There are Special Operations training programs that last far longer than the Combat Diver Qualification Course (CDQC) held at the Special Forces Underwater Operations School on Naval Air Station Key West in Florida. But what the CDQC lacks in length, it more than makes for in intensity, with many who’ve successfully completed the seven-week course rating it as one of the most physically, intellectually, and emotionally stressful challenges they’ve ever faced.
Candidates for the elite cadre of Special Operations Divers must pass Predive qualifications, but even so the attrition rate at the CDQC is extremely high. In recent years, the school has added a “Zero Week” consisting of pool activities that are designed to ensure that, going forward, students will at least have the requisite physical skills and stamina to complete the entire course.
Among the most brutal is the drown-proofing exercise. Beginning with their hands and feet bound by straps held in place by Velcro, the future SpecOp Divers must manage to bob up and down for nonstop minutes. They fail if the touch the sides of the pool—or even if they inadvertently loosen the straps during their exertions. Successfully completing the bobbing exercise, the candidates next do a surface float for two minutes, followed immediately by a 100-yard swim—with their hands and feet still secured by those straps, of course. After executing forward and backward underwater flips, students next snatch a face mask from the bottom of the pool with their teeth, then do five more bobs while still holding the mask in their mouths.
Those who make it through these and other grueling physical tests will begin their dive training in earnest during the second week (called Week 1) with open-water swims in Pensacola Bay and initial training in open-circuit breathing apparatus. Weeks 2 and 3 are devoted to closed-circuit training and the first forays into tactical swims in full gear and teamed with buddies. Week 4 is spent getting to know the various types of watercraft they’re likely to use during insertions, which is the focus of Week 5 training. The final week features a 48-hour field training exercise that will test how much they’ve learned and retained.
Before 2004, the Army’s Special Operations Divers wore a SCUBA insignia—the same badge worn by Navy SCUBA divers. But in September of that year, the Army replaced the SCUBA Diver badge with the current Special Operations Diver insignia featuring a diver’s head seen face forward superimposed over two crossed Sykes-Fairbain Commando daggers. Flanking the diver’s head are two sharks, symbolizing the speed, efficiency, and if necessary lethality of Special Operations Divers. The badge is issued in two degrees, with the Basic being awarded to those who've completed the CDQC; a badge for Divers who've passed the Supervisor course, which places special emphasis on organizing and overseeing a tactical diver operation and on ensuring the safety of all divers involved, features a wreathed star between the two shark heads.