TL,DR - My son completed the Special Forces Combat Dive School, the first cadet at the University of North Georgia to ever do it.
The full story:
Combat Dive School
Each summer between their sophomore and junior years, top cadets at the University of North Georgia (one of the nation’s six senior military colleges) can potentially enroll in real Army training schools/course. The spots are limited but UNG gets an Airborne School slot and a few more (12) Air Assault slots. Occasionally there is a Combat Dive slot, but no one at the school has ever completed that course. Combat Dive is unquestionably regarded as one of the hardest Special Forces courses in the military.
The coveted slots are assigned by UNG’s Order of Merit, the ranking system of cadets in order of academic and physical fitness. If you are not in the top 8 in your class, you are out of luck.
Last fall, my son Ali told us he wanted to try to be the first cadet at UNG to pass the Combat Dive course. I thought he had lost his mind.
Ali could barely swim. Yes, he could tread water but he couldn’t swim laps. And part of the requirements were ridiculously long (3000 meter) open-ocean swims in full uniform. In the training pool, they tie your feet together and then tie your hands behind your back. You have to bob for five minutes trussed up like that. Then, still tied, you have to get to the other end of the pool. And come back. Then do a front and back flips. And then retrieve your mask off the bottom of the pool with your teeth. If you break your restraints, you are out of the program. There are long underwater swims on one breath. There is an unreal amount of running and PT. The instructors try to make you quit every day. “Ring the bell!”
And that is just pre-dive. There are two parts of the course, which can last ten weeks. In other words, he would go through absolute hell for four weeks in what they call pre-dive, or the Maritime Assessment Course (MAC). If he survived the MAC, he still had to be selected for one of the few spots at the Combat Dive Qualification Course. For example, this year only 20 cadets from around the nation (Texas A&M, Citadel, Harvard, Princeton, UNG) started the MAC. Twelve either quit, were medically disqualified, or worse, completed the brutal maritime assessment course but were not awarded one of the few slots at the CDQC in Key West. Only 10 advanced to Combat Dive.
How would the kid who could barely swim qualify for one of the few nationwide spots? And even if he did, could he beat out half the MAC class made up of state swim champions from around the nation?
What’s more, Ali had no one to train him. One upperclassman who had attempted the Maritime Assessment Course told him about some of the trials and test that Ali would have to face. But there is no North Georgia training program. The Citadel has a program to prepare cadets for the course. West Point does as well. UNG? They have never had a cadet pass the course so who would even teach it?
So, Ali started working on his own. Every day. He learned to swim. He did breath holds. He practiced tying knots non-stop. He swam every day. Holidays, weekends, between classes, or after Ranger Challenge (a competition team at UNG that is basically their D1 sport). I mean every day. He would stop on a long drive, find a local pool, and go practice sidestroke and bobs. On spring break he went to Orange Beach to practice open ocean swims in his full uniform. Beachgoers wondered if we were under attack.
He did this for months not knowing if there would even be a pre-dive slot given to UNG this year. And if there was one, it would be offered in Order of Merit. The No. 1 cadet would get the opportunity to take it. If he passed then the No. 2 cadet could take it and so on.
While he was training, Ali had to push up the cadet rankings. He studied and made good grades. Took on the leadership of the Black Team on Ranger Challenge, their equivalent of first string. He set a school record in the 12-mile ruck (a long run in uniform with a 35-pound backpack), completing the course in one hour and fifty-three minutes.
Ali made it to No. 1 in the rankings.
The school offered him his first choice of the one Airborne slot or one of the 6 Air Assault spots given to UNG.. He turned down those opportunities. The school warned him that if he passed and the dive slot didn’t materialize, he’d get nothing, They were going to offer those spots to the other highly-ranked cadets, Why not get his jump wings? It’s an amazing chance for a cadet to later be commissioned as an officer with a universally recognized badge of respect. Nope. Ali told them if he didn’t get a dive spot then so be it. As he waited weeks to hear, he practiced.
Ali got the slot.
He had to be tested numerous times before he was given his orders to report to Fort Elgin in Florida for the MAC.
The MAC lasted four weeks. Other MACs around the nation are two-week courses. Lucky him. He spent hours on the side of the pool doing flutter kicks while sadistic instructors flooded his mask with a water hose. The training on land was off the charts. The swimming was non-stop. If you ever bolt for the surface, you are automatically failed. If the strap on your mask if twisted behind your head, you fail. If you push off too hard from the bottom or fail to go back under when told, you fail. The shouting, the screaming, and the punishments are never-ending. Candidates pass out underwater. They are pulled out, revived and they go right back if they can. Many can’t and have to ring the bell. There are daily 3000-meter open ocean swims in full uniform.
After the first week, the cadets were joined by eight Green Berets and two Rangers.
The instructors pushed everyone to their limits and beyond. Some cadets rang the bell. Three Green Berets did likewise, likely because they had not had a chance to train up for the course while on deployment.
The candidates had weekends off. They went into town and raised hell or slept like the dead. They set alarms in the middle of the night to wake up and eat, just to get enough calories for the next day.
On the last day of the course, the few remaining candidates were taken in to see the cadre, one by one, and told if they were going to Combat Dive or not. We held our breath waiting for the news. Making it to the end of MAC did not mean you automatically advanced. Only ten cadets would make it out of the original 20 who started.
Ali was No. 9.
He packed for six more weeks of hell in Key West.
At the Special Forces Underwater Operation School in Key West, they put together three MAC classes from around the nation plus a number of West Point cadets who do their own version of MAC. The class is mostly special forces (Green Berets and Rangers) and the MAC cadets. The instructors tell all of the candidates to hold off on unpacking fully. “Don’t get comfortable in your barracks. Most of you won’t be here long.”
As bad as the MAC was, the Combat Dive Qualification Course has something more sinister that all potential combat divers fear. The One-Man test. But to get to One-Man, you have to pass Joc-up night.
The first two weeks of CDQC consist of instruction on open-circuit scuba diving. Anyone who graduates this course is a certified Master Diver.
After they show you repeatedly the 40 steps to put everything on and off, they test you on Joc-up night. The candidates all put on their gear and take if off, with the instructors making them repeat the process until they get it right. With so many steps, it is easy to get one slightly wrong and then everybody is starting over, And it is all done in the pool, a lot of it underwater. On Joc-up night, the candidates were in the pool off and on from 6:00 in the morning to 2:00 am at night. A lot of candidates just couldn’t do it.
After that winnowed down the ranks, the candidates face the One-Man test to prove they know their system and won’t panic if something goes wrong.
The dive supervisors make sure it goes wrong. Over and over again.
The One-Man test lasts 20 minutes. It feels like a century.
The candidates put on their gear. They wear a blackout mask so they can’t see. They crawl along the bottom of the pool as if they were about to take an enemy beach. Then they get surged.
Surging is a polite way of saying one of the instructors beats the hell out of you. You are shoved, kneed, spun, flipped over. Your mask is ripped off or flooded and your regulator is yanked out. Hoses are pulled away and hidden. You better hope you had a good breath of air. The candidate has to calmly right themselves, perform complicated tasks, and then prepare for it to happen again.
If you are lucky you get one or two good breaths before they surge you again. Most of the time you get a half breath. Your body is already screaming since your last half-breath was 90 seconds ago.
This goes on and on, with a few breaths in between each attack. Sometimes just a half breath, The tasks get harder and harder while you are working on less and less air. You can’t see. It was described as being akin to waterboarding. You just can’t get enough air but you have to perform regardless. Eventually, the test has a stopping point. After this last impossible task, you are given back your clear mask and told to head back to the shallow end of the pool and pray you did it all quickly enough.
You get three chances to pass. Most don’t. Many pass out or can’t do it and have to call for air (which means you fail).
The QDQC started with 55 candidates. After One-Man, there were only 26. Only five cadets out of the 10 who passed the MAC made it. Only three of the five Green Berets who passed MAC with Ali made it through One-Man. Ali said it was the worst thing he ever did in his life. Remember that they started the summer with 20 cadets and were down to five.
Those who passed went out that weekend and were treated like heroes by the folks in Key West. They also unpacked for the first time.
After that, the course was less antagonistic but still hard. They learned underwater navigation, how to plant explosives, how to take a beach, and how to use closed-circuit rebreathers that don’t emit bubbles that would give away your location. The Green Berets jumped out of a plane and into the water. They all learned zodiac construction and maintenance. They had multiple dives at night, navigating in the dark. The classroom work was hard too. They have to learn everything that can kill you underwater, all the medical issues that can arise from diving, and how to treat those. Dive tables, physics, compression science… and of course if you don’t pass the academics at 85% or higher they drop you from the course. At the end of the course, they have to take a beach from their instructors.
After six weeks of this, the candidates were allowed to graduate. My wife and I flew to Key West for graduation. UNG flew down an officer as well. I was able to pin the Combat Dive Bubble on Ali’s chest. I punched it in like I was supposed to. No matter where he goes after he is commissioned as a second lieutenant, he’ll have one of the most rare Special Forces emblems on his uniform. Even among the nation’s elite, that dive mask flanked by two sharks means instant respect.
Ali Nabulsi is a damn Combat Diver now. And I could not be any prouder.
The only cadets who made it.
MORE
The full story:
Combat Dive School
Each summer between their sophomore and junior years, top cadets at the University of North Georgia (one of the nation’s six senior military colleges) can potentially enroll in real Army training schools/course. The spots are limited but UNG gets an Airborne School slot and a few more (12) Air Assault slots. Occasionally there is a Combat Dive slot, but no one at the school has ever completed that course. Combat Dive is unquestionably regarded as one of the hardest Special Forces courses in the military.
The coveted slots are assigned by UNG’s Order of Merit, the ranking system of cadets in order of academic and physical fitness. If you are not in the top 8 in your class, you are out of luck.
Last fall, my son Ali told us he wanted to try to be the first cadet at UNG to pass the Combat Dive course. I thought he had lost his mind.
Ali could barely swim. Yes, he could tread water but he couldn’t swim laps. And part of the requirements were ridiculously long (3000 meter) open-ocean swims in full uniform. In the training pool, they tie your feet together and then tie your hands behind your back. You have to bob for five minutes trussed up like that. Then, still tied, you have to get to the other end of the pool. And come back. Then do a front and back flips. And then retrieve your mask off the bottom of the pool with your teeth. If you break your restraints, you are out of the program. There are long underwater swims on one breath. There is an unreal amount of running and PT. The instructors try to make you quit every day. “Ring the bell!”
And that is just pre-dive. There are two parts of the course, which can last ten weeks. In other words, he would go through absolute hell for four weeks in what they call pre-dive, or the Maritime Assessment Course (MAC). If he survived the MAC, he still had to be selected for one of the few spots at the Combat Dive Qualification Course. For example, this year only 20 cadets from around the nation (Texas A&M, Citadel, Harvard, Princeton, UNG) started the MAC. Twelve either quit, were medically disqualified, or worse, completed the brutal maritime assessment course but were not awarded one of the few slots at the CDQC in Key West. Only 10 advanced to Combat Dive.
How would the kid who could barely swim qualify for one of the few nationwide spots? And even if he did, could he beat out half the MAC class made up of state swim champions from around the nation?
What’s more, Ali had no one to train him. One upperclassman who had attempted the Maritime Assessment Course told him about some of the trials and test that Ali would have to face. But there is no North Georgia training program. The Citadel has a program to prepare cadets for the course. West Point does as well. UNG? They have never had a cadet pass the course so who would even teach it?
So, Ali started working on his own. Every day. He learned to swim. He did breath holds. He practiced tying knots non-stop. He swam every day. Holidays, weekends, between classes, or after Ranger Challenge (a competition team at UNG that is basically their D1 sport). I mean every day. He would stop on a long drive, find a local pool, and go practice sidestroke and bobs. On spring break he went to Orange Beach to practice open ocean swims in his full uniform. Beachgoers wondered if we were under attack.
He did this for months not knowing if there would even be a pre-dive slot given to UNG this year. And if there was one, it would be offered in Order of Merit. The No. 1 cadet would get the opportunity to take it. If he passed then the No. 2 cadet could take it and so on.
While he was training, Ali had to push up the cadet rankings. He studied and made good grades. Took on the leadership of the Black Team on Ranger Challenge, their equivalent of first string. He set a school record in the 12-mile ruck (a long run in uniform with a 35-pound backpack), completing the course in one hour and fifty-three minutes.
Ali made it to No. 1 in the rankings.
The school offered him his first choice of the one Airborne slot or one of the 6 Air Assault spots given to UNG.. He turned down those opportunities. The school warned him that if he passed and the dive slot didn’t materialize, he’d get nothing, They were going to offer those spots to the other highly-ranked cadets, Why not get his jump wings? It’s an amazing chance for a cadet to later be commissioned as an officer with a universally recognized badge of respect. Nope. Ali told them if he didn’t get a dive spot then so be it. As he waited weeks to hear, he practiced.
Ali got the slot.
He had to be tested numerous times before he was given his orders to report to Fort Elgin in Florida for the MAC.
The MAC lasted four weeks. Other MACs around the nation are two-week courses. Lucky him. He spent hours on the side of the pool doing flutter kicks while sadistic instructors flooded his mask with a water hose. The training on land was off the charts. The swimming was non-stop. If you ever bolt for the surface, you are automatically failed. If the strap on your mask if twisted behind your head, you fail. If you push off too hard from the bottom or fail to go back under when told, you fail. The shouting, the screaming, and the punishments are never-ending. Candidates pass out underwater. They are pulled out, revived and they go right back if they can. Many can’t and have to ring the bell. There are daily 3000-meter open ocean swims in full uniform.
After the first week, the cadets were joined by eight Green Berets and two Rangers.
The instructors pushed everyone to their limits and beyond. Some cadets rang the bell. Three Green Berets did likewise, likely because they had not had a chance to train up for the course while on deployment.
The candidates had weekends off. They went into town and raised hell or slept like the dead. They set alarms in the middle of the night to wake up and eat, just to get enough calories for the next day.
On the last day of the course, the few remaining candidates were taken in to see the cadre, one by one, and told if they were going to Combat Dive or not. We held our breath waiting for the news. Making it to the end of MAC did not mean you automatically advanced. Only ten cadets would make it out of the original 20 who started.
Ali was No. 9.
He packed for six more weeks of hell in Key West.
At the Special Forces Underwater Operation School in Key West, they put together three MAC classes from around the nation plus a number of West Point cadets who do their own version of MAC. The class is mostly special forces (Green Berets and Rangers) and the MAC cadets. The instructors tell all of the candidates to hold off on unpacking fully. “Don’t get comfortable in your barracks. Most of you won’t be here long.”
As bad as the MAC was, the Combat Dive Qualification Course has something more sinister that all potential combat divers fear. The One-Man test. But to get to One-Man, you have to pass Joc-up night.
The first two weeks of CDQC consist of instruction on open-circuit scuba diving. Anyone who graduates this course is a certified Master Diver.
After they show you repeatedly the 40 steps to put everything on and off, they test you on Joc-up night. The candidates all put on their gear and take if off, with the instructors making them repeat the process until they get it right. With so many steps, it is easy to get one slightly wrong and then everybody is starting over, And it is all done in the pool, a lot of it underwater. On Joc-up night, the candidates were in the pool off and on from 6:00 in the morning to 2:00 am at night. A lot of candidates just couldn’t do it.
After that winnowed down the ranks, the candidates face the One-Man test to prove they know their system and won’t panic if something goes wrong.
The dive supervisors make sure it goes wrong. Over and over again.
The One-Man test lasts 20 minutes. It feels like a century.
The candidates put on their gear. They wear a blackout mask so they can’t see. They crawl along the bottom of the pool as if they were about to take an enemy beach. Then they get surged.
Surging is a polite way of saying one of the instructors beats the hell out of you. You are shoved, kneed, spun, flipped over. Your mask is ripped off or flooded and your regulator is yanked out. Hoses are pulled away and hidden. You better hope you had a good breath of air. The candidate has to calmly right themselves, perform complicated tasks, and then prepare for it to happen again.
If you are lucky you get one or two good breaths before they surge you again. Most of the time you get a half breath. Your body is already screaming since your last half-breath was 90 seconds ago.
This goes on and on, with a few breaths in between each attack. Sometimes just a half breath, The tasks get harder and harder while you are working on less and less air. You can’t see. It was described as being akin to waterboarding. You just can’t get enough air but you have to perform regardless. Eventually, the test has a stopping point. After this last impossible task, you are given back your clear mask and told to head back to the shallow end of the pool and pray you did it all quickly enough.
You get three chances to pass. Most don’t. Many pass out or can’t do it and have to call for air (which means you fail).
The QDQC started with 55 candidates. After One-Man, there were only 26. Only five cadets out of the 10 who passed the MAC made it. Only three of the five Green Berets who passed MAC with Ali made it through One-Man. Ali said it was the worst thing he ever did in his life. Remember that they started the summer with 20 cadets and were down to five.
Those who passed went out that weekend and were treated like heroes by the folks in Key West. They also unpacked for the first time.
After that, the course was less antagonistic but still hard. They learned underwater navigation, how to plant explosives, how to take a beach, and how to use closed-circuit rebreathers that don’t emit bubbles that would give away your location. The Green Berets jumped out of a plane and into the water. They all learned zodiac construction and maintenance. They had multiple dives at night, navigating in the dark. The classroom work was hard too. They have to learn everything that can kill you underwater, all the medical issues that can arise from diving, and how to treat those. Dive tables, physics, compression science… and of course if you don’t pass the academics at 85% or higher they drop you from the course. At the end of the course, they have to take a beach from their instructors.
After six weeks of this, the candidates were allowed to graduate. My wife and I flew to Key West for graduation. UNG flew down an officer as well. I was able to pin the Combat Dive Bubble on Ali’s chest. I punched it in like I was supposed to. No matter where he goes after he is commissioned as a second lieutenant, he’ll have one of the most rare Special Forces emblems on his uniform. Even among the nation’s elite, that dive mask flanked by two sharks means instant respect.
Ali Nabulsi is a damn Combat Diver now. And I could not be any prouder.
The only cadets who made it.
MORE
