SureFire

How to look like you’re Special Forces

One thing this excellent article fails to mention is the beard…you have to grow a big beard, and you should grow your hair at least until it touches the top of your ears (see #3, which is good but could be expanded imho).

How to look like you’re Special Forces

by Anonymous, courtesy of BusinessWeek.com

1. First, go to EMS and buy the biggest watch you can find. A foreign special services officer asked me once whether we recruited guys based on the size of their watches or whether we bought everyone a big watch as a reward after training.

2. Cut the sleeves off your shirt. It’s hot in the Middle East, and guys would cut the sleeves off their operational uniforms. It makes sense in certain situations, but I had to tell my team, “Look, I know it’s hot, but I need you to meet safety parameters. You’re gonna get scratched.”

3. Make it your boss’s job to tell you to get a haircut and a shave.

4. Wear sunglasses. Everywhere. I’ll tell my team, “Hey, we’re inside. We can take off our sunglasses.” But they don’t.

5. Keep quiet. The baddest guys I know are also the quietest. The guy who’s talking about doing badass stuff? He’s probably not the biggest badass in the room. It’s a little like that guy on the football team who wears his letterman jacket all the time.

6. Never say “no.” Your first reaction has to be, “Yes, I can do that,” and then you figure out how. If the president asked me to go to the moon tomorrow, I’d say yes. Then I’d say, “I’ll need some training. And someone who can fly a rocket.” — As told to Brendan Greeley

Anonymous led teams in the Middle East and South Asia as a special forces officer.

Thanks to tacticalfanboy.com for the original article.

12 Responses to “How to look like you’re Special Forces”

  1. TM says:

    #7. If you lose at anything; ANYTHING AT ALL, throw a hissy fit and demand a rematch!

  2. Mark says:

    8. Never wear the same camo as everyone else and make sure you’re not out of season i.e. Multicam was cool in 2005 but now regs wear it so you need to wear something else. Extra style points awarded for throwback patters such as DCU.

  3. This must be a US thing, as what you call SF and what we call SF in the UK are a world apart. Save facial hair that is think is inherited from SF mums!

  4. Jayson says:

    you forgot…keep your hands in your pockets at all times…

  5. John Wayne says:

    Rule #1: Always know where you are and what you are doing.
    Rule #2: Always look cool.
    Rule #3: If you dont know where you are or what you are doing, at least look cool figuring it out.

  6. Buckaroomedic says:

    Concur, getting tired of seeing “operators” walking around, in uniform, with full beards and very long hair. Someone needs to tell them; “Look, you’re not fooling anyone anymore”. If their job requires them to grow a beard and have long hair, they shouldn’t be in uniform, allow them to wear civilian clothes. Maybe they would fool us then.

  7. Tan says:

    Doesn’t wear undies or underarmour
    Only PSC and airsofties does