Do you think Special Forces and Spies have really have job satisfaction?

In My Humble Opinion
1

One of the unescapeable facts of many people’s careers is that they did not choose them at the beginning, but through apathy they keep at it.

(for instance at 16 I did not say “I want to be a totalisor hub supervisor” but the little decisions here and there have made me end up as one)

You can’t walk into the SAS off the street, you have to have been in certain areas of the Army first. I assume the same is true of all elite military units.

All of us mere mortals watch James Bond movies and hear accounts of Special Forces operations (some are lucky enough to have seen the UK’s Iranian embassy siege on TV as adults) and then fantasise about being those hyper-cool black-clad blokes in gas-masks kicking terrorist-ass.

But if you were to ask one of those blokes “Would you rather have had a different career” do you think they’d say yes?

Watching ‘Bravo two zero’ shows that it’s not all glamour and ass-kicking. They might conceivably endure some of the worst torture known to man. I’d think twice.

2

If a passing Mod could remove the first ‘have’ from the title that would be right grand.

3

Spies, no. Special forces, yes. That is, if you are talking about “field operatives”, and not stay at home intelligence analizers.

4

You are right it takes a lot of perseverance to make it into elite millitary units. People who do not like the work are given every opportunity to seek other employment. By the time one makes it into such units the vast majority of people know that it is what they want to do. I was in one and the worst mistake I ever made was to get out. Everyone I know in the types of units you are talking about would rather do what they do than anything else.

5

askeptic,

You were in an elite military unit? Which one? SEALS? SAS? As an active field operative or auxillary? You should start a “Ask the former SAS guy” thread.