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Excellent post ! Perhaps that will seperate alot of the bs on this thread , the silly double posting etc . Should serve as an excellent tool for a quick education to others . Again , my hat is off to you .

Major bump , colonel !

Thanks for your positive feedback!
I want to stress, I speak from a position I know about and not more. I didn't mention Navy SEALs, Force Recon 'cause I don't know about those guys (not that I know that much about elite units).

I spoke more from a perspective of every other Joe who wishes some day to go to one of those schools. We had a SSG in my unit in Bosnia that slept with his eyes open (I sh*t you not) and he is now a Green Beret- so maybe that's what it takes to go SF. I know plenty of other guys that just tried to make it through SFAS but failed and were able to tell me why.

I always watch for keywords in a reporter's stories to let me know if he's "in the know" or not and the use of "Pathfinder" told me that this story writer had at least some of the facts down.

But I would highly question any accounts citing Delta members as a source. How many interviews have we heard from members of the 10th Mountain? and they are also deployed in theater? They would also be more approachable than Delta by a large factor of magnitude. More likely the writer has put together piecemeal something from a hodgepodge of sources in order to get some exposure. There may be a kernel of truth in it but I would take it with a grain of salt (personally).

The only other wisdom I can shed is- every mission is subject to Murphy's Law. Even in training the best laid plans tend to go to hell in the first 10-15 minutes of the battle- so if there was a cockup on the ground you could put it down equally to "if anything can go wrong..." as to faulty MI.

I do want to state though that I wasn't trying to stick my nose in- but I do know a few handy things about the Army and the way it operates and the availability of this reporter's source put some question marks in my mind- not to say that it couldn't be true- it's just one of those things that make you go hmmm.