Clemson Cadet attends Special Forces Combat Dive School

August 10, 2015

This summer I, CDT Glatz, was given the opportunity to spend 8 weeks in Key West, Florida for Combat Dive School.  The Special Forces Underwater Operations compound is located within the Naval Air Station at Trumbo Point, Key West.  The first 2 weeks of my stay were spent completing a MAC (Maritime Assessment Course).  The MAC focused on the basics, introducing us to stress events and what the daily schedule of the course would be.  It was essentially used to weed out those who were not going to make it far in the course.  West Point and each Special Forces Group had a MAC at their post to save money on travel while all 23 ROTC Cadets had MAC in Key West.  At the end of the MAC, over 55% of the Cadets were dropped and over 75% of all SF and West Point Cadets were dropped.  Only 8 more were dropped after this initial phase.

After both the SF and West Pointers arrived, we began the final 6 weeks.  Every day from 0430 to roughly 2000 we were constantly moving and training.  This was by far the best and hardest training I have ever received.  We learned how to do closed circuit diving on rebreathers, 130ft dives, night and day navigation dives, multiple rescuing techniques, underwater zodiac caches, closed circuit gear caches, submarine lock out infiltrations, helocasting operations, day and night airborne jumps into water, underwater beach infiltrations, zodiac beach infiltrations, small boat seizures and much more.  If you have any interest in combat diving at all, I highly recommend pursuing a slot to this school.