Great article to read about fitness and mental training, along with pushing through adversity!
You may want to read it more then once!
AMERICA IS 11 YEARS INTO THE LONGEST PERIOD OF WAR IN ITS HISTORY. THE MILITARY IS RELYING MORE ON ITS SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES TO CARRY THE FIGHT. In fact, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which oversees units from the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Army, sent 13,000 men to 75 countries in 2011.
The typical enlisted special operator is 29 years old (34 for officers) and married with at least two kids. He has 8 years of experience in the general forces and earns around $70,000 a year. Incidentally, he has banged out about 40,000 pushups. (And you're worried about repetitive stress injuries?) He deploys more than ever, with annual tours lasting 6 to 8 months. His missions can range from black ops, like the raid that killed Osama bin Laden (a dozen such raids are conducted every night), to village stability operations, which involve tasks like building schools and training police.
Combat is debilitating, both physically and psychologically; yet having soldiers with combat experience is critical. As one Green Beret captain, who prefers to remain anonymous*, told Men's Health, "You want the old guy on your team, but not the old broken guy." That's why SOCOM initiated a performance program, which each service branch is customizing. The aims: Boost combat effectiveness for healthy soldiers and return wounded ones to full strength more quickly. Training a special operator costs about $250,000, and the military can't afford to lose guys because of injuries that develop from years of combat and outdated physical training. The program is a mind-body-spirit overhaul, treating elite soldiers as professional athletes. That's why civilian strength coaches, dietitians, and acupuncturists now rub shoulders with military psychologists, explosives experts, and drill sergeants.
Of course, the stakes on the battlefield dwarf those on the sports field: Suicide rates among active-duty personnel are higher than ever, and in early 2009, for the first time in history, more service members killed themselves than were killed in action. As Marine Corps vet Karl Marlantes writes in What It Is Like to Go to War, "Warriors must touch their souls because their jobs involve killing people. Warriors deal with eternity." To understand how the military is forging the modern warrior, and to learn from these men who must be both violent and sensitive, MH spoke with special operators in all four branches, and identified skills you can use every day, even if the only combat you engage in is the career kind.
*Many special operators want to remain anonymous, a preference that Men's Health respects by using only first names and identity-protecting photographs in this story.
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