are now two ways for soldiers to volunteer to attend SFAS:

The first phase of the Special Forces Qualification Course is Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS), consisting of 24 days of training held at Camp Mackall.

Events in SFAS include numerous long distance land navigation courses. All land navigation courses are conducted day and night under heavy loads of equipment, in varied weather conditions, and in rough, hilly terrain. Land navigation work is done individually with no assistance from instructors or fellow students and is always done on a time limit. Each land navigation course has its maximum time limit reduced as course moves along and are upwards of 12 miles (19 km) each. Instructors evaluate candidates by using obstacle course runs, team events including moving heavy loads such as telephone poles and old jeep trucks through sand as a 12-man team, the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), a swim assessment, and numerous psychological exams such as IQ tests and the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB) test. The final event, which was discontinued in early 2009 and reintroduced sometime before December 2013, is a road march of up to 32 miles (51 km) known as "the Trek" or Long Range Individual Movement (LRIM).

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