US Army – “Army Special Forces”

Pros

The people in SF are the most colorful and interesting group I have ever worked with. Intelligence, trustworthiness, and situational awareness are all a given here; the unit has the luxury of being able to kick people to the curb who don't cut it.

 SF often works according to "big boy" rules, which means less tedious Army BS to deal with, but stiffer penalties for mistakes. This is great if you are serious about doing your job well and would rather avoid a lot of the garrison distractions that other units contend with.

  Work is exciting, to say the least, and the small teams really give you a chance to make a positive impact. Pay turns out to be surprisingly good, once proficiency pay, hazardous duty, tax-free status, etc. kick in, and some deployments can yield a gold mine of per diem.

Cons

The big issue is career progression. Even if you like being a team guy, there's a finite amount of time you can spend doing that. Eventually it's on to being more of an HR manager, or it's the warrant officer track, which has its own ups and downs. For me, it came down to "where will this get me in 10 years, and is that where I want to be?"

  There's also a good chance your wife will despise you. Deployments, while relatively short, are frequent, as are training exercises that take you away from home for a month or two. Beyond that you will have the occasional late night and weekend work, and depending on your team, a lot of parties to go to. Some wives are more ok with this than others.

Advice to Senior Management

Too many pet projects and personal prejudices on the part of commanders turn into time-wasting distractions for the teams.